Insight
VISA sponsors the FIFA World Cup. VISA also launched a new positioning ‘Everywhere you want to be’.
OMD’s challenge: maintain dominant top of mind as WC sponsor and bring to life the new positioning. The FIFA World Cup is where everyone wants to be.
In every sporting event there are many avid sports fans who work on the outside of the stadium, listening to the cheers, wishing to be inside enjoying the game. But their stories are often stories of missing out.
OMD’s idea: Take these fans where they were never able to go: cheering for their national team at the FIFA WC.
Strategy
VISA used its World Cup Sponsorship programme to recognise these “outsiders”. This enabled VISA to bring to life and demonstrate powerfully the new positioning. The broad target group of VISA carrying football enthusiasts was going to be very emotionally involved.
Execution
The agency created the miniseries: ‘So close and yet so far’, the story of five big soccer fans who live and work in the shadows of the stadium, but are not able to go to any of the games. It documented their background stories and how they expressed their desire and dream to take the road with their national team. How they were invited on the pitch during the VISA half-time experience, and how they got to experience their team’s victory.
The “FIFA WC is you where you want to be” campaign was the platform. OMD integrated their stories into different ESPN platforms. It added capsules, social media, and tweets; Facebook, YouTube and extensive PR. It “open sourced” the stories so that media could have access to the heroes’ stories and experiences.
Results
VISA managed to capture the emotion of five individuals who were given an unforgettable life experience and share it with the world, generating more positive media coverage around the region than any previous Visa campaign: more than 25 media stories, leading to 25.5 million earned impressions and over $1.5 million in free media coverage.
• Over 16 million impressions, 160% over the original goal
• 2 million views of our 9 stories with over 30,000 likes
• Brand recall for the campaign was 45% above VISA averages
• VISA’s brand equity was 200% higher amongst recallers.
• 22 million social impressions and 3 million views of the six stories.
Beyond numbers and statistics, and in the process, to create an equally unforgettable campaign that helped provide the brand a new dimension and capitalised emotionally on the concept that visa is, in fact, ‘everywhere you want to be.’