In order to impact sports consumers when they're having fun, entertainment is a must.

The Pirate Match aimed at this audience's consumption behavior during live football games. And it hit the bullseye.

People searching for a pirate broadcast of Manchester United vs. Atlético de Madrid on the Champions League found a live match with players, uniforms, commentators, and football, all 100% fake.

A two-hour script was created so the match couldn't be ignored, which made the Pirate Match and DIRECTV GO a hot topic not only in advertising websites, but among football fans in Brazil and in other 27 countries.

Situation

Piracy is part of Brazilian culture. The country's 33 million active consumers of pirated content are proof of this. And the main reason for these numbers are the websites that broadcast football matches illegally over IPTV (Internet Protocol Television).

Brief

Historically, the television industry has approached the piracy issue with a monotonous and repetitive message, portraying the users as criminals.

In 2021, DIRECTV GO started offering the country's first 100% legal IPTV service. A product that was not only more accessible than those offered by their regular TV competitors, but more stable and safe than those offered by the underground, featuring live sports broadcasts as its main attraction. A service that had 21% of its target audience among consumers of pirated content.

Objectives

The brand, which is still unknown in the country, wants to be considered by consumers of live football broadcasts.

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 consumers of pirated content in searches. For instance, users who searched for "watch champions league free" found our ads at the top.

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

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 different ad formats:

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

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

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

The idea that started with search ads generated 300% more clicks than all other campaigns of the brand in Champions League matches. The campaign had an amazing reach, impacting over 5 million football fans in 28 countries – with 96% of these impacts being organic.

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

We also offered our audience a live broadcast lasting more than two hours, with an amazing 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.