2014 was a wonderfully prosperous year, yet nothing quite matched Heineken’s second screen campaign developed around the UEFA Champion’s League event. It was the cynosure for everyone in the business and this is why we vote it 2014’s most glorifying second screen moment.
Heineken’s campaign proudly wore the name Share The Sofa and it took place on Twitter. Well aware of the fact that 70% of football fans watch their preferred games at home accompanied by their mobile device of choice and that UEFA Champion’s League was one of the top three most tweeted about events of the year, the Heineken marketing geniuses rightfully predicted the gigantic impact a second screen campaign tied to this event would generate. Thus, they have conceived the Share the Sofa concept with one idea in mind: generating meaningful interaction between football fans and their ultimate sports heroes via hashtags, throughout the most important football event of the year.
The golden nugget consisted in an eye-catching array of football stars, the likes of Owen Hargreaves, Ruud Gullit, Hernan Crespo and others who were invited to “occupy” the Heineken sofa and talk through the match with their fans. Pretty neat memento for a true football lover! That’s what Heineken thought as well, and their efforts paid off, amassing hundreds of thousands of tweets from fans all over the world.
Heineken marketers masterfully blended in multimedia content (fan dedicated videos and pictures, lots of them!) along with special events.
Photo Source: Mashable
And speaking of special events and surprises, the Heineken UCL campaign brought in a “little something” for Romanian fans as well. Ruud Gullit was Bucharest’s headquarters special guest during the Real Madrid – Atletico Madrid game, which took place in the night of the UCL grand finale and definitely took aback all Romanian football lovers.
Heineken is, by far, one of the most dynamic brands in the online environment, placing itself on the 8th place in the Top Social Brands of 2014. After the year they’ve had, we’re more than enticed about what they have in store for the second screen medium in 2015.
