IFK Gothenburg "Gaisflowers"

IFK Goteborg and GAIS, both from Goteborg, are two main football clubs in the Swedish Premier League. IFK Goteborg is the better of the two and has not lost a match against GAIS since 1992. That’s 16 years ago. On 1 September, it was once again time for the derby between the teams. But there’s a problem when one team wins too often; the suspense disappears. And so do spectators. So what could they do in order to raise interest and sell more tickets the week before the big match? In order to sell more tickets they had to do something about the fundamental problem. Instead of just selling tickets they had to sell the whole idea with a derby. They had to get the thrill back in the game. That´s why they decided to secure the opposition in the future. IFK Goteborg started a campaign where the money collected went to the GAIS youth team. They designed a pin, a flower, which was sold for the symbolic price of SEK 16 (Euro 1,5). All campaign units aimed to gather money for the GAIS youth team. They hoped this would give the derby a lot of publicity and help to sell more tickets. The week before the campaign started, they sold approximately 300 tickets a day. During the campaign they sold a total of 8,000 tickets, i.e. 2,000 tickets per day (266% over budget). With a very limited media budget, the campaign spread locally, nationally and became the talk of the town. More than 100 newspaper articles and television reports were made. More than 60 blogs commented on the campaign and over 1,000 comments written and 113 other websites referring to the campaign site. A campaign site was created and had over 13,000 visitors from 38 different countries. The collected funds went to the GAIS youth team; they bought 400 new footballs with the money. Promotion helps them sell tickets right away. This year they really had to succeed. The thrill of the derby was gone and so were the spectators. But they couldn´t just do a normal Sales Pomotion campaign. They had to sell the whole idea with a derby. They had to get the thrill back in the game. Bronze Cannes Lions Promo Winner.

Agency: ANR.BBDO Gothenburg, Sweden.