Erling Haaland is one of the most exciting strikers on the planet. Last year, rumours circulated online that he was to join Manchester City. This alone is a huge story in itself and we could have simply opted for montage of goals and a standard photoshoot - but we wanted to deliver a more detailed narrative - a narrative that would communicate that Haaland already had a deep connection with Manchester City.

Not only had Haaland’s father played for City, Haaland had been pictured in a City kit a number of times, with one particular photo having become famous amongst fans. We wanted to deliver this powerful existing connection message to the world in as simple and effective way as possible in a social-first video. This video was also to be a springboard and momentum driver for all the other Haaland content we released around his signing.

Our idea was simple, listen to our fans and give them what they wanted. But with a twist. Many fans were asking us to take a famous image of a teen Haaland wearing a City shirt and recreate it. But they had no idea that a) we’d listen and b) we’d do it for real with Haaland on a set. This was an opportunity to connect with our fans’ request, create a simple and highly effective launch video and also communicate to the world that there was an existing connection between Haaland and Manchester City.

But the devil was in the detail and the more effort put in to recreate the photo, the better it would resonate with fans - driving more momentum as a global piece of social content to deliver our strategy. We sourced replica sofa, cushions, blinds, bucket and even recreated the overexposed lighting from the original.

The launch video needed to reach as wide an audience as possible while also telling an authentic Haaland-Man City story. Haaland was already a record-breaking superstar so it had to work for the world, but it also needed to deliver for our fans. Our strategy was to create a short, narrative driven video that would tell a simple but powerful story connecting Erling with Man City without any language barriers.

The success of this strategy was not just evident in the performance metrics, but also the media coverage - - publications eulogising about the existing links between Haaland and City . Our target audience was primarily Man City fans all over the world, fortifying the existing connection between Erling and City. Our secondary audience was the wider football community and media to globally announce Haaland’s arrival in as impactful way as possible and drive talkability.

The idea lived and died on a pitch-perfect execution including finding a similar sofa, embroidering cushions, the towel, the bucket… even rehearsing how Haaland would recreate his pose considering he’s now 6ft4. The lighting was also critical, the original photo had a distinct over-exposed look which we needed to recreate on-site at Man City’s training ground.

We only had 10 minutes to get this video right, so everything had to run smoothly.

The 13s video did everything it needed to. It told the whole story of Erling’s connection to City, it showed Haaland in all his glory wearing the latest kit, it provided a brilliant piece of content for fans everywhere to watch, share and provided media with an asset to build stories around.

Views:

55.9million (hero video)

Impressions:

81.5m

Engagements:

5.7m

Achievement against business targets:

Video out-performed our last most successful player launch video by 3202% on Twitter.

Brand perception:

Received widespread media coverage including Sky Sports, BBC, The Times, The Guardian, The Mail Online, Yahoo, The Sun and huge amounts of fan love.

Hero video was a momentum driver and spearheaded the club's wider Haaland suite of video assets, which drove 215million views.

Quotes:

“Incredible throwback video,” The Metro

“Releasing a brilliant announcement video. The clip is a nod to his childhood, revealing an incredible throwback picture of him wearing a Man City shirt.” Sportbible

“This is better than Christmas day. Welcome home @erlingHaaland ya beauty.” @RClayton92

“How did they find the exact same pillows and couch to recreate the Haaland photo? Wow.”

@AN26th

Media coverage Advertising Equivalency Value:

- £228m driven by Haaland full launch campaign