2014 is the year of the Football World cup. And it is the year of Volkswagen launching the Cup Special Edition. Our brief was to link Volkswagen and football and claim this territory before everyone else chimes in. And to make Volkswagen look like an official FIFA sponsor without them actually being one. Our target audience was basically everyone with a drivers licence and a liability to football – in other words: the whole country.

The biggest TV event around the time of the launch was the annual Christmas speech of the German Chancellor. Well, this year somebody else was holding a speech to the German people too. On the 23rd of December, during prime time, for two full minutes, on more than 20 TV channels at the same time – and basically every other media possible – one country was watching one man saying one thing: Good luck … in 2018. Pelé, known and loved as the best football player ever, was our Brazilian “Minister of Football Affairs”. His speech was not only seen by literally the whole country, it was also featured on the news, in daily news papers and their online formats. Something an ad hasn’t achieved in years. This, of course, wouldn’t have been possible without the PR-efforts of DDB Tribal. From leaking and spreading the news of the return of the football icon weeks before the event to the TV- and Social Media-roadblocking during and the media coverage after it, PR was a driving force behind the campaign.

2014 is the year of the Football Worldcup. And it is the year of Volkswagen launching the Cup Special Edition. Our brief was to link Volkswagen and football and claim this territory before everyone else chimes in. And to make Volkswagen look like an official FIFA sponsor without them actually being one. Our target audience was basically everyone with a drivers licence and a liability to football – in other words: the whole country. The biggest TV event around the time of the launch was the annual Christmas speech of the German Chancellor. Well, this year somebody else was holding a speech to the German people too. At the 23rd of December, during prime time, for two full minutes, on more than 20 TV channels at the same time – and basically every other media possible – one country was watching one man saying one thing: Good luck … in 2018. Pelé, known and loved as the best football player ever, was our Brazilian “Minister of Football Affairs”. His speech was not only seen by literally the whole country, it was also featured on the news, in daily news papers and their online formats. Something an ad hasn’t achieved in years. It only made sense to team up Volkswagen, one of the most beloved car brands worldwide, with one of the most beloved football players of all time, Pelé.

The TV-event “Christmas Speech” was designed to only run once simultaneously on more than 20 TV channels for the whole of two minutes – and at the same time in basically every other media, from outdoor to web. We generated 32 minutes of coverage in the news and other TV shows. It was the kick-off event of the Volkswagen special edition campaign that generated 1,8 billion new contacts in a two months flight. It also lead to the best start in sales and car configurations of any special edition-campaign from Volkswagen in Germany (120,226 special edition units, 584,539 units overall during that time).