After the great achievement of the Costa Rican soccer team during the World Cup Brazil 2014, things weren’t going so well towards Russia 2018.

We had to make the team and the fans to forget past events and think about the future, about what is coming next. To achieve this, we used the mexican sports reporter David Faitelson, one of Costa Rican’s worst enemy in regards to sports.

The message, in Faitelson’s voice, was an instigation to awaken the pride of our Soccer Team Selection and its fans.

The commercial was launched the day before the game against United States through the national channel, Teletica Canal 7 (one of the most important media in the country), not only through open television broadcast, but also through its Facebook fanpage. At the same time, it was also launched in the Costa Rican Federation of Soccer’s Facebook fanpage and Essential Costa Rica’s, our Country Brand.

Taking into consideration that Costa Rica is a country with less than 4 million of inhabitants:

Without investing one single dollar in Facebook, the spot achieved an organic range of: 1,653,090 people without duplicity (57.1% of total active Facebook profiles in the country), turning into one the most shared spots in the Country’s history.

Additionally, all the tickets for the game against United States were sold.

Because instead of using in our spot a celebrity related to our target, we decided to do quite the opposite: we made use of one of the worst enemies for Costa Ricans regarding sports, which let us achieve a film impossible to ignore.

David Faitelson is one of the panelists from ESPN Mexico, known for his constant mockery and derogatory comments towards Costa Rican soccer team and other teams from Central America.

Using Faitelson as the main voice for a commercial that supports Costa Rican soccer team raised many “ticos” interest, which led them to listen and share our

For our Country Brand, Essential Costa Rica, the strategy was to make good use of its alliance with the Costa Rican Federation of Soccer and the passion that this sport awakens in almost the entire country, with the sole purpose of touching Costa Rican’s feelings and awaken their nationalism.

Situation:

In World Cup 2014, Costa Rica achieved a historic participation: it qualified first in the group stage, surpassing 3 former world champions (Italy, Uruguay and England), disqualified Greece in Eighth-Finals, and lost during penalties against the Netherlands in Quarter Finals, leaving the competition undefeated and turning into the great surprise of the contest.

However, after this event, the team wasn’t performing well towards Russia 2018, and the tickets for the local games weren’t being sold as expected.

Brief:

Our client, which is the Country Brand, Essential Costa Rica, asked us to make a communication effort along with the Costa Rican Federation of Soccer and Teletica Channel 7 to awaken the pride of being Costa Rican, making good use of the moment and the passion that football soccer awakens in the country.

Objectives:

- To awaken the pride of being Costa Ricans through football soccer

- To sell tickets for the game Costa Rica