Consuming pirated content is part of Brazilian culture, and its growth mirrors that of internet access. The country's 33 million active consumers of illegal TV services are proof of this.

And among the main reasons for that number are the websites that broadcast football matches illegally over IPTV.

In 2021, DIRECTV GO came to Brazil to become the first 100% legal IPTV service in the country, offering both live TV and streaming content, at significantly more attractive prices, in addition to quality and safety that are infinitely better than the underground services'.

Our challenge was to connect consumers of pirated TV content, especially football fans, to the DIRECTV GO brand, driving consideration in a fun way, since our previous media efforts had focused on pay TV and broadcast TV users.

Every week, football fans flock to Google to search for illegal football broadcasts. What if we used that consumption habit to activate our brand, and turned these "pirates" into DIRECTV GO customers?

To do that, we purchased search terms used to find illegal websites, and "trolled" our users with a transmission that was, in a word, "special".

On March 15, 2022, Manchester United and Atlético de Madrid faced off in the round of sixteen of the Champions League. People who googled for "pirate" broadcasts of the game ended up finding a 100% "pirate" game between Mão Chester United and Atlético de Mandirituba.

Research estimates that 8.4% of piracy consumers are from higher-income classes in Brazil, which shows the issue extends beyond the question of affordability. We realized our communication had to go deeper into our audience’s real interest – being entertained –, and explore our "fun brand" tone of voice.

Timing was essential, as we had a very specific audience to target, rather then speaking broadly to people unconnected to the issue. We knew that, like other illegal activities, piracy has its own symbols and rituals; so we took a deep dive into the piracy user's journey in order to define where we could be most relevant with our message.

We found that, before every major football match, crowds of fans go hunting online for illegal IPTV links on Google and social media in order to watch their teams play. That is when piracy happens: the perfect moment for our campaign.

Using a Search Ads strategy, we purchased words used by piracy consumers in their searches. For instance, searching "watch champions league free" triggered our ads on the top results.

These ads led to our landing page, where we broadcast 90 minutes of Mão Chester United vs. Atlético de Mandirituba, scripted to include bizarre moments, like an unethical referee and a Cristiano Ronaldo look-alike who couldn't play at all.

In order to bridge the content and our brand, DIRECTV GO was a sponsor of the fake match, offering instant access to the TNT Sports broadcast of the real game, and a 7-day free trial of the app, through two ad formats:

1. vignettes every 5 minutes with a QR Code to the real match;

2. click-to-watch pop-up banners (a classic of pirate websites), leading to the real match.

The full fake match and play-by-play review are available at piratematch.live

The campaign had an amazing reach, impacting over 5 million football fans around the world; 96% of these impacts were organic.

Match day generated 43% more free trials on the platform than previous Champions League match search campaigns.

We also offered our audience a live broadcast lasting more than two hours, with an average stay of 19 minutes. More than a game, it was content tailored for the fans; true entertainment that engaged the audience and disrupted the market.