Gillette was introducing a complete line of products for beard care: The new brand King C. Gillette.

But how do you communicate that Gillette is for all Italian men, both the clean shaven and the bearded? We decided to use the one thing that brings all men together: Football. So, we created 2 teams: Bombers, for perfectly clean-shaven men led by Gillette ambassador and ex-football striker, Bobo Vieri; and Kings, for the bearded men, led by World Champion, Daniele De Rossi. We pitted Bombers and Kings against each other and started the “fight” via our talent’s IG profiles, making them tease one another around a fundamental question: “Are bearded or clean-shaven men cooler?. As a result, many other famous football players spontaneously joined in with our campaign which generated further “controversy” on social media, causing bearded and clean-shaven men to take sides.

During the high pitch of the campaign, taking advantage from this trend on social media, we created an amazing event: for the first time in Italy, we built a live TV show, where two teams made by very famous ex-football players played against each other according to their facial grooming preferences: the clean-shaven Bombers against the bearded Kings

In other words, we transformed an advertising idea in a branded content watched in prime time on a national coverage channel.

We started a “fight” from the IG profiles of our talents, making them tease each others around a fundamental question: “Are bearded or clean-shaven men cooler?"

Many other famous football players joined them spontaneously and started to play with our campaign.

That has generated a “controversy” on social media where people with beards and clean shaven ones started to tease each others, like our talents, bringing to life the communication idea: bearded men and shaved men represent two opposite worlds, two ways of thinking, two ways of being cool.

The match was played on May 26, 2021, in Rome, at the Stadio dei Marmi.

The event was broadcast on the national Mediaset channel Italia1 at 9 pm.

We created Italy’s first ever live football match tailored for a brand on national Prime time TV.

26 of the most famous professional ex-football players played against each other according to their facial grooming preferences.

314 million impressions

1.3 million people connected during the stream

event unique reach: 4.4 million

Share: +170%

thousands of user generated content for both brands

#bombervsking, 1st biggest trend on Italy during the night

Gillette purchase intent: +70%

King C. Gillette purchase intent: +79%