Hyundai have been a global sponsor of football for 20+ years. The jewel in the crown: the FIFA Men’s and Women’s World Cups.

And in Australia they are the longest standing supporter of the game, helping put men’s football on the map by becoming the naming rights sponsor to the A-League at its inception in 2005. Fast forward 14 years, and Hyundai wanted to use their credibility to help catapult the women’s game to the next level by giving the relatively unknown players the profile and support they rightly deserve. The opportunity to capitalise was in the lead up to and during the 2019 Women’s World Cup, when interest levels were heightened amongst sports fans.

Our success yardstick?

1) Make a meaningful impact on the game and grow the sports/players profile

2) Increase Hyundai brand consideration amongst ‘women’s football interest' (2.9m).

Sports partnerships enable brands to build an emotional connection with fans. So when thinking about how to hit our objectives, the best way to grow the profile of these female players and allow fans to connect emotionally was to unearth genuine and heart-warming stories of their lives off the field. And to achieve brand attribution for a non-endemic sponsor, we had to create a clear role for Hyundai and the product in our execution.

‘Thank You Letters’ was born, where Hyundai delivered personal letters from the players to an individual that had played a significant role in their journey to football's biggest stage.

This celebration of individual support was backed up by letting the players know that the whole country was behind them. We wanted to give Aussies the chance to send the team their message of motivation, best wishes and support.

Still seen as a minnow in the cluttered Aussie sports landscape, football is on an evolving journey.

And Hyundai has been supporting this journey and helping the professional Men's game grow from virtually the ground up for the past 15 years.

Until recently, the women’s game has lacked respect, support and funding. It’s received a lot of negativity over the years, and the journey has been tough. But the Matildas of past and present have persevered, fought hard, and worked for the game they love to get it where it is today.

With a product that facilitates journeys, our strategy was to celebrate the journey the women’s game has been on, by highlighting the positive people and stories that have helped individual players get where they are today.

We asked four Matildas to handwrite their letter to tap into the nostalgic emotion of human psyche.

The letters, packed with gratitude, were delivered in a Hyundai Kona EV to their recipients’ home. We captured the full journey on camera, from writing the letters through to the first read.

These personal and emotional stories were packaged together into TVCs, pre-rolls and long-form episodes, released days before the World Cup kicked off.

To give regular Aussies a platform to show their support, we toured Australia with a gold i30N collecting fans motivational messages of support.

With broadcast integration, news pickup and ambassador appearances, we made 16 stops interstate & received 2,000+ epic messages. The N, full of messages, was taken all the way to France for the Matildas squad to read. The players were blown away at the support and were quick to share on social.

Success! The Women’s World Cup was the most-watched ever. And a record number of Aussies tuned in to show their support with a total audience of 2.8m enjoying the action (vs 1.8m in 2015).

We had over 5.5m views of our content, including 40k engagements and 100% positive sentiment on social. 100k+ of those views were organic after we gained unprompted virality in the 1st 24 hours from the football community and key influencers on Twitter.

The Matildas themselves were full of praise for our work across social, and even other sports stars commended our efforts in ‘championing women’s sport across Australia’ (Aussie Rugby 7’s Gold medallist).

And the return for Hyundai brand?

A 7% (target 2%) uplift in Hyundai purchase consideration amongst 'fans of female football', pre vs post World Cup.

68% of those who saw the campaign felt connected to the brand.