Finalist 2024

Social Good

Brand

Visa

Entered by:

Starcom Worldwide

Visa Pep Talks: Lighting up Women’s Football with Hope, Not Hate.

Credited:

DAZ, Saatchi & Saatchi London, Publicis Media Content Innovation

Why?

Visa is a proud champion of women’s football, helping to grow its reach and participation. But as much as the game has grown, there is still alarming negativity and hate directed at female footballers because they’re female footballers. As a sponsor and partner of the 2023/24 UEFA Women’s Champions League (UWCL), we set out to do two things:

  1. Combat hatred: address the growing issue of hate speech and abusive commentary targeting female footballers by promoting positive fan engagement.
  2. Increase brand relevancy: in tackling this issue, strengthen Visa’s positive association with women’s football, increasing brand love and relevancy among fans.

The Content Solution

The innovative partnership put Visa Pep Talks directly int’s DAZN’s UWCL live broadcasts, leading up to, and culminating, in the final between Barcelona and Lyon. Visa Pep Talks connected Visa athletes together with highly engaged football fans, encouraging positivity, confidence and self-belief.

It created a counter-narrative of positivity, leveraging DAZN and Visa’s influence to foster an environment of support and encouragement across the UK, Italy, France, Germany, and Spain.

The core component of the partnership was an entirely new fan environment for women’s football alongside the live broadcast of UWCL games: The Visa Fan Zone.

It was a platform that accompanied and complemented DAZN’s live broadcast, designed to unite fans in their support for women’s football. We created 32 tailored Fan Zone experiences across 13 key UWCL matches.

In the Visa Fan Zone, fans were encouraged to send positive messages (Pep Talks), participate in polls and quizzes, and vote for the Player of the Match. The Fan Zone was integral in fostering a community focused on positivity, using interactive tools like branded GIFs and leaderboards to boost engagement and drown out negative commentary.

It set a new standard for how brands can collaborate with media platforms to enhance both viewer experience and brand engagement.

Key Visa Fan Zone mechanics were featured and integrated into DAZN’s live game broadcast feed, so that it become a seamless part of game coverage on DAZN and Youtube. Outside of this, the Visa Fan Zone was promoted before and during games in social media by DAZN talent, in DAZN social media channels, across DAZN’s publisher network and Visa’s own social media. Over time this grew in influence, with fans and players sharing content from the Visa Fan Zone across each key UWCL game.

The Media/Content Amplification Solution

Pep Talks focused on the knock-out stages of the UWCL from March to May 2024. For each game, we created tailored Fan Zone experiences that drive positive interaction across key moments in each game:

  • Pre-game: Fan Zone reporters in the live broadcast feed invited fans to join the Fan Zone through polls and opportunities to support your team.
  • First half: Overlays in the live feed prompted fans to engage and support their team, driving to polls and specific Pep Talks for that game in the Fan Zone.
  • Half-time: Fan Zone reporters gave Pep Talk half-time result updates and highlighted the Player of the Half in the live feed. A live Pep Talk tracker update in the Fan Zone showed which team had the most positive support in the game so far.
  • Second half: Overlays in the live feed sent viewers to Fan Zone quizzes and encouraged them to vote for Player of the Match.
  • Post-game: Reporters put Fan Zone questions to players in the post-match interview in the live feed, and announced the winner of Player of the Match. In the Fan Zone, fans were encouraged to continue to celebrate their team with more positive Pep Talks.

These elements were promoted and featured during the game in DAZN social media channels across Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok and X, and then further amplified to the DAZN extended publisher network, which includes the likes of Mundo Deportivo, Goal.com, Girl Soccer Network, Sport.es and Whistle Sport.

Fan engagement and participation with these mechanics increased across each stage of the UWCL knock-out phases, as Visa and DAZN established the Fan Zone and Pep Talks as part of live game coverage. This culminated in the biggest viewership, Fan Zone engagement and number of Pep Talks created in the final game between Barcelona and Lyon on 25th May.

The Result

Visa Pep Talks clearly hit our two key goals: it created positive fan sentiment and increased Visa’s brand relevancy, making a clear impact on reducing the negativity surrounding UWCL games in Europe.

It delivered significant fan reach and engagement:

  • 162M+ match viewership across DAZN and YouTube, creating widespread impact across the UWCL tournament.
  • 11m viewership of the Visa Fan Zone specifically, with 40% of viewers actively participating generating 1.1m total positivity-driving engagements.
  • 69,000 Pep Talk messages were generated, contributing to a wave of positivity that permeated the entire tournament.
  • A significant 9m Pep Talk support GIF views during the final highlighted the high level of fan interaction and engagement.

It improved Visa’s brand relevance and affinity amongst sports fans:

  • Custom brand lift research found that 87% of those on DAZN saw Visa as a progressive brand based on their Visa Fan Zone experience.
  • The campaign led to a 16% increase in the perception of Visa supporting women’s football, along with a 34% rise in brand familiarity and a 13% uplift in brand favourability.

We reduced online negativity:

  • The campaign successfully reduced negative sentiment on DAZN platforms around women’s football to just 07% by the final match, marking an 83% decrease from the quarter-finals to the final. This demonstrates the effectiveness of the campaign in creating a positive atmosphere that discouraged hate speech and abusive behaviour​.

Together with DAZN, Visa Pep Talks has set a new benchmark for brand integration and partnership in sports media.

It enhanced the fan experience and created a more positive and inclusive atmosphere for both fans and players: another step in Visa’s mission to positively champion the appeal and participation of women’s football.