We needed fans to take notice, so we called on one of the greatest coaches of all time, Jose Mourinho. His arrogance and charm coupled with the fact that this time he would be watching UCL from his couch, made him the perfect motivator to ensure there were no more excuses for missing match nights with friends. We took over social media and joined conversations in messaging apps with targeted content that reacted to fans' context in real-time, from rain to Valentines day. Leveraging data we generated hundreds of videos, where Mourinho dismisses excuses from around the world. Yet he also provided a solution, encouraging fans to enjoy UCL match nights like winners, surrounded by friends with Heineken in hand. No matter where you are in the world, or your situation, Mourinho reminded you that there were no excuses for missing match night, always ending with the CTA to #championthematch

We kicked off the campaign with a bang, launching a film on Facebook where Mourinho reads out regular fan excuses. In his typical manner he dismisses them, reminding fans that there are no excuses for missing a UCL match. For future retargeting, at the end of the video we asked fans to tag their friends in the comments, along with their excuses. We created over 800 personalised, super-relevant response videos that allowed Mourinho to address fans directly around the world and were shared across our social platforms. Midway we used retargeting to engage fans with a digital version of Mourinho - a bot that let fans create witty, excuse-busting, shareable responses to send to their friends. For the UCL final our bot connected fans with services like Uber and Deliveroo, making sure that even the most sincere excuses could be overcome with a little help from Mourinho and Heineken.

No More Excuse reached 35% of our target, delivering 500m impressions and over 180m total views across c.800 videos. The data-learned relevancy of the excuse-busting videos was reflected in strong average video completion rates of 39% across all phases, rising to 45% for the quarter-finals. Also, over 35% of those who used the personal and customisable chatbot went on to set match reminders and invite friends to interact.