Anyone can recommend sponsoring a sports star, but imagine the risk of a media agency recommending a fictional, wannabee footballer who thinks he’s a superstar.

We realised that only a fictional player could make chocolate an essential part of a football team; and achieve the amount of in-programme branding we needed.For 16-weeks, Strauchanie appeared on the show with tales of his personal sponsorship by Mars – so "proving his greatness".The segments featured his interaction with football’s top players and his guest appearance in the AFL Legends game (wearing Mars boots!) which made national TV & radio news.We then took Strauchanie beyond the TV show. Strauchanie featured in TV ads and made guest appearances on other shows, he became the star of our consumer promotions, on displays in every supermarket in the country and even on the front of the new pack.

Its not often a media idea becomes the face of a brand – but this media idea rewrote the rule book.New research isolated the effect of Strauchanie’s TV integration; growing Mars’ trial, purchase intent and favourite brand scores by 30% more than TV advertising.Supermarket orders increased by 30%, Mars ‘Fun Size’ sales went up 17% (halting a long term decline) and Mars became the country’s 3rd most ‘favourite brand’; an important measure of brand health.We are proud to say that Mars have resigned Strauchanie for 2009, and he even starred in this year's national conference.