THE WORLD CUP BLOCKER

TitleTHE WORLD CUP BLOCKER
BrandEPRICE
Product/ServiceE-COMMERCE
Category B03. Web Service / App
Entrant TBWA\ITALIA Milan, ITALY
Idea Creation TBWA\ITALIA Milan, ITALY
Credits
Name Company Position
Hugo Gallardo TBWA\Italia Executive Creative Director
Gina Ridenti TBWA\Italia Executive Creative Director
Daniela De Seta TBWA\Italia Creative Director
Stefano Knoll TBWA\Italia Creative Director
Frank Guarini TBWA\Italia Art Director
Maria Vittoria Apicella TBWA\Italia Copywriter
Philip Rech Hway Developer
Mattia Procopio TBWA\Italia Project Manager
Jacopo Carapelli Filmini Director
Antonello Filosa TBWA\Italia Agency Producer
Arnaldo Funaro TBWA\Italia Social Media Director
Federica D'Andria TBWA\Italia Social Media Specialist
Jessica Martinelli TBWA\Italia Social Media Specialist

Background

Italians are happy people able to take everything lightly. But the failure of the national soccer team to qualify for the World Cup 2018 on November 13th, has been taken very seriously. Since 1958, the four-time winner team never missed to qualify. And this, for the Italians, was a big tragedy. “Italy, this is the Apocalypse”, “Disaster”, “National Shame”, “The End”: these were the headlines on bold on the major newspapers the day after the tragic match. An understandable reaction for a soccer-centred nation, whose passion for the game is truly part of the culture. But for the poor Italians the worst was yet to come, because the pain grew even stronger the closer the World Cup came: online every post, every article, every photo, took Italians back to that tragic day.

Describe the strategy

ePRICE, the Italian leader of the e-commerce and a brand that uses to anticipate its customers’ needs with the payoff "We know why. ePRICE is what you need" couldn't sit back looking at Italians sadness. That's why we created The World Cup Blocker: the only browser extension that protected Italians from the World Cup agony.

Describe the execution

The World Cup Blocker - available for Firefox and Chrome - for a month blocked all the contents about Russia 2018, including Facebook posts and Tweets, and replaced them with funny contents. Instead of goals, matches and celebrations of the others teams, the Italians who downloaded the extension, saw funny gifs and contents which invited Italians to spend the time they would have used to “watch” the World Cup, in a more meaningful way. Of course, using one of ePRICE's 4 million products. The World Cup Blocker has been launched on June the 14th through a social content strategy, a 1 to 1 Twitter activation and an online video: an ironic product demo that simulated the functioning of the extension, showing a huge man who physically blocked everything that involved soccer.

List the results

Not qualifying was a tragedy not only for all the supporters but also for many marketing directors, because without the World Cup also Italian investments have lost: it is estimated from 50-70 million euros burned-out (source Engage.it). Despite this, while other brands were crying for the millions waste on media buying during the World Cup that Italians didn’t want to watch anymore, ePRICE was in every corner of the web, without spending a cent.