Title	BELGIUMIZEME
Brand	KBVB-URBSFA (ROYAL BELGIAN FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION)
Product/Service	NATIONAL FOOTBALL TEAM WORLDCUP 2014
Category	C02. USE OF SOCIAL IN A PR CAMPAIGN
Entrant Company	BOONDOGGLE Leuven, BELGIUM
Advertising Agency	BOONDOGGLE Leuven, BELGIUM

Name	Company	Position
Niels Schreyers	BOONDOGGLE	Creative Director
Dieter Vanhoof/Bout Holtof	BOONDOGGLE	Creative Team
Karel/Jan Van Haute	BOONDOGGLE	Multimedia Developer
Sven Verfaille	BOONDOGGLE	Graphic Designer
Frederik Cuyvers	BOONDOGGLE	Campaign Manager
Peter Verbiest	BOONDOGGLE	Strategic Director
Bob Madou	KBVB/URBSFA ROYAL BELGIAN FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION)	Business Director

The Campaign

CHALLENGE The Royal Belgian Football Association mission is to organize and promote Belgian Football. That includes promoting the national football team and maximize the commercial value of the national football team. Fans are a crucial element in the success of any sports team. As Vincent Kompany said himself, “Our fans and their support are crucial to winning matches”. Now Belgium has a population of 11 million people, while some of our World Cup opponents have over 317 million. So the Belgian Red Devils could always use some extra fans. IDEA We created BelgiumizeMe, an app that invited foreign football fans to cheer for our national team and adopt them as fans by giving them a Belgian name. RESULTS BelgiumizeMe was launched via Twitter and reached 8.7 million users in only 2 days: 372.398 foreigners became a bit Belgian. Plus the app generated a lot of media attention.

The Brief

The goal was to promote the Belgian Red Devils towards the rest of the world and to get even more fans cheering for them during the matches in the Round of 16 and Quarterfinals. Target audience was every football fan interested in the World Cup, especially those of countries that didn't reach the Round of 16.

Results

We reached 8,7 million twitterusers in only 2 days. 372398 foreigners became a bit Belgian and got adopted as Belgian footballfan. On top of that, BelgiumizeMe received a lot of international media attention including BBC, Daily Mail and Reddit.

Execution

We created “BelgiumizeMe”, a web app that invited foreign football fans to cheer for our national team at the World Cup by turning their names into a Belgian one. This meant that Ricky Gervais was able to support us as his Belgian alter ego, Rudy Goossens. A share-button made it possible for the new Red Devil football fans to share their new name with the world. BelgiumizeMe was launched on the 30 of June, just one day before the Belgian Red Devils had to play their Round of 16-match against the United States. The players of the Belgian football team, who have millions of followers on twitter from all over the world, published a tweet to promote BelgiumizeMe. From the BelgianRedDevils-twitteraccount, we also sent tweets to popular twitterers such as Hugh Jackman, Gary Lineker, Richard Branson and many more to inform them of their Belgiumized name.

The Situation

In conjunction with the Royal Belgian Football Association and the Belgian Red Devils, we’ve built a strong fandom over the past couple of years. That's how we got almost every Belgian cheering for the national team during the World Cup 2014 in Brazil. Great you'ld think, but as Belgium has a population of just over 11 million people, while some of our opponents, such as USA, have a mere 317 million, we needed to involve foreign football lovers to cheer for Belgium. Enabling earned media such as PR was our only option to reach a worldwide audience.

The Strategy

The key insight was the fact that football fans are more interested in a world cup game if it involves their national team. As soon as their team is eliminated, the tournament loses appeal to them. So we came up with a surprising solution that gave them a new reason to keep following the tournament. By becoming a Belgian fan, they got "adopted" by us and so they could cheer together with us for the Belgian Red Devils.