In February 2012, Nike launched the new jersey of one of its main sports assets, the Brazilian national football team. As it always happens, the image of the new shirt leaked beforehand and all the fans were able to see it before the official launch. Did this end the surprise? No. For Nike, this launching meant much more than presenting a new jersey. It was the beginning of the journey to the 2014 World Cup.More than generating buzz around a new jersey design, the topic in the social networks and in the media ended up being the challenge and the journey that the national team will face in the coming years to get to the World Cup well prepared. We managed to raise a topic among millions of Brazilians: after all, who is the biggest opponent to be beaten by Brazil?A brand as authentic and connected to performance as Nike exposed one of the main problems the national team faces nowadays and it was precisely this daring move that contaminated the discussion forums on the internet and the Brazilian media as a whole.

From a spark that was flashed through a telephone number that leaked on the Twitter accounts of some of the team’s players and the repercussion that it had among other athletes, musicians and local celebrities, and climaxing with an epic one-minute film, we managed to light the flame of the national team topic, which was extinct among the fans and the local media.

On February 23, days before the first match the team would play in the year, the star of the team, Neymar, let a telephone number leak on Twitter. Famous athletes and musicians retweeted it and the news spread quickly, being featured in many websites.

The mistake caused people to call the mysterious number. On the other side of the line, it was Neymar himself who answered, inviting the fans to leave a message of support to the team.On the following day, the Nike Football officialised the action with an open channel between fans and team. Immediately, blogs of Brazilian teams began to report about a topic that hadn’t been talked for quite a while.

On the day of the match, February 28, a film was launched as a response to all the questions from the fans. The film became editorial content of a local news show on broadcast TV.

We reached the main goal of bringing the national football team topic back to the daily routine of our consumers and of connecting with them again.We transformed the launching of a jersey – which had a stagnant format for years, consisting of press conferences, runway shows, films about the features of the product – into a special opportunity of engagement with the brand and with the national team.In 15 days we increased our fanbase on Facebook in 15% (168,072 new fans) with the Brazilian national football team as the main topic.In just 1 week we reached more than 47,000 mobile interactions and 4.5m views on YouTube, turning this campaign’s commercial into the most viewed content in the history of Nike Brazil in this platform, consequently taking the brand channel to the first position among brands in the country.With the fans closer to the national team, the sales results were immediate. 54% growth, compared to the same period last year.