• Situation

The Italian economy had shrunk from 8% growth in Q4 2021 to 0.6% in Q4 2023. The country was sliding into economic turmoil leaving many Italians feeling blue. (Italian happiness in 2023 was 0.22pts lower than during COVID).

• Brief

Raise the national mood by showing how passion and endeavour, when coupled with the right support, can unlock potential against the odds.

• Objectives

Increase brand awareness

Increase brand reputation and trust metrics

Increase positive emotions / associations with the brand

UniCredit has a range of initiatives set up to help people in financial crises to unlock their potential.

We wanted to raise the national mood and celebrate Italian potential through the story of an individual - who against the odds and with the help of Unicredit - was able to unlock their potential and fulfill their dreams.

Casting was a challenging, fun puzzle. Our ‘adults’ had to span 20+ years, and we had to find three actors to perform as our protagonist Maurizio; as a child, teenager and adult.

Our recalls became rehearsals. We didn’t want to find actors to play our characters, instead we wanted to find our characters in our actors.

Together, they become one very real family who we fell in love with.

The campaign sought to lift the spirits of a nation and in turn make people feel positive about the Unicredit brand.

This resulted in a 17% increase in brand reputation, a 31% increase in brand consideration for those exposed to the campaign - mainly driven by the campaigns likeability scores.

According to the Kantar study, consumers found the ad highly emotionally engaging scoring .55pts higher than category norms.

As a result of the increased scores above, there was a 12.5% increase in sales during the campaign period amongst micro-enterprises.