Cannes Lions
GRABARZ & PARTNER, Hamburg / FC ST PAULI BAR / 2023
Overview
Entries
Credits
Background
As a brand, FC St. Pauli stands for inclusion and diversity like no other club. As a professional soccer club, FC St. Pauli has the power to reach audiences, that usually have no touchpoints to the topic of gender equality.
Idea
All winners of the German Soccer Championship get to wear a star above their jersey’s club crest. We decided to place a gender star there instead and invented the Meister*innen-jersey (Champions Diversity Jersey), to set a strong symbol for diversity. With that, we transported our message into the stadium and direct contact with all viewers – live and on screens. And addressed injustice in the German language, which is a symptom of injustice in society.
Strategy
Soccer is for everyone. But in truth, only binary genders are seen and addressed.
Our strategy is very simple: We wanted to address all (really ALL) fans and give them the visibility they deserve. We used a little sign and the right place.
Execution
We have designed a special jersey for a match day. It carries THE sign for diversity. The professional football players wore it at a league game. That's all we had to do, because everyone saw it - and talked about it.
Many people wanted to have the jersey to make a statement themselves. Within the shortest time it was sold out.
Outcome
The team played against FC Magdeburg wearing the jersey and won 3:0. Even better than the sporting result: a huge press response, with over 64 million contacts - the Meister*innen-jersey was also discussed intensively in numerous soccer podcasts and on social media for the complete time of a match-day, with pre-report, debrief and of course the live-event.
All the proceeds of the jersey sales went to PinkStinks, an educational organization against sexism. Once again, FC St. Pauli has shown its fans and everyone else how much it cares about diversity.
The Meister*innen-jersey, which was available in the fan-shops, is sold out.
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