The UEFA Champions League final is the pinnacle of the football season and represents a significant opportunity for UEFA sponsors to activate. This is particularly pertinent for FedEx, who, as a long-standing partner of the UEFA Champions League, has the exclusive right to deliver the UEFA Champions League trophy to the stadium hosting the final.
This delivery moment not only creates a compelling storytelling opportunity for FedEx, it also represents an opportunity to demonstrate its core service offering (delivery) in action. The challenge, however, is finding a creative way of making that relatively routine service (delivering something in a van), interesting to football fans.
So, two days before the UEFA Champions League final took place at Wembley Stadium, FedEx engaged Claude Makéléle, a former Champions League winner, to deliver the coveted UEFA Champions League trophy to London’s Regent Street, against the backdrop of the iconic UEFA Champions League anthem performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
The PR stunt generated 360 pieces of earned media coverage across the world’s sports press, whilst content of the activation delivered record-breaking engagement rates on both UEFA and FedEx own social media platforms. The activation contributed to an uplift in both brand awareness and familiarity, two of FedEx key business objectives, while opportunities for FedEx team-member to actively participate helped drive colleague advocacy and loyalty.
