CALCULATING HOPE

TitleCALCULATING HOPE
BrandMASTERCARD TURKEY
Product/ServiceMASTERCARD
Category A04. Data Storytelling
Entrant MASTERCARD Istanbul, TURKEY
Idea Creation 4129GREY Istanbul, TURKEY
Media Placement CARAT MEDYA Istanbul, TURKEY
PR BERNAYLAFEM Istanbul, TURKEY
Production MAHMUT KALYONCU İstanbul, TURKEY
Post Production MAHMUT KALYONCU İstanbul, TURKEY
Additional Company STATS PERFORM USA, USA
Credits
Name Company Position
Alemşah Öztürk 4129Grey Advertising Agency CEO & CCO
Leslie Krespin 4129Grey Advertising Agency VP of Strategy Planning & Client Services
Ahmet Terzioğlu 4129Grey Advertising Agency Creative Director
Bilal Öztaş 4129Grey Advertising Agency Copywriter
İpek Şurdum 4129Grey Advertising Agency Art Director
Gürkan Akkurt 4129Grey Advertising Agency Copywriter
Zeynep Özdoğan 4129Grey Advertising Agency Strategic Planner
Melis Erduran 4129Grey Advertising Agency Brand Director
Buket Törin 4129Grey Advertising Agency Brand Manager
Yaşar Eser 4129Grey Advertising Agency Creative Operations Director
Umut Gülbayrak 4129Grey Advertising Agency Project Manager
Soner Saygılı 4129Grey Advertising Agency Social Media Group Head
Didem Dezer 4129Grey Advertising Agency Digital Creative Group Head
Arif Yüksel 4129Grey Advertising Agency Digital Art Director
Selin Saka 4129Grey Advertising Agency Digital Art Director
Gülşah Batıbeki Güler 4129Grey Advertising Agency Head of Production
Kasım Bektaş 4129Grey Advertising Agency Agency Producer
Sezgin Saka 4129Grey Advertising Agency Agency Producer
Mahmut Kalyoncu Mahmut Kalyoncu Company Motion Artist
Duncan Alexander Stats Perform Co-Editor in Chief Opta/Stats Perform Data Analyst

Why is this work relevant for Creative Data?

In the days of the pandemic, where we are looking for crumbs of hope as the whole world, we want to show with data how sports can be the saviour of hope. As the official sponsor of the UEFA Champions League which was postponed a year, we as Mastercard seek ways of calculating hope in the football game. It was actually all about data-driven storytelling of surprising comebacks that happened at unexpected moments. So, we calculated the hope of legendary comebacks in the UEFA Champions League by OPTA's AI-supported Live-Win Probability model which was specifically created for this project.

Background

The pandemic has changed our lives entirely. We got anxious for our loved ones, our finances, and our health. We had to stay away from our daily habits. Meanwhile, sports and mostly football was one of our passions that we had to stay away from during this period. As the official sponsor of the 2021 UEFA Champions League, we wanted to remind the audience of the most beautiful feeling, that is, Hope. After long months of despair, our aim was to revive and protect their hopes about sports and its future.

Describe the Creative idea / data solution (20% of vote)

The first question before us was: "Can hope be calculated?" We aimed to show the answer to this question by using scientific methods and to prove the power of data-driven storytelling in the world of brand communication. For this reason, we thoroughly focused on the legendary comeback stories where each of them is a milestone in the history of the UEFA Champions League. We decided to prove that these comebacks are actually a showcase of hope for all fans even in the most desperate moments where the odds to win mathematically are very low. We set out to show how hope can change everything and turn the loser into a winner in a situation where the losing side has only 0.8% probability of winning the match.

Describe the data driven strategy (30% of vote)

Together with Stats Perform, the world's leading sports data company, we have created a special model to calculate the probability of comebacks. Artificial intelligence gave us the probability of the comebacks after processing the data set consisting of dozens of different data titles. In these probabilities the following elements were considered; Current forms of the teams / Forms of the players / Global strength rankings of the teams / Home advantage / Past games between teams / Foul / Red card / Away goals rule / Current score of the match / Situation in the two-legged series / Time remaining in the match or series / “OPTA Expected Goals (xG)” percentages of the teams / Shots on target / Passing percentages.

Describe the creative use of data, or how the data enhanced the creative output (30% of vote)

After calculating the legendary return probabilities, we've turned the minute-by-minute comeback odds and stories of each match into a digital experience at the priceless.com website. We launched our campaign film to announce our idea. We created Spotify spots and social media content from those legendary comeback stories. We integrated trivia quiz about UCL into the broadcast of famous sports network beIN SPORTS who broadcasts the UCL matches in Turkey. It was also featured on an European talk show on the renowned football platform GOAL’s YouTube channel. Together with Turkey's coolest sports media company Socrates Magazine, we have prepared a Mastercard UEFA Champions League special "Comeback" issue and the "Priceless " series on YouTube.

List the data driven results (20% of vote)

Our campaign has been translated into English, Spanish, French, and German and rolled out across Europe. The campaign had 11 million unique views only on Youtube, a total of 30 million reach on social media with over 50.000 interactions on across all social media channels. Socrates Magazine also met the target audience directly with over 400 thousand reach and 10 thousand interactions. We succeed also with beIN SPORTS banners which had over 1 million reach. The official sponsor of the UEFA Champions League, Mastercard, continued to maintain the freshness of hope by proving it with data and claimed that there is always hope, even in the most difficult times.