The unlikely brand that inspired the GWS Giants’ social media strategy
The GIANTS didn’t have the luxury of leaning on tradition and generational support, but rather than that being a weakness, that became the greatest opportunity to build something completely different.
Today’s newsletter is presented by Victory Lap
If you like what you read in the below and want to hear more, you can watch & listen to Jacob Gaynor speak on stage at Victory Lap, Australia’s premier sports marketing and creative summit.
Event details:
Date: 7–8 July 2026
Location: Brisbane Powerhouse
For a limited time, we’ve secured the Notice community a special offer to attend the first event alongside us: Purchase 3x or more tickets and receive $200 off EACH ticket (eg. $600 off 3x tickets).
Visit victorylap.com.au and use promo code NOTICE to redeem. The code is valid until 11:59PM, Wednesday 24 June 2026 or until sold out.
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Guest Writer: Jacob Gaynor
Today we’re welcoming Jacob Gaynor as this week’s guest writer!
Jacob is a creative content leader who has digitally reshaped the media landscape in Australian sport. Recently appointed Head of Content at the Tasmania Football Club, he brings nearly six years of innovative experience from the GWS GIANTS, most recently as Head of Content.
At GWS, Jacob developed a bold, personality-driven social media voice that catapulted the club into the spotlight. Known for cheeky memes, playful jibes at players and rivals, and candid TikToks, Jacob’s style earned him the reputation of revolutionising sports social media in Australia.
The success of GWS’s content strategy saw Jacob’s work featured across major Australian media outlets including Code Sports, The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, Seven, The Chronicle and GQ Australia.
Today, Jacob shares the unlikely source of inspiration that helped shape the GWS Giants’ successful social media strategy.
Enjoy the read!
The unlikely brand that inspired the GWS Giants’ social media strategy
For a long time, social media in sport functioned almost exclusively as a digital noticeboard. Clubs used social media to communicate team selection, injuries, score updates, sponsorship obligations and media releases. Yes, it was informative and required, but it was rarely human.
In a market as crowded and competitive as Australian sport, the traditional approach struggles to cut through, unless you’re a well-established and traditional club like the South Sydney Rabbitohs or Collingwood.
This was especially true during my time at the GWS Giants in the AFL.
From the outside, people probably underestimate how difficult the challenge was and continues to be for GWS. Not just from a football perspective, but from a branding and cultural perspective within a city and state dominated by the Sydney Swans and the NRL.
The Swans spent years fighting for relevance in a rugby league-dominated market, but by the time GWS entered the competition they’d already built generations of supporters, strong corporate backing and a recognised identity across NSW.
The GIANTS didn’t have the luxury of leaning on tradition and generational support, but rather than that being a weakness, that became the greatest opportunity to build something completely different.
The GIANTS needed to find a genuine point of difference, they needed to be culturally relevant beyond the field, and they had already embraced aspects of that before I arrived.
But when Leon Cameron departed in 2021, it felt like another turning point for the club from a creative point of view. It represented an opportunity for a brand reset.
The creative reset
From there the GIANTS’ brand became more self-aware, more playful and more importantly, the club became comfortable with not taking itself too seriously all.
Social media rewards authenticity and personality far more than perfection
Audiences can tell immediately when a brand is trying too hard to sound corporate or overly polished, the clubs and organisations that succeed online are the ones that feel human.
During my time at GWS we wanted supporters to feel like there were actual people behind the account rather than a communications department speaking through carefully approved statements and unnecessary unengaging information.
Fans needed to feel emotionally connected to the players and staff beyond what happened on the field for two or three hours each weekend.
A significant part of the strategy was simply letting humour exist organically, leaning into jokes and leaning into disappointment after losses. Celebrating wins with humour and emotion, just like a supporter would.
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Our inspiration for that approach didn’t come from another Australian sporting organisation because, honestly, nobody in Australian sport was really operating that way at the time, nor were they in a market quite like GWS.
As an avid football fan, I looked at EPL clubs in particular who were beginning to understand social media as entertainment rather than simply communication. Bundesliga and La Liga clubs were also producing incredible cinematic storytelling, emotional player features and fan-first content.
But the account that influenced me most wasn’t even in sport.
The Ryanair influence
It was Ryanair, a low-cost airline in Europe, who are now known for their distinctive presence on social media.
Ryanair understood something incredibly important about modern communication, and that’s that brands perform better online when they stop sounding like a brand.
Their social strategy was self-aware, fast-moving and sarcastic.
They embraced internet culture instead of avoiding it and I think most importantly they were willing to laugh at themselves, willing to react to trends in real time and willing to lean into criticism.
Ryanair understood that audiences connect more deeply with brands that are imperfect, reactive, funny and human. That philosophy massively influenced the way I thought about sports content and that soon became the foundation of the GIANTS’ tone of voice and brand.
I think the GIANTS’ tone of voice was conversational, witty, self-aware and occasionally unhinged (which was my favourite part).
We leaned into memes, internet culture and AFL discourse all because the GIANTS weren’t burdened by tradition, there was freedom to experiment.
That was arguably the best part about being the youngest club in the competition, we could take risks traditional clubs couldn’t.
The power of internal trust
The GIANTS brand wouldn’t have worked without trust internally from the CEO, the coach and the board. One of the most underrated parts of the GIANTS’ success creatively was the buy-in from the staff.
David Matthews and his executive team understood the value of personality, the coach Adam Kingsley embraced it and most importantly the AFL and AFLW playing groups trusted the content team.
That trust allowed content to feel genuine because players weren’t being forced into something artificial.
I also think on-field success obviously matters too, because winning gives content relevance, and during my time at the GIANTS I was extremely lucky to be there during a relatively successful period.
Over time, the GIANTS built a reputation as one of the most entertaining clubs online and people began expecting the club to do something different.
Rival supporters follow the account, media outlets discuss the content regularly, both in a negative and positive way and the club became part of conversations outside traditional AFL media.
That’s something I’m incredibly proud of. Not because of the engagement numbers, but because it felt like we as a content team genuinely shifted how sporting organisations viewed digital media in Australia.
Creative growth requires discomfort
While I loved my life at the GIANTS, the friendships I’d built and the opportunities the club had given me, I felt myself becoming too comfortable creatively. I wanted to challenge myself in a new environment and continue growing professionally.
When the opportunity to help build Tasmania’s AFL club from the ground up emerged, it was too hard to ignore.
What I’ve found already is that Tasmania is completely different, and that’s what makes this opportunity so exciting.
Building an authentic Devils identity
The GIANTS were trying to create relevance in a crowded market, while Tasmania already had emotional investment before the club even played.
This club means something incredibly deep to people not only on the island but on the mainland as well.
I think the best part about being here now is that the people here don’t just want an AFL team, they genuinely feel like they’ve earned one.
That emotional connection creates enormous responsibility creatively because the Devils can’t just become another AFL club, they need to authentically represent Tasmania.
For me, that means understanding the identity of the state itself and understanding that the storytelling approach needs to be different to GWS.
I don’t want the Devils to simply replicate what worked at the GIANTS because this isn’t Western Sydney.
I still want the Devils to entertain people, I still want to lean into humour, the internet culture, the AFL media chaos and the constant rumour mill surrounding players and coaches.
But I also want the Devils to feel authentic. I want to embrace the weather, the uniqueness of Tasmania and use social media to portray how passionate the local supporters are on the island.
It’s unusual that a social media manager changing clubs was news, and with that there’s obviously expectation attached to what I helped build at GWS, and naturally people expect similar things to happen immediately in Tasmania.
But building a brand takes time. The GIANTS content strategy didn’t appear overnight, and Tasmania’s identity won’t either.
But that’s what excites me most.
This club has the opportunity to become one of the most unique and culturally important brands in Australian sport.
Want to hear more?
Jacob will be sharing more of his GWS Giants / Tasmania Devils story live at Victory Lap, July 7-8 at Brisbane Powerhouse.
For a limited time, we’ve secured the Notice community a special offer to attend the first event alongside us: Purchase 3x or more tickets and receive $200 off EACH ticket (eg. $600 off 3x tickets).
Visit victorylap.com.au and use promo code NOTICE to redeem. The code is valid until 11:59PM, Wednesday 24 June 2026 or until sold out.
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