IFK Goteborg and GAIS, both from Goteborg, are two mail football clubs in the Swedish Premier League. IFK Goteborg has not lost a match against GAIS in the last 16 years. When one of them wins too often the suspense disappears and so do the spectators. What could we do in order to raise interest and sell more tickets before the derby match?We decided to secure the opposition in the future. IFK Goteborg started a campaign where the money collected went to the GAIS youth team. “Buy Gaisflowers - for better opposition in future derbies”.Over 100 newspapers, 60 bloggers and 113 websites referred to the campaign. The collected funds went to the GAIS youth team - they bought 400 new footballs with the money.Match ticket sales: 266% over budget.

We designed a pin, a flower, that was sold for the symbolic price of SEK 16 (Euro 1,5). All the campaign units were aimed towards raising money for the GAIS youth team. People were able to quickly and simply buy a flower using their mobile phones or in town from IFK Goteborg youth players and even from the old stars. The flower was also available on sale in shops around town. The hub of the campaign was a campaign site on the Internet where it was possible to get more information, sign up to sell flowers and see how sales progressed minute by minute. Even the transfer of the collected funds, 400 new footballs, was a planned activity. The press were invited so that they could take pictures and write about the event. We hoped this would give the derby a lot of publicity and help to sell more tickets.

The week before the campaign started, we sold approximately 300 tickets a day. During the campaign we sold a total of 8,000 tickets, i.e. 2,000tickets per day (266% over budget). With a very limited media budget, thecampaign spread locally, nationally and became the talk of the town. More than 100 newspaper articles and television reports were made. More than 60 blogs commented on the campaign and over 1,000 comments written and 113 other websites referring to the campaign site. A campaign site was created and had over 13,000 visitors from 38 different countries. The collected funds went to the GAIS youth team; they bought 400 new footballs with the money.