When everyone zigs, zag

Chelsea announced Cole Palmer's new contract as a fake live stream.

As a Chelsea fan I'm obviously buzzing, but the way they did it, as a marketer, I think is super interesting.

It came up on my feed looking like a clip from one of his live streams. I genuinely thought it was real - Palmer got his Twitch account suspended last month for streaming FC 27 before EA's embargo, and the fake chat is full of jokes about it. Controversially, Dele Alli is also streaming now.

Then Palmer announced it, on a "stream", before anywhere else.

Contract announcements have been done to death. Player, manager, shirt held up, handshake, pen.

Product launches are going the same way. AI can make incredible motion video now, so everyone's making the same incredible motion video.

When everyone zigs, zag.

Younger fans spend their time in streams, clips and edits, and most brands still aren't making anything that looks like it belongs there.

Streaming also has something polished content has lost. It is live and unscripted, and that's what people trust when anything else could have been AI generated.

So in summary… up the might Chels - a great club, a great contract extension and clearly a great marketing team there too!