Winners & Shortlists

L'EQUIPE OF OUR DREAMS

TitleL'EQUIPE OF OUR DREAMS
BrandL'EQUIPE
Product/ServiceL'EQUIPE
Category A05. MEDIA RELATIONS
Entrant Company DDB PARIS, FRANCE
Advertising Agency DDB PARIS, FRANCE
Credits
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 Campaign

A special edition of L'Equipe with the stories a sports fan has always dreamt to read. More than he could experience in a lifetime. A newspaper packed with joy, with 'WOWs', with excitement. 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. Drogba returns to Marseille. And a lot more.

The Brief

The continuous challenge is to re-engage lost readers. Make L'Equipe the brand they come to to share their love of sports. The client was also looking for a way to sustain sales over a quiet period – Christmas – where sports activity is close to zero.

Results

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

Execution

L'Equipe of our dreams' was given for free on 24th December together with the 'normal' paper, in newsagents all across the country. A cool Christmas present to our readers. All the articles were then used on the website where 'L'Equipe of our dreams' was downloadable for free. Even if pure fiction, our stories had to sound credible in order to maximize reading pleasure. So we involved the editorial board of L'Equipe to have them write the articles. The best sports journalists in France played the game, and turned their job around – from writing reports and analysis, to writing fiction. Everything was made to feel like the event really happened the day before. That's how on 24th December, the front page of L'Equipe pictured Renaud Lavillenie who had broken Serguei Bubka's mythical record at pole vault. This immediately caught attention in store ('how could I miss that??') & spread on Twitter. Even other journalists thought for a minute they had missed the big news.

The Situation

L'Equipe is the leading French sports newspaper. An institution, 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 people get used to getting information for free.

The Strategy

We knew advertising would not be enough, that we had to come up with another innovative way to 'warm-up' the relationship. So we looked into the product itself. It all started with a simple insight. Why do people buy L'Equipe? Because they love champions, achievements, records, amazing destinies. They want great stories. So we decided to give them the best sport stories they would ever read. 'L'Equipe of our dreams'.