In the Summer of 2018, Denmark was going to the FIFA World Cup. As shirt sponsor of the national team, hummel saw a unique opportunity to both create awareness of the brand and generate sales.

Being a sports brand focused on the social aspects of sports (rather than a sports brand celebrating the stars only) we wanted to communicate this specific brand value and celebrate not only the players but also the fans in the stands.

Our objective was to take advantage of the qualification and create awareness through a PR-driven campaign with almost no paid media and drive sales towards a very ambitious goal: To sell twice as many official shirts as the previous launch.

All football fans have their idols. And when you have an idol in football you buy a shirt with his name on it. That’s why you meet Ronaldos and Messis wherever you go.

According to our brand position, we decided to reverse the roles entirely!

We decided that the players should wear the shirts of the fans.

First, we asked the fans to give us their own well-worn football shirts. Then, we cut them to pieces and carefully sewed them together again, creating new shirts from all the individual pieces. Each little piece representing the dedication of a loyal fan.

Finally, before going to the world cup, the team played in the shirts as a sign of gratitude towards the fans and as a manifestation of the strong relationship between the two. The very relationship we wanted the fans to remember when the new official jersey was released later on.

Everyone who owns a football shirt, owns a tiny piece of a shared dream of success. At least if you look at the symbolic meaning of the shirt. However, considered merely as a product, the shirt is just a piece of polyester.

Obviously, we didn’t want people to see a piece of polyester when we launched the new Denmark shirt. We wanted to remind them of the meaning of the shirt: When you wear it, you become part of something bigger. Part of a community of players and fans alike. And that’s why you should buy exactly this piece of polyester.

In other words, our strategy was to create a one-off teaser shirt – designed to remind the Danes of this deeply rooted meaning of a national jersey. And thereby position the official jersey (released later on) as a must-have for all fans.

The execution was divided into three stages:

1. Firstly, we broke the news that the national team wanted to pay tribute to the fans by wearing a one-of-a-kind shirt, made from shirts donated by fans. The first stage was driven by PR and followed up with point-of-sale material in Denmark’s largest sports retailer (where fans could donate their jerseys).

2. Secondly, the donated jerseys were cut into pieces and carefully sewed back together so the team could wear them in an official match, a few months before going to the world cup. This stage was also supported by PR and followed up with social media, documenting the unusual shirt in action.

3. Lastly, we released the new official shirt using paid media (very limited, as the shirt was already hyped) PR and P-O-S-materials enabling our retail partners to support the campaign in-store.

Stage 1 hit most national media. Stage 2 and 3 made the story travel internationally reaching a total of more than 1,300 mentions, including The Daily Mail, Forbes, Mirror, The Independent, Sky Sports, NBC News, L’equipe, The Sidney Morning Herald and South China Morning Post.

In total, we amassed an estimated reach of more than 427,000,000 persons (source: Meltwater).

In perspective: Denmark is a nation of just 5.7 million people.

The estimated value of the PR was +11,500,000 USD (source: Meltwater).

With a total spend for the campaign of just 164,000 USD, this equals a media ROI of 70.

More importantly, the sales broke all of hummel’s previous records:

In the first four weeks, we sold 12 times as many official shirts, as the previous launch.

Surpassing our target by factor six – and selling out before the opening of the world cup.