Deutsche Telekom, as a former state-owned company, uses its technical infrastructure to bring one of the biggest live events to Germany and the world on screen. As one of the main sponsors and partners of this year’s UEFA EURO 2024, the client wants to communicate all parts of that sponsorship, including media partnership, broadcasting and telecommunication services in their home market and make sure that their campaign stands out from the rest.

The challenge was that there will be a lot of ads celebrating football at the same time as this film airs. All the *** and *** and whatnot will show people enjoying a football game with their friends and have a jolly good time. That’s why this piece of work tried to create something that steers away from the usual advertising tropes and that is more entertaining and memorable than the competition.

The UEFA EURO 2024 would not be possible without the fiber network by Deutsche Telekom. This is shown by a series of bonkers and contrasting scenarios: what it’s like with fiber and football. And what it’s like without. The film opens on a town square in Germany filled with football fans chanting and jumping ecstaticly. Then the same scene abruptly shifts to complete emptiness and deafening silence. Then back to the crowd and jubilation, then back to the same area desolate with only a small dog roaming around. The next contrasting scenes feature the outdoor area of a bar, the indoor area of a bar and an elderly naked man sadly sitting in a pub without football broadcast. Then the same scene shows him fully clothed enjoying the pub again. The film ends with a television falling down to reveal the films message and summary: “No fiber. No football”.

The film aired on TV for three weeks. It had a Germany-wide TV net reach of 66.5%. In the standard advertising media test by Want@d GmbH it reached the top 15% in all key performance indicators benchmarks, e.g. 68% in brand acceptance, 55% in brand perception, 54% in interest in information, 50% in interest in use and 48% in purchase intention, which made “No fiber. No football.” the most successfully tested Deutsche Telekom ad of the last four years.