Background: Brazil has always been known as "The Soccer Nation". But just one year before the World Cup was played in the country, something odd happened: the Brazilians were growing apart from the event due to a big political turmoil.
Task: Help Itaú Bank, one of the major Official Sponsors of both Fifa World Cup and the Brazilian National Team, raise positive awareness for the event by bringing fans closer together to the National Team.
Idea: soccer fans in Brazil love the sport. Soccer is commonly known as "The national passion". It makes the fans’ hearts beat faster and live by it. So why not using this powerful asset to fuel Brazilian's National Team on the field?
Strategy: we created a multidisciplinary campaign divided into 5 phases. Each one of them designed to engage fans, build anticipation for the World Cup and generate content such as: one OOH activation, one TV commercial, 9 YouTube webisodes and a short documentary film premiered in movie theaters.
The first step was to build the activation vessel for the campaign. We created a technology capable of capturing, recording, and naming each set of heartbeats from fans as they were safely kept in one of the most recognizable icons of the sport: a soccer ball.
Then with this ball in hand, we travelled to 6 Brazilian important capital cities and called out fans on the streets to donate their heartbeats to encourage and fuel the Brazilian national team.
More than 30 thousand people donated their heartbeats. Common people, celebrities, everyone.
All their support recorded by this ball was later passed on to David Luiz, one of Brazilian National Team's key players, who then shared this message of passion and hope to the whole national team a couple of days before the World Cup kickoff.
Throughout the course of the activation hundreds of die-hard fans’ stories with deep connections with the National Team came to our attention. The most interesting ones were transformed in 9 documentary webisodes which got launched on YouTube over the course of 3 months before the tournament.
They were called "Brazilians at heart": an entertaining way to celebrate the fan passion and to fuel the Brazilian National Team fighting spirit.
We told the story of José Renato, the largest collector of documents and publications on the Brazilian National team recognized by the Guinness Book of records.
We told the story of Maria de Lourdes and her beloved rooster, Paquito Fred, faithful companion and talisman in her fanatical love for the Brazilian National team.
We found Westfalia, a German city in southern Brazil where Mr. Ido Alhert, the announcer of the local radio, broadcasts the games of the Brazilian team. All in German.
Rogelson Barreto, the wardrobe assistant of the Brazilian National Team since the 1994 World Cup, tells how he prepares the players’ gears of the most successfull team in soccer history.
This is the story of Aldyr Garcia Schlee, an unknown artist from southern Brazil who created one of the biggest and most recognized football icons: the green and yellow jersey of the Brazilian National Team.
In 1994, in the World Cup in the United States, Nelson Paviotti made apromise: if Brazil became champion of the world he would only wear clothes in the colors of the Brazilian flag for the rest of his life. Another story of unconditional love for the Brazilian Team.
José Silvério, the biggest sports radio broadcaster in the history of Brazil, tells stories of his more than 50 year career and details of some of the 9 Cups he narrated.
We told the story of José Rogério, a fanatic Brazilian supporter who transformed his radio into a pan-religious talisman. All gods colliding to bring strength for the Brazilian National Team.
Here is the story of David Luiz Moreira Marinho, “The” David Luiz, right defender of the Brazilian team, and yet another Brazilian fan who 4 years prior supported Brazil in the South African World Cup and dreamed of one day being part of the Brazilian National Team.
After the big success of the "Brazilians at Heart" webseries on YouTube, a short film connecting all 9 stories was released one week before the Brazilian World Cup. It was the first time that Itaú, the largest Latin American bank, launched an original short film in theaters. A historic event and a perfect conclusion to a big initiative that helped bring support to the national team and a unique homage to whom always supported the beautiful game with unconditional passion: the fans.