Together with adidas and the Swedish Football Association, we invited all Swedes to become part of the national team.
BRIEF
adidas asked us to launch their new national team jersey ahead of the big game between Sweden and Italy in the qualifier of 2018’s Soccer World Cup. adidas wanted us to fulfill the brand promise: “Here to create”.
CONCEPT
Together with the Swedish Football association, adidas invited ALL Swedes to become part of the national team – getting their own names and numbers on the jersey, and getting included in the Swedish Football Association team list. Everytime someone joined the team, their name and number turned up on a jersey in the Swedish team’s locker room in real time, reminding the Swedish players that they just got a new team mate.
INSIGHT?
Sweden hadn’t won a football game against Italy in 30 years. Now we needed to win to have a chance to reach the World Cup in Moscow. We decided to challenge one of the core foundations of football: That of a team always being eleven players strong.
RESULTS
adidas new team jersey was everywhere before the game – in all big news media and in social channels with thousands of shares of the jersey from proud new team mates, resulting in a reach of 22.6 million. When the players left the locker room and entered Friends Arena, they weren’t 11 anymore. They were 7 704. For the first time in 30 years, Sweden won against Italy - and one of the smallest football nations became the largest.
