Björn Borg has long been an ambassador for equality, often challenging norms and institutions with bold campaigns. This summer, the World Cup took place. Prior to the kick off, host country Russia’s strict anti-LGBT laws raised global concern about the safety of the LGBT community.

As Björn Borg is a tiny sports brand, their marketing budget was nowhere near the amount big sports brands pour into the World Cup. So, to support equal love at one of the world’s most-watched sports events, Björn Borg wanted to stage a publicity stunt.

Björn Borg hijacked the World Cup 2018 opening game between two notorious anti-LGBT nations with a hidden augmented reality banner supporting equal love.

The opening game was set between two notorious anti-LGBT nations, Russia and Saudi Arabia, giving Björn Borg a great reason to speak up.

In host country Russia, promoting homosexuality is considered propaganda. Holding hands, kissing in public or waving a rainbow flag could land you in jail. To support all the love that is forced to stay hidden in both Russia and Saudi Arabia, Björn Borg virtually snuck in an augmented reality supporter banner into the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow.

The banner showed a gay couple kissing, with Russian and Saudi Arabian flags painted on their cheeks. Together with the message “Love Will Win Tonight,” Björn Borg urged people to take a stand against both countries’ oppressive LGBT rights by using the banner during the game.

Björn Borg is a small sports fashion brand from Sweden, competing in a world of giants. Given they only have a fraction of the marketing budgets bigger sports brands have, they always need to find new ways to stand out in the competition.

With the initiative, Björn Borg’s goal was to grab attention at the World Cup premiere and take a stand against the anti-LGBT laws of the two countries that met in the opening game. We decided to stage a bold stunt that could give Björn Borg and their purpose attention while the whole world was watching.

To spread the banner before the game, we reached out to one of the core target groups, LGBT communities. We encouraged people on Björn Borg’s social media channels to support the cause by using the banner during the game.

With 85M unique media impressions, the expected reach of 20M was exceeded with over 400%.

The campaign increased emotional brand connection by 29%.

90% of the reach was outside the sports fashion segment.

With a social media exposure of 1.5M, the initiative became Björn Borg’s best-performing social media initiative ever.

Over 200+ publications all over the world, including magazines such as Huffington Post, Out, Elle, Milenio, PinkNews, Trendhunter.