A European Championship played across the whole continent in the middle of a pandemic. The purpose of our campaign was as clear as it was ambitious: To rediscover the lost euphoria in football and bring UEFA EURO 2020™ straight to the fans. We also wanted to clear up prejudices surrounding e-mobility and spark enthusiasm for Volkswagen’s fully electric ID. models.

We all found ourselves in a situation with circumstances never seen before at a major football tournament: A pandemic with reduced attendances and lots of restrictions at the venues. In order to overcome these difficulties, our campaign had a clear social media focus. The idea was to activate the Volkswagen sponsorship while generating added value for the fans that couldn’t attend.

We wanted to clear up prejudices surrounding e-mobility and spark enthusiasm for Volkswagen’s fully electric ID. models. Therefore, eleven local influencers should represent us in each of the eleven host cities, from St. Petersburg to Rome, from Seville to Baku. Together they should explore the soul of football, with all its stories and rich emotions. Their storytelling should bring every fan into the venues and allow them to participate in UEFA EURO 2020™, no matter where they were.

To achieve our goals, we created an innovative approach which allowed us to comprehensively cover a pan-European tournament despite the corona-related hurdles. Eleven local influencers explored the host cities using the Volkswagen ID. fleet, sharing unique, live, and authentic football stories via Instagram, speaking to fans and capturing the atmosphere. Stories from outside the limelight of the games, straight from the venues and always fan centric. True stories – told live and authentically, making the viewers feel part of the experience.

Thanks to eleven local influencers from the eleven host cities, we were able to cover the whole tournament. With up to four games a day, the locals linked up across Europe via Instagram almost in real-time. They shared unique, emotional, and fan-centric football stories away from the action on the pitch but right from within the venues – authentic stories that made viewers feel like they were actually there. The stories went live via the locals’ social media channels and the ‘Volkswagen we drive football’ channels.

In addition to this, the campaign delivered editorial pieces and exclusive documentaries which told unique, emotional, and unexpected football stories all about the people and away from the stadiums. All the content was bundled up into eleven City Chapters on the Volkswagen OneHub. By the end, over five hours of gripping video footage and over 400 photos had been created over the six-week period.

With this kind of speed and the unique live aspect, we took influencer marketing to a new level, overcoming cultural and language barriers at the same time. The campaign set new standards for how major multinational events can be portrayed with a live aspect, regardless of the location and time of the events. With an unbelievable sum of 245 million impressions, the stories and videos were viewed 29 million times in total. Our content allowed the whole of Europe take part in the tournament and attracted over 2 million visitors to the Volkswagen EURO Hub.