CELSIUS brings free-kick and fast-feet challenges, sampling and prizes to Freshers’ Week events in London, Birmingham, Bath and Loughborough.
Free-kick accuracy, fast feet and live leaderboards are replacing the usual passive giveaway as CELSIUS takes its Freshers’ Week tour across four English university stops.
Freshers’ Week has never suffered from a shortage of queues, noise or branded freebies. CELSIUS has decided to add something rather more competitive: football targets, reaction sensors and the mild indignity of discovering your mate is quicker than you.
The functional energy drink brand is taking its CELSIUS Freshers’ Week tour to university events in London, Birmingham, Bath and Loughborough, combining product sampling with fitness-inspired challenges designed to get students moving rather than simply collecting another item for the tote bag.
The six days of activity began in London on Saturday 19 September before moving to the University of Birmingham for Welcome Week on Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 September. Bath follows on Friday 25 September, with the tour finishing at Loughborough University across Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 September.
Freshers’ Week gets a competitive streak
At the centre of the activation is a football free-kick challenge that tests accuracy and gives students the chance to win prizes.
There is also a fast-feet contest, with participants racing against the clock to hit as many sensors as possible. Results appear on a live leaderboard, which introduces precisely the sort of ingredient capable of turning a casual five-minute diversion into a matter of unreasonable personal importance.
It is a simple approach, but one suited to the setting. Freshers’ events are built around new experiences and new social groups, and CELSIUS is attempting to make physical activity part of that introduction.
Carlotta Cattelani, Head of Marketing – UK&I at Celsius, said: “University is a place when people meet new friends, try new activities, and find new communities they want to be a part of, so naturally Freshers’ Week events are a perfect fit for CELSIUS.”
The competitive format also gives students something to do together rather than merely something to pick up and carry away.
Four university stops across England
The tour spans four Freshers’ and Welcome Week events:
- Saturday 19 September – Freshers’ Fair, London
- Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 September – University of Birmingham Welcome Week
- Friday 25 September – University of Bath Freshers’ Fair
- Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 September – Loughborough University Freshers’ Fair
Alongside the challenges, CELSIUS is offering samples from its mobile truck, which the brand uses to take its LIVE.FIT.GO™ platform to sporting, fitness and lifestyle events around England.
Students can sample four fruit-forward flavours: Sparkling Raspberry Peach, Sparkling Mango Lemonade, Sparkling Strawberry Watermelon and Sparkling Kiwi Guava.
From summer sport to university campuses
The Freshers’ Week programme follows CELSIUS activations involving ATHX Games and the Aston Martin Aramco Formula One™ Team during the summer.
The move onto university campuses keeps the same broad emphasis on sport, activity and participation, but places it in a very different environment.
Freshers’ fairs are less about established sporting audiences and more about introducing a brand to students at the precise moment they are deciding which clubs, activities and communities might become part of university life.
That explains the decision to make competition central to the experience. A free can may disappear quickly. A leaderboard carrying evidence that somebody beat you at the fast-feet challenge has considerably more staying power.
And with Bath and Loughborough still to come, there are a few more reputations yet to be settled.
