Winners & Shortlists

LIDL FAN CUP

TitleLIDL FAN CUP
BrandLIDL STIFTUNG & CO.
Product/ServiceLIDL
Category A06. EVENTS & EXPERIENTIAL (INCL. STUNTS)
Entrant Company McCANN WORLDGROUP GERMANY Frankfurt, GERMANY
Advertising Agency McCANN WORLDGROUP GERMANY Frankfurt, GERMANY
Advertising Agency 2 MRM // McCANN WORLDWIDE Frankfurt, GERMANY
PR Agency WEBER SHANDWICK Cologne, GERMANY
Credits
Name Company Position
Ruber Iglesias Mccann WORLDGROUP Ceo
Elke Klinkhammer Mccann WORLDGROUP Cco
Martin Biela MRM/Mccann Executive Creative Director
Jerome Cholet Mccann WORLDGROUP Pr/Communications Director
Dom Heinrich MRM/Mccann Creative Director Innovation Advertising
Mark Hollering MRM/Mccann Creative Technology Director
Andreas Brueckner MRM/Mccann Managing Director
Frank Ladner MRM/Mccann Cto
Philipp Schlosser MRM/Mccann Sen. Creative Concept
Markus Goerg MRM/Mccann Sen It Architect
Andreas Gruener MRM/Mccann Sen It Project Manager
Timea Kolop MRM/Mccann Pr/Communications
Jacqueline Grochalski MRM/Mccann Visual Designer
Anna Chetchetka MRM/Mccann Art Director
Christian Endecott MRM/Mccann Copywriter
Anna/Katharina Ley MRM/Mccann Account Manager
Stephan Rappl MRM/Mccann Management Supervisor
Kati Kempe MRM/Mccann Content Coordination
Jan Ribbeck Webershandwick Director/Head Of Corporate Communication
Birgit Schnabel Webershandwick

The Campaign

The world cup 2014 was approaching and fans from all nationalities, cultures and languages were beginning to feel its pulse. At the same time LIDL, the leading grocery retailer in Europe, wanted to push their image as an innovative and surprising brand. Through one great idea, we gave all football fans, a truly unique opportunity: To win the world cup for their own country and in turn, experience the goal-like feeling of great shopping at LIDL. In every world cup emotions run high, especially during penalty shootouts. But sadly, there’s little fans can do to influence the moments of decision. The truth is, they are relegated to being spectators. Recognizing fans desire to take action, we created the Lidl Fan Cup: “Play online. Shoot offline.” The Lidl Fan Cup was an enormous European foosball tournament. It was aimed at all football fans and Lidl Facebook Fans alike. Our goal? To transport the emotions of shopping at Lidl by letting fans experience the scoring of a goal for their own country.

The Brief

LIDL, the leading grocery retailer in Europe, wanted to push their image as an innovative and surprising brand. The target goal was a double the invest of the project with a media coverage. Finally we multiplied by five. And set Lidl as a sporty and innovative brand which surprises their customers.

Results

Player engagement of over 10 minutes per visit, countless shares on Facebook and twitter, an increase of followers of more than 500.000 Fans for Lidl. That is 300% more than the average number of new Fans during this period. And with broad coverage by several media channels in Europe, in just 6 weeks the campaign earned 100 Million impressions and 4 million Euros in coverage. The 50 with Lidl products branded arenas generated more than 100.000 hours of branding during the tournament. More numbers: 25 branded arenas. 50 tables. 302 cameras. 336 stepper motors. 10km cable. 300 moves per minute. 181.168 motions for each motor. 1.350 TB Video-Traffic. 1 striker. And the winner? The Lidl Fans of the Czech Republic! This was celebrated with a special voucher action via Facebook.

Execution

16 other Lidl countries sent local media experts to visit the Arena to experience 50 tables live in action. Lidl Italia hosted a massive PR event at the San Siro soccer stadium in Milan. Special Guest was the former Italian world cup winner and AC Milan star Fabio Grosso. During the press conference Lidl presented the world cup 2014 product range and the Lidl Fan Cup together with the testimonial. For this event a table was placed in the stadium and the media played against Fabio Grosso. Bulgaria invited the current women’s world foosball champion, Ekaterina Atanasova, to visit the arena with an entourage of TV and local News media experts. She played against the journalists, but also against strangers in the tournament. And of course she won some games for her country.

The Situation

LIDL, the leading grocery retailer in Europe wanted to transfer their key message - exciting and successful shopping - from local stores into the digital world. And, as an official FIFA partner in 2014 they set out to place it in the context of football. Promote the Lidl Fan Cup in 23 countries in Europe. With our key message „Play online. Shoot offline."

The Strategy

In order to promote the Lidl Fan Cup, we documented every step of the development process and created 40 hours moving material and a huge collection of images. Everything was uploaded to a special content platform only available for press and media. Additionally, the journalists could also view PR stories for consumer, business and technology-orientated media.