For the 2020 Champions League Final, August saw UEFA partner Mastercard create a best practice example of the pandemic-driven trend for event sponsors switching physical experiences for virtual activations in the form of a mass participation, record-breaking #PricelessWave on TikTok.
Territory: Global
Agency: Talker Tailor Trouble Makers, La Plage, TikTok & Octagon
Objectives
With the 2020 UEFA Champions League returning to action after the pandemic without spectators in stadiums, sponsor Mastercard briefed its agency to leverage its partnerships rights through a mass participation social experience which would connect football fans in a way that enable them to show support for their team whilst watching the games from home.
The secondary objective was to drive social conversation, consumer engagement and media buzz around the brand’s links to the tournament.
A third aim was to promote and spread Mastercard’s new sonic brand logo which was introduced to reinforce the brand’s identity.
Overall, the initiative needed to dovetails with the brand’s umbrella sponsorship and marketing strategy – stretching from The Open and The Brit Awards, to Disneyland Paris and the Rugby World Cup – based around creating meaningful connections with people and to ‘start something priceless’.
with a specific creative, or visits to a digital destination like Priceless.com to unlock further engagement,” Beaumont says. “Ultimately, like any brand and business, success is about driving affection for the products and solutions we deliver, by helping people understand how and why they matter to them and how they can make their lives easier.
According to Mastercard, if the brand can get fans closer to the game they love, then it believes they will see the value of the ‘priceless possibilities’ it is creating for them via its products and services.
Activation
Agency Talker Tailor Trouble Makers’ solution was to create a virtual version of the long established in-stadium ‘fan wave’ and scale up the pandemic social trend for amateur and professional teams (and some Mastercard employees) to create videos which edit together home-shot clips of individuals showing off their skills and then passing a ball off the screen so that it seemed each person was receiving the same ball to signify unity and togetherness whilst being apart during lockdown.
For the platform, the team chose the fastest growing, most discussed social network of the moment – the short-form video sharing network TikTok – which has seen exponential growth during the pandemic.
The #PricelessWave challenge thus set out to bring to life the idea that individual football fans are all part of a bigger team.
At the start of August, Mastercard deployed social content and a PR push to encourage football fans around the world to celebrate the return of UEFA Champions League by creating the world’s biggest digital wave in the form of a TikTok’ challenge’ to get as many people as possible to participate in a shared video activity by recording themselves raising their arms in the ‘wave’ motion common at sports events.
The initiative was conceived and developed by Talker Tailor Trouble Makers and its studio partner La Plage, along with Mastercard’s marketing team, input from TiKTok and with talent sourced by Octagon.
Launched to leverage the ‘Round of 16’ (ahead of the quarters, semis and final (which are being played in a reformatted two week tournament in Lisbon), the virtual event took place on 10 August and saw Mastercard set out to break the world record with the largest digital celebration ‘wave’ ever on social media.
Mastercard aimed to elevate the at-home football fan experience by showing that, starting with a simple ball, a unique virtual event can celebrate the joy and passion of football…from home.
Kick starting the #PricelessWave challenge were the Spanish and French football legends Fernando Torres and Marcel Desailly who encouraged their own followers and fans to participate with content deployed across their personal platforms and across the brand’s social channels (including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter).
How are you celebrating the return of the @ChampionsLeague? Celebrate with us and share your own #PricelessWave on @TikTok_UK #Mastercardhttps://t.co/13G6q5SEeU pic.twitter.com/E7lvCikUwK
— Mastercard Europe (@MastercardEU) August 11, 2020
The campaign mechanics saw fans encouraged to take part in the #PricelessWave by accessing the challenge on TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/tag/pricelesswave – and filming themselves celebrating and supporting their team by raising their arms from the bottom of the screen to the top.
Participation was incentivised by rewarding those uploading their clip with the new Mastercard football sonic logo and a digital confetti of footballs.
Participants were also then encouraged to head to Mastercard’s experiential lifestyle hub (at https://www.priceless.com/) designed to inspire and create once-in-a-lifetime moment, to enter a competition to win a Priceless experience with a number of football legends, as well as watch their exclusive stories of how the ball started something priceless for them.
“For fans of football, we know that a ball can start something priceless. From the excitement of a goal, to the sheer joy of the occasion. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have needed to pivot quickly from physical to digital experiences, to reflect the changing environments we are living in,” explained Mastercard Chief Marketing Officer Raja Rajamannar.
“By creating the Priceless Wave, we are reminding football fans everywhere that a ball can start a celebration and a celebration shared, even when apart, really is Priceless. Through this campaign we want to connect fans to their passion of football and their sporting heroes, by giving them an unforgettable experience, from the comfort of their homes. Mastercard is always striving to push the limits as a tech innovator, to create a truly memorable experiences for the fans to celebrate the return of the UEFA Champions League by joining the Priceless Wave.”
Outcome
In terms of success metrics, Mastercard’s Senior Vice President Of Business Enablement And Communications Rose Beaumont commented that the brand had a matrix of metrics including uploads, views, engagement, website page visits ans the targets for all of these were exceeded.
By 11 August, 24 hours after the big virtual event, the #PricelessWave had achieved its aim and had notched up a record-breaking 359.4m TikTok views. By 1 October, the #PriceWave’s total TikTok views had risen to 1.8bn views.
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