Heineken kicks off the Champions League with #ChampionTheMatch TV & digital campaign

The #ChampionTheMatch event begins today (February 17th), and following on from the success of last year’s #ShareTheSofa campaign, Heineken will once again encourage viewers to engage with the hashtag when sharing and talking about the Champions League.

The campaign kicked off with an interview with champion midfielder, Xavi, on how he prepares for big matches; and will evolve from an in-game twitter Q&A, to an entertainment platform that will have fans’ full attention pre and post-game.

Heineken hope the campaign will be fully immersive since it taps into fans’ match day rituals, something that can be enjoyed and shared by all football fans, played out by a 90 second ad (released the other day).

By way of extending the online campaign, Heineken will run promotions giving fans the chance to win prizes every minute of every match – including the final: one of which is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to experience the trophy first hand, another is tickets to the UEFA Champions League Final.

Plus, we can expect more short films to be shown in ad breaks throughout the Champions League action, continuing the thread of Heineken dominance and integration.

Conclusion

Integration and brand dominance, though not in any way new to media, is powerful, and in the case of the Champions League, it will be Heineken on the tips of the 4.2 billion football fans’ tongues.

Riding the wave of sports events can prove excellent in promoting brands. You only need to look at those advertising during the Super Bowl to see how powerful brand/sport association can be, (Budweiser springs to mind).

It will be interesting following the #ChampionTheMatch campaign to see what level of engagement is achieved and to what extent this might be able to be replicated on a local level and its effect leveraged by smaller brands.