To tie in with the UEFA Champions League 2013 final, Heineken is celebrating the dedication of true fans with a new video showing the lengths to which one football lover goes to ensure he doesn’t miss the big match.
The video, entitled The Final, is part of the Heineken’s wider Road to the Final campaign which will support the Champions League all the way through to the final in Wembley. The video starts with one fan unexpectedly being given tickets to the big game and having to race to London – will he get there in time or will unhelpful officials and travel delays rob him of the ultimate football experience?
In a nice self-deprecating move by Heineken, our hero discovers that even the gift of some free lager isn’t enough to persuade some troublesome local customs officers to let him through, but where the drink fails to deliver, the universal language of Football fandom wins through and eases his passage.
Once you’ve enjoyed the Bond-like adventures of the video’s hero, there’s a Heineken themed pinball game to play. Master the game and set a hopefully impossible to beat high score, then challenge friends to see how well they can do.
The campaign is a nice example of how big brands are increasingly looking to entertain audiences with added value content in favour of the ‘pure play’ traditional advert. Heineken aren’t pretending this isn’t an advert, they just want it to be one you enjoy watching enough that you’re happy to share it with your friends and, in playing the game, keep coming back to.
We think this approach to engaging audiences is going to increasingly become the norm, with initial watchers opting to help spread the message because they’ve liked what they’ve seen.
And why not?
We all know adverts are what makes it possible for us to enjoy TV and websites, so surely it’s better to encounter ones which have something fun and relevant to say, rather than wading through randomly placed and irrelevant sales pitches which just get in the way?
Sponsored by Heineken
