It’s not often you look back at a campaign and feel genuinely emotional about what it achieved.
But seeing Sky Bet’s Every Minute Matters featured in The Sponsor’s Purpose That Performs report today did exactly that.
I was lucky enough to be part of the original team that brought the initiative to life, and to help shape it through its first two years. And I’m incredibly proud of what we achieved alongside the EFL and British Heart Foundation.
But what makes me even prouder? What happened after I left.
Because the team didn’t just keep it going. They built on it. Made it bigger. Introduced the community defibrillator programme. And continued finding new ways to turn football’s incredible reach into something that could genuinely save lives.
That, for me, is the mark of something special.
It Was Never About Ticking the Purpose Box.
Every Minute Matters was born from something deeply real. Following Tom Lockyer’s cardiac arrest on the pitch, we recognised an opportunity to use Sky Bet’s long-standing relationship with the EFL to make a difference and to do something that mattered to the football community we were already part of.
The idea was beautifully simple. Encourage people to learn CPR through the British Heart Foundation’s free RevivR tool. And use the power and passion of the football fan to make it happen.
From Wembley Play-Offs to all 72 EFL clubs, football personalities to delayed kick-offs, the campaign worked because it was rooted in the culture of the sport. We weren’t asking fans to care about something completely disconnected from their world. We were responding to something that had affected that world both on the pitch and in the stands. And giving them a way to do something about it.
That’s the difference between borrowing a culture’s attention and genuinely contributing to it.
Half a Million People.
And Counting.
By the end of its second season, more than 500,000 people had started learning CPR. That’s half a million people taking a step towards potentially saving someone’s life. And skills that were used in real life, at real games too.
Since then, the team has continued to evolve the initiative, including funding 400 community defibrillators, supporting vital heart research and evolving the content to ensure it never loses relevance or memorability.
Pretty incredible, really. But here’s what I think marketers should pay attention to. This wasn’t successful simply because it had a powerful cause attached to it. It worked because the cause, the audience, the partners and the sponsorship were authentically connected.
The BHF brought the expertise. The EFL brought the football community. Sky Bet brought its reach, creativity, relationships and willingness to use its sponsorship differently.
And together, we created something that was bigger than any individual campaign.
The Best Ideas Don’t Need You to Stay.
There’s something particularly rewarding about seeing an initiative you helped start continue to thrive without you. Because that’s when you know it was never about one person, one campaign or one moment in time. It had become part of the brands DNA.
And enormous credit belongs to the brilliant teams at Sky Bet, the EFL, the BHF and their partners who have continued to push the initiative forward. I’ve loved every second of seeing it thrive.
They’ve demonstrated something I think we often forget in marketing.
The most powerful ideas aren’t necessarily the ones that make the biggest noise at launch. They’re the ones that become part of how a brand behaves.
And that takes belief, consistency and a genuine commitment to doing something meaningful. Not just when the cameras are rolling. But long after, when the excitement can fade and internal pressures start to question whether we should move on.
The So What?
Brands love talking about purpose. It’s in the strategy decks, the corporate values and increasingly the sponsorship briefs. But purpose isn’t a tick-box exercise. And it certainly isn’t something you can simply bolt onto a campaign and expect people to care about.
Real purpose starts with understanding the people and culture you serve. Finding something that genuinely matters to them. And working out what your brand can meaningfully contribute to their world. Not vice versa.
When you get that right, the commercial benefits and stronger brand connections have the opportunity to follow. But perhaps the ultimate test is this:
If the campaign ended tomorrow, or the people who created it moved on, would the commitment still exist?
Because if purpose only lives in the marketing plan, it’s probably just marketing. If it becomes part of how the business thinks, acts and shows up for its community, you’ve created something far more valuable.
Every Minute Matters did that.
And I couldn’t be prouder to have played a small part in its beginnings, or to see what the team continues to achieve.
You can read the full The Sponsor report here.
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