2021 Brand Experience & Activation

MESSI MESSAGES

TitleMESSI MESSAGES
BrandLAY'S
Product/ServiceLAY'S SAVOURY SNACK
Category A01. Consumer Goods
Entrant 180 AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
Idea Creation 180 AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
Production UNIT9 London, UNITED KINGDOM
Additional Company SYNTHESIA London, UNITED KINGDOM
Additional Company 2 VOICEARCHIVE UK LIMITED Harrow, UNITED KINGDOM
Credits
Name Company Position
Kalle Hellzen 180 Amsterdam Chief Creative Officer
Joe Craig 180 Amsterdam Creative Director
Ed Ryder 180 Amsterdam Creative Director
Jake Butler 180 Amsterdam Art Director
Jessica Gunn 180 Amsterdam Copywriter
Marloes van den Berg 180 Amsterdam Chief Production Officer
Colin Pueschner 180 Amsterdam Producer
Max Hurford 180 Amsterdam Account Director
Suzanne Whittaker 180 Amsterdam Account Manager
Sarah Gough 180 Amsterdam Head of Business Affairs
Martin Wong 180 Amsterdam Senior Planner
Jeroen van Hove 180 Amsterdam Data & Insights Strategist
Katie Melkonian 180 Amsterdam Data & Insights Analyst
James Kibbey Unit9 Films Director
Stephan Bischof Unit9 Creative Director
Neal Bryant Unit9 Producer (Digital)
Harry Starkey-Midha Unit9 Producer (Film)
Sophie Keyse Unit9 Executive Producer
Corneliu Ilisescu Synthesia Lead Engineer
Yoan Petrov Synthesia Delivery Engineer
Jonathan Starck Synthesia Supervisor
Martin Kingston VoiceArchive Sound Engineer
James Murray Unit9 Business Director
Sammy Viel Unit9 Project Manager
Krzysztof Pulchaski Unit9 Technical Lead
Krzysztof Wyrzykowski Unit9 Senior Frontend Developer
James Stokes Unit9 QA Lead
Michał Jakobsze Unit9 Designer

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

Lay’s took their sponsorship of the UEFA Champions League to the next level by building a personalised, mobile-first brand experience for millions of football fans around the world. Not just any brand experience, a mobile site that allowed fans to create personalised deepfaked videos of legend Lionel Messi to send to their mates, inviting them to enjoy football together. It built direct relationships with fans – no easy feat for an FMCG brand – in a way that cut through, entertained, and found a place in football culture.

Background

Lay’s has proudly sponsored the UEFA Champions League for years. We’re all around the pitch, in ad breaks and social, we sponsor amazing players like Lionel Messi, Paul Pogba, and Lieke Martens. But the sponsorship game is intense. It’s cluttered. We faced fierce competition from other brands, everywhere. We wanted to stand out in a way that built on Lay’s long history of galvanising social connection. So we focused on earning a place where brands aren’t normally able to advertise, and aren’t particularly welcome. Private messaging groups. The holy grail of earned media. The groups where all the real football chat happens. There was no buying our way in, though. We had to do something genuinely interesting and useful to fans – something that entered football culture and created conversation. Something totally unlike any other brand. Challenge accepted.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

Imagine getting a personal invitation from legend Lionel Messi to watch the big Champions League game with your friend — where he says your name. You wouldn’t dream of turning down the G.O.A.T, would you? Introducing Messi Messages, the future of football invitations: a marvellously unexpected twist on the boring old text message. Messi Messages is a deepfake-powered experience allowing fans all over the world to create their own personalised video messages from the football star himself, spoken flawlessly in their own language – perfect to wow their WhatsApp groups. With ten different language options and thousands of variables, people can generate an almost limitless number of bespoke invitations from the G.O.A.T. himself, to share in group chats and on social platforms with friends and family all over the world.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Lay’s focuses on social football fans, those who love the experience and camaraderie around watching football. Today, the most personal and richest social football experiences happen on social messaging platforms. Brand-free zones where all sponsors are shut out. In order to go where no brand had gone before and become part of real, personal football conversations, we needed to find a way to infiltrate these spaces. So we played our trump card: globally loved football superstar, Lionel Messi. The G.O.A.T himself. We made Messi the heart of the idea, our Trojan horse, who not only unlocked access to private football conversation, but got people to share Lay’s content with their mates.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

We launched Messi Messages through (the real) Messi – he invited his 295m social followers to visit the website and create their own personalised message in any of ten languages. Our tongue-in-cheek film showed the innovative deepfake technology in action, where we heroed a suddenly multilingual Messi, proudly announcing the “increíble/ невероятный/inanılmaz/incredible” technology as if he could speak Spanish, Russian, Turkish, and English. “Wow!” exclaim impressed fans, because – wow, indeed. Local influencers drove usage in specific countries, posting their stunned reactions to receiving personal invites from Messi, teaching their followers how to use the technology, and encouraging them to visit the website. An additional educational film ran to ensure that people were crystal clear on how to make their own personalised message from the G.O.A.T.

List the results (30% of vote)

Messi Messages became part of football culture. It’s been used A LOT: 1.43 Messages were created per second in the first 24 hours. To date, over 4.5 million personalised Messi Messages have been made – all living second lives when shared on WhatsApp and social, with strong Lay’s branding. People love it: They’ve been spending an average of 4 minutes on the site – 375% above-norms. The bounce rate is a tiny 7% — that’s 800% above-norms. We blew up social, with people saying... “THIS IS A GENIUS AD CAMPAIGN” “Este idea es brilliante” “One more reason to love Lay’s” It was picked up organically by ESPN, infiltrated WhatsApp groups and was genuinely useful and entertaining to football fans. And the best results of all, which are a bit harder to measure; friends spending more quality time together. Something we could all use a little more of.