We created an activation campaign that would make fans experience a day without their favorite team. They couldn’t reach their club; every communication channel was gone for a day. We made the fans understand the importance of Fenerbahçe in their lives. It led them to raise their voices collectively to act.

Four years ago, one of Turkey’s leading football teams, Fenerbahçe’s bus was ambushed on its way back from an away game, and the shooter/s aimed directly at the driver to kill all of the team. With their driver shot fatally, rest of the crew barely managed to stop the bus and prevented a tragic event. However, the case was closed due to the lack of evidence, and the perpetrators were never found.

The brief was to create an activation campaign that will generate public attention on the closed case, before the case was expired.

We needed to make everyone realize that aiming to kill one of the biggest teams can never be gone unsolved. We needed to make the fans remember and react to this situation and get the state prosecutors reopen the case with the public pressure.

The assault primarily aimed to destroy the entire club; and the idea was to make everyone literally understand how their lives would change if that assault had succeeded. If fans of the team had seen their lives without their beloved team, maybe then they would’ve understood the true aim of the assault and never let it be forgotten.

We tried to get a fast and powerful reaction by blocking all of the touchpoint areas of the fans with their team. Being the most popular medium, social media went down first, and physical places followed it; like merch stores, monuments, and the iconic stadium itself.

• Insight

Dating back to the first years of the national independence war, Fenerbahçe is associated with its resilience. Inspired by that history, we tried to add one more superb comeback to the history of the club.

• Key message

If fans of the team had seen their lives without their beloved team, maybe then they would’ve understood the true aim of the assault and never let it be forgotten.

• Target audience

Firstly, Fenerbahçe fans. Secondly, the other sports clubs who could see the real importance beyond the case, and finally the state prosecutors.

• Creation and distribution

Without any statement, we blacked out every official communication channel of the team such as social media accounts and TV channel; made the president and the board members unreachable, closed the iconic stadium and all of the stores nationwide, even the statues of the legendary players were gone.

Without any statement, we blacked out every official communication channel of the team such as social media accounts and TV channel; made the president and the board members unreachable, closed the stadium and all of the stores nationwide, even the statues of the legendary players were gone.

Early in the morning of 4th of April, the blackout began. In the first hours, people discussed about what happened to the club. Every major news channel and platform covered the story, looking for answers and the reason. Then, people began to realize that, it was the anniversary of the attack and the blackout could’ve been a protest against the cold case. On the evening, the club came back alive with a strong statement from its president. Later on, from all the platforms, the support of the fans from all of the teams grew bigger and reached a global scale in hours.

Our campaign became a worldwide trending topic in minutes and stayed there for 14 hours. Gaining 10 hours of live coverage on TV, the protest was supported by all of the Turkish sports community, and the subject became the most popular topic, even the country was on the eve of a major election.

705.237 visits after reopening the club’s website in 20 days.

834.368 sessions in the first 3 hours on the club’s website.

A Total of 880M impressions on Social Media accounts in the first day.

40M Unique Reach

410K total conversations in first day.

264% raise in conversation compared to last year’s 4th of April.

Millions of people remembered a long-forgotten case, which would’ve changed the history of the sports in Turkey and helped build a massive public pressure to make it reopened, in just one day.

The cold case was reopened by the prosecutors.

Fenerbahçe, being one of the biggest and oldest sports clubs in Turkey, has a strong heritage of resistances and coming-backs. Dating back to the first years of the national independence war, the club is associated with its resilience. Inspired by that history, we tried to add one more superb comeback to the history of the club.