Romanian football reached an old-time low! Since the last qualification to the World Cup dating back to 1998, it all went downhill. Romania failed to qualify for Brazil World Cup, when it surrendered to Greece in November 2013. In the last decade, internal football competitions were devastated by corruption scandals, lower performance. No wonder the tone of media was predominantly negative and supporters were increasingly disappointed.

What did research revealed about this context? If in 2010 the average live audience per match on a stadium was 5.700 supporters, it has decreased considerably to 3.700 supporters in 2014. The most important sports local publications have closed their print editions (e.g. ProSport) and sports editorial offices were wiped out from most TV stations.

Therefore, we’ve set a challenge of our own: to reignite the values of football and link them to the friendship territory owned by Bergenbier.

Bergenbier, a keen supporter of the Romanian football since the 90s through the sponsorship of the Romanian national team and the Romanian championship, was facing now a huge dilemma: how to associate Bergenbier’s brand values to the current dynamic of the Romanian football?

This was a true challenge! Somehow, the solution was both simple and complex: bringing back football to its roots, when people were playing it everywhere, just for the beauty of the game. Due to the most popular beer’s powerful credentials in football, the idea came as the perfect opportunity:

What if Bergenbier would organize its own amateur football competition in order to revive the forgotten values of this game? A well thought-out campaign succeeded in attracting more than 27.000 people through the perfect choice of elements: a teasing campaign, a launch event on the heliport of a skyscraper, the stunts in the most unusual places, followed by intense media relations activities in 30 cities. As expected, there was great coverage and WOM!