The Hundred is a professional cricket competition in England and Wales featuring a unique 100-ball-per-innings format. Launched in 2021, it aims to modernize cricket by offering shorter, more dynamic matches that appeal to both traditional fans and new audiences. Each city-based team fields men’s and women’s squads, and the tournament emphasizes entertainment, inclusivity, and accessibility, making it a key tool for growing the sport’s fanbase.
The Challenge
Our objective was to plan and execute a full-funnel marketing strategy, combining digital media with above-the-line campaigns. A key focus of the 2025 brief was customer acquisition, attracting new people in our Sporty Family and Sporty Female audiences to The Hundred.
This year we were tasked with increasing awareness for the competition and to grow the number of new attendees.
Digital Channels:
- Meta (Awareness, prospecting and retargeting)
- YouTube Awareness
- Demand Gen
- Google search
- TikTok
- InVibes Programmatic Display
Above The Line:
- OOH (multiple formats including a tram wrap, bus sides & ticket gates)
- Linear TV
- VOD (Including OOH VOD)
- Cinema
- Audio (radio and podcast)
The Solution
Our strategy centred on building a comprehensive awareness campaign, prioritising high-quality above-the-line placements to effectively reach our core audience of sporty families and Sporty Females.
For OOH advertising, we focused on strategic placements in shopping precincts and along key commuter routes. Some exciting placements included the ‘Trafford Dome’ at the Trafford Centre in Manchester.
In audio-visual (AV) media, we concentrated on VOD platforms such as Netflix and Disney+, where our sporty family and female audience is highly engaged.
Finally, from an audio perspective we had placements on traditional radio stations across the country, focusing on key times such as commuter and morning time slots. We also tested podcast activity where we wanted to capture a younger audience with a host-read on the Therapy Crouch with Peter Crouch and Abbey Clancy.
In parallel, we executed a full-funnel approach across paid digital channels — including Meta, TikTok, and Google — to maximise impact and drive direct ticket sales by capturing attention at every stage of the customer journey.
For all activity we curated a specific regional strategy to best support each of the 8 teams. This consisted of city specific above-the-line strategies as well as team specific paid media campaigns.
Results
Record women’s attendance: 349k fans, the highest ever for a women’s cricket competition.
Ticket sales: 580k issued, with four venues setting new attendance records.
Viewership growth: Sky Sports up 38% year-on-year; BBC online streams up to 2.2 m from 1.6 m.
