Portugal's qualification for Euro 2024 in Germany was not certain, but sure was highly likely. So MEO, the largest media operator in Portugal and official sponsor of the national football team, wanted a nationwide campaign to unite our country during Euro 2024.

Knowing that other major Portuguese brands, including MEO’s direct competitors, would also seize the moment and compete for Portuguese’s attention, the campaign had 3 objectives:

1. Stand out from the crowd and get people talking about the brand

2. Reinforce MEO's high levels of notoriety when it comes to Portugal and football

3. Continue to showcase MEO as a purpose driven brand that supports relevant causes.

We found an unexpected angle: with one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, we need the Portuguese to make babies. And nothing gets them more turned on than football. So, we simply used the Portuguese law: when a baby is born, parents get at least 1 month leave from work. The exact same duration as Euro 2024.

So, MEO encouraged the Portuguese to make babies perfectly timed to enjoy their parental leave during the tournament, offering free pay-per-view to every game.

Staying home from work, enjoying their baby, enjoying every game.

MEO wanted to capitalize on their sponsorship of the national team around Euro2024, competing for attention with dozens of brands doing the same at the exact same time. We needed something unignorable.

Starting from the brand´s purpose driven positioning, we chose to put highlight the country’s low birth rate. And found the perfect crossover with football in the portuguese deep love for this sport and the Portuguese law: when a child is born, parents get at least 1 month leave from work. The exact duration of Euro2024.

We gifted this insightful hack to the Portuguese: make babies in September 2023, stay home from work to enjoy the games in June 2024. Everyone having a baby perfectly timed wins the promotional offer created to tie the story: free streaming to every game.

This strategy allowed MEO to relevantly start communicating 9 months before Euro2024, owning that space way before any competitor.

Human biology dictated the launch date: September 2023, 9 months before the start of Euro2024, with the project’s landing page filhosdoeuro.pt, where the video "Kick-Off" explained all details and encouraged the Portuguese to make love for the love of the national team. At the same time, we released "The Talk", a TVC where a wannabe grandmother uses the hack to convince her son and wife, two football fans, to have a baby. Among many assets, we created the playlist “Music to make Euro Babies to” on Spotify with romantic songs to set the right mood. In March 2023, 3 months before the Euro2024 came "The Wait", a new TVC were our football lover couple, already expecting a baby, meets a friend couple in the obstetrics waiting room.

The campaign spanned over 9 months on TV, radio, social media, website, OOH and MEO stores, following the gestation calendar and main milestones.

Until now, over 500 couples expecting a baby have registered on the landing page filhosdoeuro.pt and applied to receive free pay-per-view during Euro24.

In the first week, the “Euro Babies” launch video took the lead as the most shared MEO post ever on Instagram, receiving 570+ comments. Engagement reached +100% in Instagram, +90% in Facebook and +23% in Tik Tok compared to the brand’s average in the last 5 years.

On social media, it only took three days for the campaign to become MEO's most viral campaign ever. Related topics as wages, birth incentives, labour market, housing crisis, and even the duration of the parental leave, were brought to the discussion. Suddenly, the campaign was igniting a wide debate, even bigger than the Portuguese birth rate issue.

On television, the campaign reached 82% of the Portuguese population.

The topic "natality" on Google Trends increased 125%.