We supplied 10 different blurbs ranging from “Are You Joking?” to “That’s Incredible!” to the sport editors at popular Chinese newspapers.The editors placed the appropriate blurbs next to famous football personalities featured in their World Cup articles – so the ads came across looking like genuine commentary from football stars.In one execution, after favourite England drew 1:1 against the lowly USA, Fabio Capello, the England manager appeared to say, “How is this possible?” in Chinese.The copy beneath the blurb revealed that Capello was actually referring to ASTRO’s telecast of the 2010 World Cup with live commentary in Chinese.

Viewership of World Cup matches with live commentary in Chinese on ASTRO Channel 311 grew by a whopping 368%* as a result of the advertising campaign (*figures supplied by AC Nielsen).