The Ice Hockey World Championship always takes place in May. During the two-week tournament, the whole country lives and breathes ice hockey. The cancellation of the Ice Hockey World Championship due to the corona crisis was catastrophic news for the marketing of Wilhelm sausage because it automatically meant there was no environment for the biggest campaign of the year. So, the brief was challenging: how to reach all the hockey fans who would otherwise have watched the World Championship tournament and seen Wilhelm’s advertising? The games were now not being watched at all – and so the necessity to buy snacks and BBQ sausages was greatly diminished. There was a huge risk that Wilhelm products would be left on the shelf. Increasing sales seemed an impossible task. A defensive battle to prevent a collapse in sales seemed Wilhelm’s best choice – but fortunately, it was not the only choice.

Wilhelm wanted to cheer up the disappointed hockey fans. Instead of an ad campaign during the Ice Hockey World Championship, Wilhelm set up its own tournament: The Dream Hockey Championship – a virtual tournament that invited passionate fans to share what their dream tournament would look like. It was a tournament which results depended wholly on the imagination of fans – because every single fan has sometimes wished they could decide the outcome of the game. Now for the first time, it was possible. The games were not played, but instead, fans designed the events and outcome of each game for the Finnish national team on the campaign’s website. Based on these fan comments, the match compilations were made and aired on prime time television.

Ice hockey is the most popular sport in Finland, the annual World Championships being the absolute highlight of the hockey season. The tournament and its telecast is a great opportunity for brands whose target audience consists of hockey fans. The fans go nuts during the tournament and the whole nation is aware of the twists and turns of the tournament. The target group of Wilhelm’s campaign were young men following ice hockey. They had just experienced a massive disappointment with the cancellation of the Ice Hockey World Championship. Instead of sulking over a canceled tournament, fans should be offered inspiring and activating content that would somehow be related to ice hockey. The Dream Hockey Championship was the perfect solution to this demand: Fans got to enjoy hockey in a completely new way and most importantly, they got the chance to speculate about the matches and demonstrate their own expertise.

Wilhelm partnered with Finland’s most popular commercial TV channel MTV3. The Dream Hockey Championship consisted of ten 15-minute episodes with studio discussion, interviews of the best hockey players in Finland, and of course a simulated match compilation. All the match compilations were based on the fans’ imagination and comments which they have shared on the campaign’s website. In addition, each episode also included a trip down memory lane, showcasing the highlights of previous tournaments. All the episodes were run by Finland's best-known hockey experts, airing prime time on the same channel, and on the same days the Finnish national team would have played. This meant that the campaign lasted a total of two weeks. And last but not least: all the simulated matches were announced by the legendary Antero Mertaranta – the man announcing the Finnish national team’s games for more than 20 years.

The unique approach to ice hockey really reached the target group, the passionate hockey fans: The Dream Hockey Championship reached almost 1.2 million viewers: more than 20% of the population. The Dream Hockey Championship was the most popular prime time broadcast in Finland: gathering, on average, over 200,000 viewers per broadcast. And most importantly, Wilhelm’s sales skyrocketed: +80% from April to May and +86% compared to the same period last year. A defensive battle to prevent a collapse in sales turned into a huge victory with an explosive sales growth.