TRANSFER THE FAN

TitleTRANSFER THE FAN
BrandBUNDESLIGA
Product/ServiceFANHOOD OF THE BUNDESLIGA
Category A08. Leisure
Entrant DUVAL GUILLAUME Brussels, BELGIUM
Idea Creation DUVAL GUILLAUME Brussels, BELGIUM
Media Placement DFL DIGITAL SPORTS Cologne, GERMANY
Production ADULT IMAGE Brussels, BELGIUM
Credits
Name Company Position
Koenraad Lefever Duval Guillaume Creative Director
Dries De Wilde Duval Guillaume Creative Director
Arnaud Bailly Duval Guillaume Creative
Kareld De Mulder Duval Guillaume Creative
Dorien Van Antwerpen Duval Guillaume Account Manager
Jessica Danese Duval Guillaume Account Director
Marc Van Buggenhout Prodigious TVC Producer
Erik Bulckens Adult Director
Tatiana Pierre, Charles Kinoo, Brechje Depourcq Adult Producers
Pieter Van Alphen Adult DOP
Simone Rau Adult Editor

Why is this work relevant for PR?

With 'The Loyalty Test'-campaign, we decided to put 3 football fans to the test during the annual winter break of the football season. Whilst teams have a lot of money to bring in new star players during this period, we however setup a stunt to bring in new fans. Sports media are reporting about the transfers of players and the huge amounts of money that are attached. Bundesliga wanted to use this moment to show that the loyalty of the fans is priceless.

Background

The Bundesliga is Germany's primary football competition, the football league with the highest average stadium attendance worldwide and watched by millions of football fans around the world. During 3 weeks of winter, the competition is interrupted and attention shifts towards the transfer window (‘mercato’) with clubs willing to offer a lot of money for star players to change colors.

Describe the creative idea

During a 'loyalty test', we made fake football agents offer 3 die-hard fans of the most popular Bundesliga clubs a lucrative transfer from their team to a rival club. A hidden-camera stunt to illustrate the love, passion and dedication supporters have for their club – something money can’t buy.

Describe the strategy

With the ‘Loyalty Test’ we made a compelling piece of entertainment, newsworthy to publish in times in a period where big transfers make the headlines. The timing of 'The Loyalty Test' was crucial: the winter stop is a period filled with transfer news about players in the Bundesliga. The film was sent in avant premiere to the most active sport journalists who were actively covering the ongoing player transfers. The campaign objective was to activate the global football loving community around the restart of the Bundesliga season after winter break. Within this context, we used the official Bundesliga Facebook page as a central element in the campaign. It allowed us to divide and tailor distribution of our video content towards a primary specific group of fans of all the Bundesliga clubs, and a secondary broad target group of football fans all over the world.

Describe the execution

The stunt took place in business hotel in Düsseldorf, 3 die-hard fans were invited for a "TV interview" about fan loyalty but walked into a hidden-camera prank. They were offered to switch teams and be ambassador of their most rival club. They were offered big amounts of money and even a car. The whole prank was filmed by 8 different cameras, with fellow supporters and friend also being in on the prank.

List the results

The film was launched globally on January 3rd, 10 days before the second season half of Bundesliga started. - Globally over 130 million fans engaged with the campaign. - Bundesliga gained 1 million new fans on their Facebook page. - On the Facebook page of Bundesliga, the film had 2,9 million views, was shared 6.600 times and received over 49.000 likes and 160.000 comments. It was picked up on Prime TV in Germany, Brazil, France and many other markets.