In South America, religion and soccer are closely-knit. The 2019 Copa Libertadores final, the main soccer competition in America, was a match between Flamengo and River Plate. The classic Brazil and Argentina rivalry. This time, in the field and in faith: besides being the favorite team, the Argentine side had the Pope Francis, a well-known soccer enthusiast. adidas, the Flamengo's team main sponsor, wanted to inspire all Flamengo's supporters to keep believing in the victory chance (note: last time Flamengo won Libertadores was 38 years ago). So we went for a bigger help: the Christ the Redeemer, the Francis boss.

adidas is Flamengo’s soccer team sponsor. Appearing in their first Copa Libertadores final in 38 years, the team was about to face defending champions River Plate. The odds were more in favor of the Argentinian side. adidas needed to inspire Flamengo fans to continue believing in their team's potential in order to increase home jersey sales. So we went after an impressive way to show that our faith in the Flamengo's victory was huge.

We choose the most relevant and biggest religious symbol of South America as a canvas - by lighting-up the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue that overlooks Rio de Janeiro with the famous red and black stripes of Flamengo's home jersey. It was the first time a brand had permission from the catholic church to do that.

South America was aware of the monumental nature of the occasion and its unconditional belief on the Flamengo side, in order to leverage the sales of the home jersey. In terms of cultural context, religion and soccer are closely-knit within South America.The use of religious symbols and objects are part of the way people support a team; you can hear people praying in stadiums and, in Brazil, there’s no bigger religious symbol than Christ the Redeemer. So our approach was to show Christ the Redeemer as a Flamengo's supporter too.

Regarding the huge size of Christ the Redeemer (38 mts) and the fact that the statue is even more visible at night due to the spotlights, we choose to use a live projection directly on the statue, with a motion that simulates the swaying of the fabric in a realistic manner. On the eve of the final match, after the use permission from the catholic church, we did a video projection mapping and on the statue base, an event for influencers and guests with a priest blessing posted in real time on adidas and Flamengo social networks.

After only 24 hours, the image of the Christ with the official jersey was everywhere on the internet across the globe, immediately becoming part of pop culture, transformed into memes, mugs and t-shirts and being shared by players like Neymar. With only a US$ 25.000 budget, the execution was seen across 5 continents and more than 115 countries, gaining US$ 3 million in earned media.

The jersey became the number 1 best seller product at adidas e-comm globally.