How the greatest boxing promo in history set a new standard for sound design
Winning Gold at The Drum Awards for Advertising in the Sound Design category is Droga5 New York and General Entertainment Authority for a campaign to hype the biggest crossover fight in history. Here is the award-winning case study.
This year’s ‘Battle of The Baddest’ brought together two of the world’s biggest fighters from two different codes in one big event—World Heavyweight Champion Tyson Fury and UFC Champion Francis Ngannou—for the biggest crossover fight in history. So to get the world excited, we reimagined the tired old boxing promo and created a cinematic hype film as big and spectacular as the fight itself.
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The result was ‘Rumble’, a 90-second film based on the old boxing saying of “living rent-free in your opponent’s head,” something that happens in the lead-up to any big fight. As we watch the two fighters train for the biggest fight of their careers, they don’t just sense their opponent training—they feel it—each sending psychological shockwaves back and forth between their two hometowns and making the whole world rumble in the process.
Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou are two of the biggest characters in sports, so a matchup between the two demanded a promo that was as big, bold and extravagant as they are. It’s a simple story where the two characters speak through their punches, so sound design was critical in bringing not only drama and tension. Every rumble needed to feel seismic and almost more like a superhero movie — all while being a percussive part of the soundtrack, all to create a memorable and unique film. This was all set to a Mandarin-language cover of the Nancy Sinatra classic Bang Bang, performed by Betty Chung. This Betty Chung cover elevated the film perfectly for the global launch spot in a way that transcends language and sports.
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UK media outlets called the film “the greatest boxing promo in history,” and it has since been viewed over 250 million times. Online press and consumer conversation accumulated a staggering 10.5bn impressions.
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