In Chile Sodimac is the hometown home improvement warehouse store. So it only made sense for the company to want to support the Chilean national football team in their first World Cup appearance in 12 years. However, it was going to take something unique to break through all the advertising noise around the event. Luckily, Starcom Chile came up with a creative and epic execution that not only broke through the clutter, but also helped everyday Chileans support their team with Sodimac.

The campaign, “Un Million de Chillenos Firmes Con La Roja,” was based on the goal of making the Chilean team feel like they were in their own home stadium as they played in South Africa. What better way to help your team then to bring a million supporters (or at least their faces) right to them?

Using various media outlets including social media, a dedicated website, and in-store signage, Sodimac collected personal photos from fans that showcased their support for the team. Using one million of these photos, Starcom created a huge linen out-of-home element – with the headline, “So You Can Feel At Home” – to be placed in South Africa where the national team could see it. In addition to these roadside billboards, a huge banner was created to travel with the team to their training session – a visible reminder of all the support at home. The OOH linen was so iconic that on June 13, the whole national team took a picture with the canvas, drawing a further connection between the team and its fans back home. Starcom turned the picture into posters that were later given away in Sodimac stores.
Click ‘continued’ for this campaign’s impressive results, as well as a video with more information.

The campaign was an impressive success for Sodimac. Top-of-mind (TOM) recall of Sodimac as related to the Chilean national team increased over 400% during the run and throughout the tournament. And between May and July 2010 (immediately pre and post- World Cup), overall TOM increased over 50%. At the same time, the historical total unaided awareness grew almost 375% from October 2007 to July 2010, and 59% during the three-month period from May to July 2010. Brand awareness also increased over 50%, and increased 45% for the same-time periods (second place among all the team’s sponsors). All this increase in awareness showed real return on investment (ROI) as well: total store transactions increased over 11% during the key three-month World Cup period, as compared with the previous year.