On the same evening of the big match Real Madrid-Milan, we organized a fake event combining poetry and classical music, but how to persuade 1000 AC Milan fans to skip the match and go to the concert? We came up with the idea of using the 200 accomplices (girlfriends, chiefs and journalists, too) that recruited our victims one to one. We provided our accomplices with invitation cards and used Direct Mails and Poster campaigns too. The night of the event, after 15mins of concert, using a video projection, we unexpectedly surprised our victims and gave them the biggest reward: joining the match on a big screen, offered by Heineken.

The main objective was to let each consumer perceive the relevance of the Heineken-UEFA Champions League sponsorship. We had to turn this sponsorship into a unique brand property totally consistent with the brand strategy, based on offering and even preserving the entertaining moments. We needed to engage our main consumers (males 18-24) one to one and offer each of them a special brand experience, able to remind them of the importance of preserving their easy going attitude. In order to do it, we capitalised on their most sacred moment: watching a football match on TV.

1000 people have been directly involved. 6 million people followed the event live on TV. Another 10 million people saw it on the news the days after. Millions of people spoke about it and commented positively about this communication activity on websites and blogs worldwide.

10 journalists were involved as victims or accomplices. The buzz on it was very high and contributed to empowering the brand awareness and, even more, the closeness between the target and the brand.

This original activation made the consumers perceive the brand for what it is: protagonist of every great entertaining moment. Its strength is in the way the target has been engaged: a one to one recruitment that made every single person in the auditorium a main protagonist. Our “victims” lived a brand experience in a place that is definitively unconventional for beer drinkers: that, together with the relevance of the final reward, created a very active reaction on the target.