Zé Delivery is a beer delivery app in Brazil. During the World Cup – the first one that happened during Brazilian hot summer –, Zé needed to grow in awareness, spike its sales and capture the attention of the audience without being an official sponsor of the event. It was Zé Delivery against brands that have years of tradition in supporting football, spent millions and millions to sponsor the World Cup and could use all the media offered by the biggest sporting event in the world.

Through data analysis, we made an interesting discovery that every time Brazil had won the World Cup, there was a player on the field named Zé, which is short for José. So, we grabbed the opportunity to create our own conspiracy theory: for Brazil to be champion for the sixth time, we absolutely need a Zé on the team. In the 2022 Brazil squad, the star player was Vinicius Junior, or Vini Jr, as he prefers to be called. Surprisingly, Zé Delivery uncovered that Vini Jr's full name is Vinicius José Paixão de Oliveira Junior, or Vini Zé Jr. Recognizing this as a unique opportunity, Zé Delivery launched a campaign requesting Vini Jr. to put Zé on his jersey, causing a stir among Brazilian fans and sparking a lively discussion. By leveraging only our brand name and a small conspiracy theory, we managed to hijack the World Cup conversation.

The creative data strategy of The Zé Theory campaign involved leveraging a unique insight about the popularity of the name "Zé" in Brazil and its connection to past World Cup victories. By analyzing historical data, Zé delivery discovered that every time Brazil had won the World Cup, there had been a player named "Zé" on the team.

The campaign created a conspiracy theory, which was promoted through social media influencers and traditional advertising. The theory suggested that if Brazil wanted to win its sixth World Cup trophy, they needed to have a player named "Zé" on the team. It capitalized on the emotional connection that many Brazilians have with soccer, and the love for conspiracy theories during the World Cup.

As soon as the coach of the Brazilian national team announced which players were going to the World Cup, Zé Delivery used social media and influencers to spread our conspiracy theory. Then, Zé launched a film on national TV revealing Vini Jr's full name and asking him to include the name Zé on his jersey, for the sake of Brazilian football. People went crazy and flooded Vini Jr's Twitter. Partly because of their faith in the theory and partly because each tweet to Vini was transformed into a Zé Delivery promo code. Quickly, the campaign became threads on Twitter, videos on TikTok and Youtube, and even other brands asked Vini Jr to embrace the Zé Theory. After the buzz, Vini Jr changed all his handles to Vini Zé Jr, putting our brand and our name in all conversations about the World Cup and inside the Brazilian National Team.

The Zé Delivery campaign generated impressive results across a range of channels. Digital impressions reached 623 million, with an additional 8.4 million on React and 795 million on TV. The campaign also saw 4.4 million engagements on digital channels and 166,000 interactions on React.

Furthermore, the campaign generated 68,800 app downloads and 10,600 QR code scans, demonstrating strong interest and engagement from the target audience.

The campaign also achieved notable lifts in key metrics on various social media platforms. Specifically, on TikTok, the campaign saw a lift of 18 percentage points for ad recall and 5 percentage points for brand association. On Twitter, the campaign achieved a lift of 9 percentage points for awareness, 10 percentage points for top of mind, and 10 percentage points for ad recall.

Overall, the Zé Delivery campaign was a success, with impressive results across multiple channels and strong engagement from the target audience.