Unilever’s Rexona has today announced RIVALS, a new eight-part sports entertainment series launching March 1st on Kayo and Fox Sports.
RIVALS, co-created with Octagon and in partnership with WPP Media’s Motion Entertainment, is an unprecedented original sports entertainment platform conceived, developed and produced by Unilever that tackles the nation’s most intense sporting debate by bringing together elite athletes from Rugby League, Australian Rules and Rugby Union to compete for their respective sports in a battle to determine which is the ultimate code.
“Australia is home to the most concentrated sports market in the world” says John McKeon, Chief Marketing Officer, Unilever ANZ. “We have the best athletes and the most fierce rivalries, none bigger than Rugby League, Rugby Union and Aussie Rules. Every fan and media outlet has a view on what differs between these great sports, RIVALS provides the ammo to finally settle that debate. Rexona has a long history of partnering with high performance athletes and high-performance sports. The invention of RIVALS is a way to directly link Rexona’s high-performance attributes to high performance sport.
Featuring the biggest names in Australian sport such as Reece Walsh and Jaimie Chapman (Rugby League), Scott Pendlebury and Monique Conti (Aussie Rules) and Joseph Suaalii and Desiree Miller (Rugby Union), the series pits the three codes against each other in an elite competition developed in consultation with the Australian Institute of Sport. RIVALS features challenges designed to test athletic excellence across multiple disciplines, with male and female athletes competing as equals for the first time in a format of this scale.
Says Ben Hartman, Chief Impact Officer at Octagon (co-creator of RIVALS): “Australia is unique in that our biggest sporting rivalries don’t just exist within sports – they exist between them. For brands trying to authentically connect with Australian sports fans, this presents a genuine challenge. ‘Rivals’ gives fans what they’ve always wanted: proof that their sport is the best. More than that, it has been done in a way that is true to the real rivalry that exists between the sports giving Rexona a relevant role to play in the debate.”
Developed from the ground up as a full branded production, RIVALS represents a major evolution in how Unilever engages with Australian sport, shifting from traditional sponsorship into original entertainment creation that spans broadcast, social and retail.
Says McKeon: “RIVALS marks a major milestone for Unilever. Instead of sponsoring an existing property, Unilever has taken a bold step by creating its own sports entertainment platform – from initial ideation all the way through to full production. This shift reflects an evolution in how we build brands, creating entertainment led experiences that place our products directly within culture.
“By producing original content and activating it across retail, broadcast and social, we’re moving beyond traditional marketing approaches and demonstrating a new model for how brands can fuel passion, spark national debate and show up meaningfully for consumers. We’re incredibly proud of the scale and ambition of RIVALS, and we can’t wait for Australians to get behind their code.”
Recognising that sports fans don’t just watch the game – they debate it, dissect it, and defend it across social channels, RIVALS has been built as a social first platform with out of home, athlete driven content, interactive fan participation and real-time debate baked into every episode release. The retail experience also extends the rivalry into Woolworths stores nationally, where fans will find limited edition Rexona cans for each sport, featuring the official balls of each code, accompanied by bespoke displays and a simple challenge that brings the rivalry to the aisle: Support Your Code.
Says Lisa Squillace, General Manager, WPP Motion Entertainment: “RIVALS demonstrates how brand marketing is shifting beyond sponsorship and into true premium long form production. This is a new blueprint for how brands can build entertainment IP, not just associate with it- no longer renting space within someone else’s concept. By creating a format from scratch-with story arcs, athlete involvement and cultural heat baked in-we’re proving that brands can be creators of premium content that audiences genuinely want to watch. Social strategy was also central to RIVALS, with Foxtel Media’s expertise helping Rexona unlock their valuable and distinct audiences across linear, streaming and social to drive momentum for the competition. Together, we have demonstrated that branded entertainment lives in prime time viewing, on the best platforms to reach core audiences. It’s an enormous opportunity for Unilever and for the future of brand led entertainment in Australia.”
RIVALS was brought to life by an integrated agency village working together to build one of Unilever’s most ambitious brand-led entertainment properties. Octagon (creative, concept development, event & activation, talent management), WPP Motion Entertainment (audience and distribution platform), Ronde Media (production), Foxtel Group (platform, streaming and social) Mindshare (media strategy), Thinkerbell (earned) and Wonder (event execution of launch press conference), with RIVALS foundation partner Woolworths taking it from screens to in-store, plus the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and Hamilton Island.
The partnership has delivered one of Unilever’s most ambitious brand-led entertainment properties, engineered to spark national conversation and unify Australians in the sporting debate that has divided households, pubs and stadiums for generations.
