Lost and Found: When Football Twitter Saves Lives
AS Roma built a platform by being funny, then used that platform to reunite families.
Welcome back to another edition of Ballsy Branding — A newsletter that dissects fascinating stories at the intersection of Sports and Marketing.
This week: What happens when a Football team takes “unconventional” to new, unexpected places on social media, where success isn’t measured in likes, comments, or shares — but lives saved.
Here’s the story.
The Campaign(s)
AS Roma has a long and established history on social media — a quirky one, to be exact.
Since the late 2010s, the Serie A team based in the heart of Italy has constantly striven to set themselves apart on social media, largely through humorous, satirical, and often downright strange videos, many of which relate to new player acquisitions.
In the summer of 2019, however, AS Roma decided to flip their own script, and leave their funy tone at the door — for all the right reasons.
During the transfer window, AS Roma paired every acquisition announcment with current missing children’s cases from around the world.
The idea came about after AS Roma’s head of Strategy read an article about the 25th anniversary of the music video for “Runaway Train”, a song by 90s alternative rock band, Soul Asylum. Featuring names, photos, and other information from 36 different missing children cases at the time, the video was a huge hit, in no small part because 21 of the children featured in it were later found.
Over the course of 2019, AS Roma went on to produce more than 70 videos of the same kind, featuring 109 missing children from 13 different countries.
Not only was it a successful campaign in its own right (more on that later), but it spawned an even greater initiative the following year.
On May 25th, 2020, AS Roma partnered with 200 other football clubs across 6 different continents for the “Football Cares” initiative, done to mark international missing children’s day.
Much like the previous initiative, on the day in question, every club involved posted at least one video displaying current missing children’s cases, many of which were specific to their region.
The initiative took 3 months to organize, and 18 of the 20 most followed football clubs on Twitter — including Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, and more — took part, broadcasting 101 cases to an audience of an estimated 400 million people.
The Impact
For AS Roma’s first iniative, the 72 videos they posted garnered more than 11 million views, and the club won the “Best Social Responsibility Campaign” award at the Social Football Summit that year.
But even recognition and accolades were nothing compared to the true success of the campaign: 12 of the children featured in those videos were later found.
Though similar metrics on the “Football Cares” iniative haven’t been reported, the campaign was considered a resounding success. In the first 24 hours alone, views for the videos totalled over 1 million, with 135,000 minutes worth of video watched.
Takeaways
Funny brands can be serious, as long as the messaging isn’t self-serving.
Many brands would be afraid to champion a cause like AS Roma did, especially if, like Roma, they’ve built a substantial part of their following on being wacky and unserious.
After all, there are countless examples of brands who’ve switched up their tone and received criticism because of it, even when the cause is worthwhile. Pepsi’s Black Lives Matter Commercial featuring Kendall Jenner comes to mind.
AS Roma could’ve butchered the execution of the campaign. But they didn’t, because they recognized that their brand was only useful insofar as bringing attention to the issue.
By simply bringing the topic to light, and executing the messaging with grace and simplicity, they were able to able to create meaningful change and generate unanimously positive press — two things notoriously difficult to achieve.
The best brands aren’t limited to tone or aesthetic.
AS Roma isn’t like other football clubs. Not because they’re smarter, or funnier, but because they’re constantly reinventing themselves.
Whether it’s satirizing social media tropes, or helping shine a light on an issue that affects millions of people every year, whatever they do, they keep their audience guessing. Their only true constant is that nobody can expect what they’ll do next — only that it’ll be executed well.
It’s something that other big brands (like Nike) have employed for decades. No two Nike commercials look or sound the same, but they always tap into the same core attitude — greatness.
Like Nike, Roma has embodied an attitude that goes beyond tone or aesthetic. They’re always changing the formula, defying convention, and redefining what a football club can (and should) do, and it’s a huge reason why they’re so successful.
Marketing can change lives.
In a given day, every one of us is bombarded with thousands of pieces of marketing, each desperately vying for our attention.
Due to its ubiquity, it can be easy to forget how powerful marketing actually is. Not just in its ability to compel us to buy a product or service, but in this case, how it can transcend consumerism altogether.
Because of AS Roma’s campaign, 12 missing children were found. 12 families were made whole again. 12 lives — for all intents and purposes — were saved.
That is the power of marketing, and the best possible consequence of it, to boot.
Thanks for reading!
I hope you enjoyed this edition of Ballsy Branding!
FYI: Starting next week, new issues will be released on Fridays1, and I’ll be switching up the format a little bit. See you next time!
-Angus
Also starting today. But not the new format. I know — I could’ve executed this better. It’s been a long week, okay?