At the end of 2022, football lost its greatest icon, and Brazil, the son the country was most proud of. Words couldn't describe the pain the nation was feeling. After all, Pelé was the embodiment of the best among us. How could Latin America's main sports channel help consolidate Brazilians' emotional memory of their greatest reference in this moment of sadness?

The objective was simple: to create a tribute that could stand up to his legacy, immortalising Pelé in sports and our culture.

Brazil is the country of football, and it has been re-signified by us since it arrived here. Victory after victory, we made it one of our identity traits. Our passion is unparalleled and blends with our everyday lives, creating new terms and changing how we communicate.

That's why we mapped an opportunity: why not get one of those unofficial appropriations related to football and make it official in our language? Pelé has always been synonymous with "the best" for us Brazilians. Our idea was to officialise it as an adjective, thus immortalising its meaning in our culture.

We are 220 million football fans who fill stadiums and guarantee audience's highest levels for broadcast TV in the world. Brazilians love football from the cradle. It's part of our identity, and our involvement is such that it blends into our everyday lives, creating a new lexicon and modifying the way we communicate.

So, we took an unofficial truth of the Portuguese language in Brazil: using the name Pelé as an adjective. We started a national movement to add Pelé to our dictionaries as synonyms with "the best". We developed a petition to mobilise federations, clubs, athletes, the sports media, and the entire nation to support this tribute.

We articulated several initiatives, starting with a thread on Twitter with sportv and Santos FC (Pelé's club). It spread and reached one of the main Brazilian TV sports shows. We kept bringing up the subject on Instagram while relevant content creators were activated to summon their followers and fans to sign the petition.

In the wake of the celebrations for the 111th anniversary of Santos, we called on the club's fans, which appeared on the country's most famous morning TV show. We also used the kickoff of the national championship to bring the conversation to other teams. Initiatives on social media went to the real world, becoming a fans' thing on the stands and ending up in broadcast and close TV shows and specialised newspapers.

More than 20 million people were reached on sportv social media channels, with an engagement rate of 4.7%. 50 relevant opinion makers generated more than 8 million views. All this became more than 300,000 petition signatures. Such involvement aroused the media's interest, becoming 7 reports aired in the leading TV sports programs and appearing on 2 entertainment programs, one in primetime. The project was also covered by 5 specialised newspapers and culminated in a new entry in Portuguese dictionaries.