In 2012, Nike launched the new jersey of the Brazilian national football team. A jersey made with a lot of technology, five stars full of history, and a present with a lot of distrust.The problem wasn’t in the product itself but in its loss of value and significance in recent years. Football fans had become even more distant and cared less about the national team.

Our goal was to rescue their trust and reconnect these fans with the team through a dialogue.On February 23, the day the national team took off for their first match of the year, the biggest star of the team, Neymar, let a telephone number leak on his Twitter account during a conversation with another of the team’s stars, Paulo Henrique Ganso, who sports the number 10 jersey.The news quickly went viral and was featured in several Brazilian news websites.The intentional mistake made people call the mysterious number and on the other side of the line it was Neymar himself who answered the call.Those who called heard a message spoken by the player, commenting on the prank and inviting all fans to leave a message of support to all the players of the team.On the following day, the Nike Futebol channels on Facebook and Twitter made it official as an action of brand communication.It was the first communication channel that was opened between the fans and the team.On the day of the match (February 28), all of the fans who left a message for the players received a voice message from Neymar, thanking for the support as if he was talking directly from the locker room before the match.Right after the player’s voice message, these fans received a text message with a link that led them to watch, first-hand, the new Nike commercial for the Brazilian national team jersey.The action showed a high level of engagement. In just 5 days there were more than 47,000 calls that helped the consumers to feel closer and connected to the team, as well as collaborating for the film to become the most viewed ever on Nike Brasil’s YouTube channel. In just one week there were more than 4.5 million views.

Neymar let his telephone leak on Twitter, during a supposed call to the player Ganso. In a few minutes, other celebrities (Anderson Silva, Ronaldo, Thiaguinho and Ganso) trolled the prank. The “news” viralized, and was featured in several websites as real news. The “mistake” caused people to call and hear a recorded message of Neymar inviting the fans to leave a message of support for the players. On the following day, Nike also divulged the number. To help disseminate the telephone number, we used the biggest football network on Twitter, SigaSeuTime (1.1 million followers), and the biggest fan base of a sports channel on Facebook, Esporte Interativo (3.2 million fans). On the day of the match (February 28), all of those who left a message to the national team received a call with a voice message from Neymar thanking for the support and a text message with a link to watch, firsthand, the new commercial of the national team’s jersey.

100% of the people who received the kit commented about it on their websites and blogs. It is estimated that more than 1m people were impacted in just 7 days.