Research has indicated that many fans watch
matches at home alone so, in this year's
campaign, Heineken focused on the event as
a shared experience with friends. "Heineken
showed a group of friends behaving like
footballers - only to reveal that they were
UEFA Champions League fans watching the
match." The message to the fans? "To take
the watching of the UEFA Champions League
as seriously as the players taking part in it
do!" says Tim.
Taking the idea of a shared experience for
fans a step further is Heineken's Star Final
concept. Every year, since the 2006-07
season, Heineken hosts a live screening of
the UEFA Champions League final at an exotic
location for a select group of competition
winners. Previous Star Final events have
taken place in Iceland, South Africa and
Thailand.
This year, the destination was Brazil, one of
the greatest footballing nations on earth and
the birthplace of some of the sport's most
legendary icons, like Zico and Pelé. There
was an online game to test if consumers were
'Siesta', or 'Fiesta' - giving them the chance
to attend a special screening at Rio de
Janeiro's famous Copacabana Beach.
"With the Facebook connect application
integrated in this game, our aim was to
create a buzz on the world's largest social
media network and to generate additional
traffic to our website," Tim says. "This was
also supported with banners, online seeding
and a viral to generate enthusiasm around
the competition. In only a few weeks, we
already had 2.24 million unique visitors to
the website!"
The event proved to be a great success.
Three hundred lucky winners were flown to
Brazil to experience the thrilling final on
22 May between FC Internazionale Milano
and FC Bayern Munich, live from Madrid. All
in all, through the heineken.com website, its
Facebook page and viral video, more than
two million people from all over the globe
engaged with the brand.
"The effect of this is twofold," continues
Tim. "First, we captured their Facebook
information which, going forward, allows us
to build a relationship with them. Second,
their membership of the Star Final group is
then visible to all of their friends, who may
then also be motivated to click the link and
join themselves. This massively increases our
reach, way beyond direct visitors to the Star
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