Title	L'EQUIPE OF OUR DREAMS
Brand	L'EQUIPE
Product/Service	L'EQUIPE
Category	C06. PUBLICATIONS & MEDIA
Entrant Company	DDB PARIS, FRANCE
Advertising Agency	DDB PARIS, FRANCE

Name	Company	Position
Alexandre Hervé	DDB Paris	Executive Creative Director
Julien Kosowski	DDB Paris	Copywriter
Vianney Quecq D'henripret	Ddb Paris	Art Director
Jean/Luc Bravi	Ddb Paris	Account Supervisor
Mathieu Roux	Ddb Paris	Account Supervisor
Olivier Massanella	Ddb Paris	Account Supervisor
Beatrice Roux	L'equipe	Advertiser Supervisor
Damien Darroman	L'equipe	Advertiser Supervisor

The Brief

L'Equipe is the leading french sports newspaper. A reference anyone who loves sports comes to read at some point. But just like all the press in France, its sales are struggling, as sports fan get used to getting information for free. The objectives were to sustain sales in a depressed period, over Christmas when sports activity is close to zero. And to re- engage lost customers with the brand. It all started with a simple insight: people buy L'Equipe because they want to read about outstanding champions & achievements. They love great reat stories. So we decided to give them the best sport stories they would ever read.

Creative Execution

We wanted to create a 'real' newspaper, as credible as possible, to maximize reading pleasure. So we involved the editorial board to have them write the articles. The best sports journalists in France played the game, and wrote fiction instead of reports and analysis. The front page, showing Renaud Lavillenie who had broken Serguei Bubka's mythical record at pole vault, immediately caught attention in store & spread on twitter ('How could I miss that?!'). All the articles were then used on the website where 'L'Equipe of our dreams' was downloadable for free. Eventually, we gave sports fans the best ever reason to buy and read L'Equipe on that day.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

We created 'L'Equipe of our dreams', a special edition of L'Equipe with the stories a sports fan has always dreamt to read. More good news than he could experience in a lifetime. A paper packed with 'WOWs', with excitement & joy. Ronaldinho back in the Seleçao scores 2 goals in the final to win the world cup. Kobe Bryant equals Jordan with a 6th NBA title. And more. It was given for free on Christmas day together with the 'normal' paper. A beautiful Christmas present – in order to 'warm-up'' the relationship with our readers. A week before, a print & radio awareness campaign listed the greatest disappointments in French sport across ages, promising fans a revenge on Christmas day.

Results

Sales increased by 20% on the 24th december, usually the worst day of the year for L'Equipe. We drove 600k more people on lequipe.fr. #lequipedereve became Twitter trend on 24th december. Sports fan commented and shared their sport dreams on Twitter and FB (more than 2000 « dreams ») The main french radios and TVs mentioned it – and it became the news : competitor's journalists debated on the chances our stories had to become reality. Renaud Lavilenie DID break the paul vault world record 2 months later, as anticipated by L'Equipe. And exacerbated the media noise. We re-engaged readers by making them dream. More than ever, L'Equipe is the brand people turn to to share their love of sport.