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.

In Brazil, unofficially, Pelé has always been synonymous with "the best". It was time for all Brazilians to pay him due tribute, making his name an official national cultural heritage. Bringing the whole nation together, we mobilized opinion makers and football fans to turn Pelé into an entry in dictionaries, perpetuating his legacy in our language.

We started with benchmark and ethnographic research, followed by collective brainstorming and ideation with different sports and marketing professionals, consultants, and teachers.

We researched extensively to observe how the population honoured Pelé and realized he had multiple meanings: a symbol, a personality that, given his achievements, became a popular term.

The challenge was to understand what was being accomplished in a very short time and define what could be done to win over the media and reflect his legacy. Overcoming this required uniting a multidisciplinary group with a notoriously vast sporting repertoire.

The moment of discovery was incredible. As we developed a plan and shared it with others, the idea gained traction because, besides being relevant to the brand, it was authentic and presented a bold and innovative perspective on solving our problem.

More than 20 million homes were reached in the campaign's first two weeks, with a 4.7% engagement rate on social media alone. Earned media ensured penetration in more than 50% of households, representing an impact of over 100 million Brazilians - which guaranteed 300,000 petition signatures. Everyone embraced the movement: more than 50 personalities and notables, and the population claimed for themselves the proposal we developed. As a result, one of the country's leading publishers added a new entry in its dictionary: the adjective "Pelé".