Scotiabank is taking inspiration from home southbound to connect with soccer fans.
In December, FC Barcelona named Scotiabank its official banking partner in Latin America and the Caribbean. To help connect with the millions of passionate soccer fans who span dozens of countries, the bank took some inspiration from sports fans a little closer to home.
In the lead spot for its new campaign, led by Bensimon Byrne, kids reenact goals from the history of FC Barcelona on pitches in neighbourhoods, school yards and beaches, all while another kid plays the part of announcer, recreating the energetic and historic play-by-play calls.
If the concept seems slightly familiar, that’s because the spots in the campaign were directly inspired by “Hockey Dreams,” the latest execution in Scotiabank’s “#The5thSeason” hockey platform that launched in the fall. John Doig, EVP and CMO at Scotiabank, says the insights behind that campaign were just as applicable to soccer fans – if not more so. Scotiabank has also been the official bank of CONCACAF, the governing body for the sport in North America, Central America and the Carribean, since 2014, sponsoring multiple tournaments at all competitive levels, including the Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League.
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The creative for this campaign will also include a range of videos spotlighting individual FC Barcelona moments. PHD and its affiliated agencies are handling the media buy in individual markets across Mexico, Latin America, the Caribbean and South America.
“What we’ve learned from being involved with football fans is that their passion for the sport makes Canadian passion for hockey look like a paper route,” Doig says. “Some of these goals are from decades before these kids were born, but when we were shooting they were saying things like, ‘I get to be Macedo?’ That emotional connection is a huge part of the fabric of the countries and the communities.”
Doig says it first seemed like a bit of leap for Scotiabank to use a Canadian agency to navigate the regional differences between all the markets the campaign is going to run in, but keeping it grounded in the connection between kids and the sport helped it tap into a universal truth that could work across different countries and cultures.
While the “Futbol Dreams” campaign is part of Scotiabank’s FC Barcelona sponsorship, Doig says it is also in the wheelhouse of its CSR approach, which aims to direct 70% of its philanthropic spending to youth and children. Scotiabank sponsors nearly 8,000 youth hockey teams in Canada, and is near that same number for youth soccer clubs and FC Barcelona-affiliated academies in Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition to sponsoring youth and community teams, the partnership with FC Barcelona will allow Scotiabank to bring coaches from the team to the academies to bring education to players and coaches.
As it did for “Hockey Dreams,” the new campaign is launching in social this week before a paid media buy. In addition to millions of views online, the 60-second spot also had an average view time of 52-seconds.
“We’re a bank, so it’s tough to get that,” Doig says. “The other interesting part was YouTube views of those original goals also went up, because kids wanting to see it for the first time. We’re hoping we can get something similar happening for football fans.”
