On 18 April 2021 a group of 12 leading European football clubs issued a statement unveiling their plans to form a breakaway Super League and just two days later the project had collapsed due to overwhelming anger and opposition and Heineken – a partner of the UEFA Champions League (which would likely have been damaged if the breakaway had gone ahead) – leveraged its sponsorship with a simple, low latency social campaign reinforcing its own support and echoing fan outrage with a touch of humour.
Territory: Global
Agency: Publicis Italy
Objective
As the football world raged against the plans for a breakaway Super league for almost 76 hours – the time between the announcement that 12 leading teams announced they were going to break away and form their own Super League and the time when enough of the clubs had withdrawn from the project to make it unworkable – UEFA Champions League partner Heineken sought to make the most of the rage and leverage fan sentiment through a simple campaign supporting its partnership.
Activation
As the 18 April, 2021 Super League announcement was met with rage and anger by almost all football fans, non-participating teams, media commentators, politicians and rival soccer rights owners and sponsors all around the world, Heineken – a UEFA Champions League main sponsor for the last 30 years – made its own statement 48 hours after the astonishing announcement in the form of a simple post with a powerful message.
Developed by regular agency Publicis Italy, the campaign was almost entirely based around a single, simple reactive social media post trolling the Super League and supporting the brand’s long-time partner with a message that sat within the beer brand’s ongoing ‘responsible drinking’ platform’ and which included the UEFA Champions League logo,
The digital/mobile post, titled ‘Don’t Drink & Start A League’, was deployed across the brand’s social and digital channels and quickly caught fire and was amplified by fans and the media alike.
#BetterTogether pic.twitter.com/Yrf7GGug9v
— Heineken (@Heineken) April 21, 2021
Outcome
The campaign generated:
> 384m impressions (more than the UEFA CL Final itself)
> $3.7m earned media
> +4466% social engagement
> 6% rise in stock price one week after the post
Plus, it gained so much positive media attention and scooped several marketing awards that Heineken also subsequently socially promoted its success.
Heineken® has won a Grand Prix and two Silver Lions at the Cannes Lions 2021 for our innovative “Shutters” initiative campaign, a Silver Lion for “Don’t Drink and Start a League” social media post and a Bronze Lion for “We’ll Meet Again” #SocialiseResponsibly #BrewaBetterWorld pic.twitter.com/pOzSsQbLxu
— The HEINEKEN Company (@HEINEKENCorp) June 25, 2021
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