Title	GAME OF EMOTIONS - HOW TOP FINN ATHLETES ACTED IN SOAP OPERA TO BRING EMOTION TO
Brand	VEIKKAUS OY
Product/Service	SPORTS BETTING
Category	A01. FICTION: SERIES OR FILM
Entrant Company	TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Contributing Company	TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Media Agency	CARAT FINLAND Helsinki, FINLAND
Production Company	ALSO STARRING Helsinki, FINLAND

Name	Company	Position
Steve Brown	TBWA/Helsinki	Content Director
Micke Nordman	TBWA/Helsinki	Executive Strategy Director
Juuso Kalliala	TBWA/Helsinki	Copywriter
Miika Kumpulainen	TBWA/Helsinki	Art Director
Rasmus Bange	TBWA/Helsinki	Project Director
Tuomo Kihlström	TBWA/Helsinki	Production Ad
Aki Seppälä	Veikkaus	Marketing Manager
Ari Aarnihuhta	Veikkaus	Marketing Director
Salla Kekki	Veikkaus	Marketing Co/Ordinator
Jukka Veteläinen	Carat	Executive Strategy Director
Matti Corner	Carat	Account Director
Christine Göös	TBWA/Helsinki	Creative
Björn/Axel Sjöblad	Also Starring	Director
Johannes Lassila	Also Starring	Producer

The Campaign

Veikkaus is a state owned company for lotteries, scratch cards and sports betting. It's business is unique as all the profits are used to fund Finnish science, arts, sports and youth work. This campaign was made for sports betting, a product strictly regulated in terms of marketing. By creating branded content we were able to reach masses more freely compared to traditional marketing.

Results

The biggest challenge in Finnish sports betting is that even though the nation loves sports, the actual betting is a niche pastime. The number new players hasn't grown in years. We set out to make the big masses aware of sports betting by showing them how it could heighten their personal emotions in any sporting event. Our concept combined two insights: Finns love sports and the emotions it evokes and they are crazy about soap opera. We created a soap opera starring the most famous Finnish athletes and the leading man was the , Ronn Moss, who used to starr in Bold and the Beautiful, the most loved soap opera in the country. The mere arrival of mr.Moss to the country generated a huge media frenzy that we naturally utilised in the favour of the campaign. Ronn made appearances on sporting events and tv talkshows, but we didn't reveal the real reason for his visit. The core of the campaign was online where the content was distributed. We shot four episodes of Game of Emotions. The show premiered exclusively on Facebook. When the first episode was published, it became a topic on all national news broadcasts. Online, the discussion was heated. The target group was invited to join the campaign with a Facebook app where anyone could starr in a scene with Ronn Moss. The app shares broke records. We published additional material on Facebook: an extra episode had the most loved Finnish soap opera actor starring in a cameo with Ronn Moss.

We created a soap opera starring the most famous Finnish athletes and the iconic actor, Ronn Moss, who starred in Bold and the Beautiful for 25 years, the most loved soap opera in the country. The soap opera, Game of Emotions, premiered exclusively on Facebook, but it was advertised like an actual, new tv series: A tv-trailer, print and online advertising as well PR stunts for instance in sports events. We also leveraged Twitter, blogs and Instagram. The campaign triumphed in terms of earned media: almost all of the national tv and radio channels talked about the campaign in their main news casts. One of the tv channels even showed all the episodes as a real tv series amongst their other content.

The interest in the campaign brought great results: 4,2 million contacts through earned media, this practically means the whole of Finland as we are a nation of 5,5 million people. The campaign also was a success in terms of sales: sports betting's weekly sales grew by 21%. We tripled our Facebook likes and the average time spent in our app was 1min 76 seconds! The best indication for the success was the fact that a national tv channel aired the whole campaign as a tv series. What was meant to be a Facebook campaign became coveted content on air!