Turning passion into purpose

Sport Club Recife is a football team from Recife founded in 1905. It has the largest fan base in the North East region of Brazil1 and is known for captivating passionate supporters, ready to do anything for their team. Our challenge was to create a campaign that explored this strong bond and engaged fans, making them feel proud of their club.

Keeping the passion of the team alive, even after death

Football is a worldwide passion and, when it comes to Brazil, it’s considered to be our national sport. From the start of the project, we realized Sport Club Recife fans live and breath football, for them, the team is their life.

Our central question of the creative brief was rather simple: how can we push this love even further?

The creative team came up with an instigating concept: Immortal Fans.

The first Organ Donor Card for a football team

We created an Organ Donor Card that keeps the fans passion alive through the lives of others. And, at the same time, overcomes the biggest barrier of organ transplants in Brazil, serving as a mean to let family and friends know about the desire to donate organs – and to keep on supporting their team.

• Over 60.000 Organ Donor Cards and counting.

• Received organ donations increased by 68% in a year versus previous year2.

• The Transplant Center of Recife accounted 2012 as the year with most donations in its history3.

• The waiting list for corneal transplants went from 1,047 to zero.

• The project was featured in national news and hundreds of blogs.

• Immortal Fans reached its goals of helping people get faster transplants and, consequently saving lives.

• Mrs. Josina Xavier dos Santos was the first person to receive an organ, a heart from an Immortal Fan.

This case brings together two distantly separate worlds: football and organ donations. As we well know, people world over love sports, athletes are idolized and teams engage their fans in a uniquely emotional and powerful way. Immortal Fans not only raised awareness of a life and death matter, but also nudged behaviour and, at the end of the day, contributed in saving lives.