Cris-Sal, Ecuadorian salt brand, needed to gain relevance during the most saturated time of the year: World Cup 2022 Qualifiers.

The brand didn’t have a big budget, like others did, and was prohibited from sponsoring our national team, due to the LatinAmerican superstition: salt gives bad luck.

Cris-Sal, transformed this belief into the brand's strength, to become the unofficial sponsor of Ecuador's rivals, to give them bad luck.

Unlucky Sponsor became the most relevant and effective campaign in the brand’s history, without using a single plate of food: +4.6% sales in 6 months (record: 1%, 2010), +1.4p BrandPower, $2.8M FreePress.

For the first time in 60 years, Cris-Sal faced an important challenge, a significant decrease in their sales (-0.6% volume). The brand needed to gain relevance, and strategically connect with millennials during the most saturated time of the year: World Cup Qualifiers, which was key to it's target.

While some brands had the sponsorship of the national team, or big budgets to promote their products, Cris-Sal was unlucky with a low budget and being rejected by the Ecuadorian Football Federation, due to the belief that salt gives bad luck.

In Ecuador, people's attention was on Ecuador's World Cup journey. Therefore, it was crucial for us to connect with our audience and be part of the conversation, even if we had a quarter of the other brand’s budget.

The brand needed to make a powerful and unconventional strategy for the food category, to increase its sales, brand power and free press.

All brands, regardless of the category, communicated and took advantage of the context, and the national team' sponsors had the biggest exposure. In Ecuador, three brands had a major sponsorship - Banco de Guayaquil (a national bank), Pilsener (the #1 national beer) and a CNT (government owned telecommunications company). Any advertiser wanted this sponsorship too.

Cris-Sal needed to defend its relevance/difference; considering two challenges: a highly competitive context through a territory they were never part of. soccer. But, salt brands use strategies that usually depend on appetite appeal or discounts.

Apart from that, the brand faced another challenge, it was prohibited from being a sponsor due to the LatinAmerican belief that salt gives bad luck.

We turned this into an opportunity that would put Cris-Sal into the conversation and gain its love from the fans.

Cris-Sal has been strategically working on connecting with millennials, and the qualifiers were an opportunity to reach this target, since everyone is keeping track of the results of the national team, regardless of whether they like soccer or not.

Within this context, Ecuadorians value brands that behave more like a person (fans); through their passion, culture, beliefs.

Among these beliefs, there is a superstition strongly linked to our product, in a negative way: in Latin America, salt brings bad luck. "Salado" literally means "unlucky”. When a player is going through a bad streak, it is said that he is "salado."

Due to this belief, the Ecuadorian Football Federation rejected Cris-Sal as a sponsor of the national team. If they were associated with Cris-Sal, the national team could not qualify.

Cris-Sal, because of it's product, was the only one that could use this insight, and turn this problem into an opportunity.

Cris-Sal became the unofficial sponsor of Ecuador's rivals, in order to bring bad luck to them, and support Ecuadorians the national team.

To bring 'Unlucky Sponsor' to life, we placed messages of good luck for Ecuador's rivals. We did this before and during matches, across different media and cities where the national team played, inside and near the stadiums.

The product and brand were always present to showcase the insight. We aimed to give the message more traction through Cris-Sal's social media and sports influencers, inviting Ecuadorians to share and comment on the campaign. We chose the most relevant matches during the World Cup qualifiers: those where we typically believe it's impossible to achieve a positive result. Once we had chosen our rivals, all that was left was to go and 'jinx' them.

We escaped from typical food strategies, to use a cultural insight unexpected for a salt brand.

With "Unlucky Sponsor" we consolidated our brand value, increasing 1.4 points in Brand Power (36.2p to 37.6p), in just 6 months of campaign, when the expected growth in this index is 1 point annually. The action was so relevant that we generated a media impact in FreePress of $2.8M, giving a total reach of 98.2%.

Unlucky Sponsor achieved that in the context of the World Cup qualifiers, we increased our Positive Sentiment indicator by 98%, surpassing the results of all our campaigns, and even those of advertisers within the World Cup qualifiers.

Finally, Cris-Sal managed to give the National Team some luck, making them return to a World Cup after 8 years, after obtaining improbable points in each match played during the qualifiers.

Unlucky Sponsor became the most relevant and effective campaign in the brand’s history, without using a single plate of food.

This is even a belief connected with soccer, since the players have moves to celebrate, that means they “take out the salt”.

The belief that salt gives bad luck is part of Latin American cultures, not only Ecuador.

That’s why, we could advertise in any other country that the Ecuadorian national team competed against, and the idea would still have an impact and the message will be clear. This made the idea powerful for national fans, by making their beliefs part of the matches, even if they were not in an ecuadorian field.