In 2017, South African rugby was in disarray and had lost their supporters. MTN signed on as title sponsor of the national team, the Springboks, and needed to unite everyone behind the team like no other brand could. But rather than use an influencer, MTN decided to make one. We went on a nation-wide hunt and found ultra-fan Mark, who became the deepest embedded journalist in the history of sport. He lit up Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok as he followed the team everywhere they went for two years. He used his exclusive title-sponsor access to become a personal link to the team, and open up a channel of communication between the fans and the players alike, putting a whole new world of Springbok rugby right in the nations’ pockets.

He constantly updated and evolved his content to interact with everyday South Africans, the rugby fraternity, and celebrities from all over. As the campaign progressed, the players began to follow and regularly engage with the Bozza on his channels, and started sharing all his content. Fan favourite Schalk Brits even tagged cricket legend AB de Villiers who roped in former Protea Herschel Gibbs to comment on the Bozza’s post of the Springboks’ catching skills. The Bozza even dared his followers to get him enough retweets for a Springbok tattoo, and former Rugby World Cup winners Brian Habana and John Smit jumped on to help him get the ink.

His story captured the attention of numerous publications, with his content found across media channels from the Rugby World Cup site, to SA’s own Espresso morning show, to being reposted in NFL star Michael Thomas’s Instagram stories. The Springbok landscape had changed and was no longer exclusive to the rugby elite or even just South Africans. Influencers like Bonang were tweeting about the Boks as they played, rapper Jack Parow wrote a Bok song, and sports megastars like NFL’s Tom Brady and tennis player Roger Federer took to social media to support earth’s favourite underdogs. No matter what you were into, the Bozza was there to connect you to the Boks.

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