For 15 years, Mastercard has been the official sponsor of the UEFA Champions League, the most important football competition the world. It also promotes some of the most exciting moments of football: the moment in which children jump onto the field alongside the players before starting each match.

For children, meeting their idols in person and jumping onto the football field with thousands of people cheering is a dream come true. And the experience is just as important for another group of people: their parents. Because passion for football is something they inherit and creates a unique bond between parents and children. However, when their children live one of the most exciting moments of their childhood, the parents can’t live it with them. Our goal was to create an experience for the kids that connected their parents to them, through their passion for football in an innovative and unforgettable way.

Mastercard promotes one of the most exciting moments in football: when children jump onto the field together with the players. But we discovered a problem: their parents cannot be with them during one of the most important moments of their childhood.

This is why we created Kit Beats, the first wearable gear that uses technology to connect parents and children, through their heartbeats. This device was designed to allow you to share an unforgettable experience with your child. The gear consists of two inter-connected jerseys for parents and children. The children’s jersey includes a device that recognises their heartbeat at all times. This device sends out a signal to the parent's jersey that receives the information and reproduces the heartbeat through vibration and light. This way, the parent can feel the excitement of their child at all times and live the experience as if they were hugging each other.

Mastercard is a brand that everyone recognises as related to finance and payments, but they wish to prove that they are much more than that. They want to show that they are a technological brand that helps connect people and emotions around the world.

Emotions and connections through football are much deeper than in any other sector, which is why the sponsorship of the UEFA Champions League is more than just a sponsorship. It is an opportunity for Mastercard to exploit its positioning.

This way, we managed to transform the connection that football fans feel before a Champions League match into a connection between our consumers and the brand, to bring us closer to our consumers and become a brand that gives them the chance to live really priceless opportunities. These are experiences based on their own emotions that no other brand can offer them.

Kit Beats includes a sensor that registers the heart rate details and sends them via Bluetooth to a micro-controller that is responsible for processing and transmitting them, through the LoRa wireless technology, to the receiving family members on the stands.

To make this possible, they have developed their own LPWAN network that strengthens the signal in every stadium with intermediate signal repeaters, using the 433Mhz band to avoid interferences as well as the signal inhibitors of the stadiums.

We launched the campaign during the Atlético de Madrid vs. Borussia Dortmund match and recorded the entire experience to launch a video to share the initiative. After this, we announced that the experience would be available for all Champions League games played in Spain, including the grand final of the championship that will take place in Madrid this year, which resulted in the exponential growth of the Mastercard platforms.

Our first results were related to the children's emotions. The average heart rate started at 82 bpm and reached 108 bpm when they were greeting the players in the tunnel. But it reached its peak (143 bpm) when they stood at the centre of the field with the Champions’ anthem echoing. The parents were able to feel these emotions all the time.

The campaign had a very good reception on Spanish media and even some foreign media outlets, appearing on the sports sections of the main Spanish networks and the main newspapers - both sports and general news. We achieved over 1 million engagements just in Spain, 1300000€ of ROI and 40% increase in contacts within 15 days - in addition to 30 million Earned Media Impressions.