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first teams sponsored as part of a multi-year partnership across Bristol City Men’s and Women’s leagues
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assets created and displayed throughout Bristol City home fixtures at Ashton Gate across pitch-side LEDs, stadium screens and digital assets
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seasons of creative developed and evolved from Bristol-focused storytelling to sector-specific messaging
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pieces of coverage across leading regional business titles with an online reach of over 857K
AMBITIOUS helped transform our Bristol City partnership into something much bigger than sponsorship. The creative brought our Bristol roots to life and gave supporters something memorable to engage with throughout the season.
Nick Rogers
Founder and Chair of the Exacta Group
Creating sponsorship activation to connect Bristol’s football heritage with one of its fastest growing technology businesses
INSIGHT
Exacta Group is a Bristol-based technology business that designs and manufactures high-performance server and infrastructure solutions. Founded in Bristol and headquartered in Emersons Green, the company has grown significantly while maintaining strong ties to its home city.
When the business secured a multi-year sleeve sponsorship with Bristol City Football Club, the challenge was not simply to place a logo on a football shirt or display advertisements around a stadium. It was to use the partnership to strengthen awareness of Exacta across Bristol and the South West while creating something supporters would genuinely remember.
During the discovery phase, AMBITIOUS established a strong narrative connecting the club and the business. Both organisations shared deep roots in Bristol, a history of growth and a sense of local pride. Rather than focusing on products or services, the opportunity was to position Exacta as part of Bristol’s identity and success story.
IDEAS
AMBITIOUS developed the creative platform: ‘Built in the City’
The strategy centred on connecting Exacta with Bristol itself rather than treating the sponsorship as a conventional advertising exercise. The platform celebrated the shared relationship between the city, its football club and one of its fastest-growing technology businesses, creating a narrative that supporters could recognise and relate to.
The campaign launched with a hero video filmed at Ashton Gate, built around founder Nick Rogers’ lifelong connection with Bristol City and the story of growing Exacta in the city he supports. To bring the partnership to life, we devised a Champions League-style unveiling, positioning Exacta’s iconic thumbprint logo in the centre circle and capturing it from above. By bringing together the wider team for the activation, we created a powerful visual that symbolised the partnership and established a story rooted in local pride rather than sponsorship alone.
The concept was then extended into a season-long creative content and activation programme spanning pitch-side LED advertising, stadium screens, digital assets and matchday experiences. Creative featured Bristol landmarks, sporting heritage and recognisable symbols of the city before transitioning into Exacta’s brand messaging, creating a distinctive experience throughout every home fixture.
For the second season, the platform evolved to reflect Exacta’s growing position across AI, cyber security, defence and critical national infrastructure. New creative concepts retained the distinctive visual identity established in year one while introducing sector-specific messaging aligned to the company’s commercial priorities.
IMPACT
The result was an exciting sponsorship platform rather than a standalone ‘hand shake’ sponsorship campaign.
By building a creative narrative around Bristol and Exacta’s place within it, the partnership became far more than shirt branding and stadium advertising. Supporters encountered a consistent brand story throughout the matchday experience, helping strengthen recognition of Exacta as a Bristol business with ambition and momentum.
The ‘Built in the City’ platform also provided a flexible framework that could evolve alongside the business. Moving from local pride and city heritage in year one to sector expertise and technology leadership in year two, the campaign gave Exacta a long-term communications asset capable of supporting awareness, reputation and business growth over multiple seasons.
Most importantly, the work transformed a traditional sponsorship investment into a memorable brand-building platform that connected commercial objectives with community identity, helping position Exacta as one of Bristol’s homegrown technology success stories.
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