Nordeus collaborated with Google on a campaign using the buzz of the 2016 UEFA European Football Championship (Euro 2016) to raise awareness and drive downloads of their app.
THE GOALS
Capitalise on buzz of UEFA European Football Championship
Raise awareness
Drive downloads
THE APPROACH
Ran campaign coinciding with Euro 2016
Created video featuring Jose Mourinho with YouTube stars
Targeted males aged 24 to 45 across UK, Italy, Germany and France
Used YouTube TrueView, Lightbox and YouTube remarketing ad formats
THE RESULTS
4 million video views on YouTube (10 million on all channels)
Over 50,000 video shares
200,000 direct AdWords conversions
65% increase in installs over previous month
50% uplift in ad recall
Up to 20% uplift in brand awareness
Top Eleven Football Manager is an online football manager simulation game developed and published by Nordeus. Available on both the Google Play Store and App Store, the game allows friends to play against each other in a social media environment.
Six years after the launch of Top Eleven Football Manager, Nordeus wanted to expand their target group and reposition the brand from a game for passionate gamers to a game for anyone who is passionate about football. Nordeus turned to Google to collaborate on a campaign using the buzz of the 2016 UEFA European Football Championship (Euro 2016) to raise awareness and drive downloads.
"Google had a huge impact on our Euro 2016 campaign, supporting us from the creative planning through the campaign execution. The ‘head-versus-heart’ concept was a huge success, delivering a huge boost in user acquisition metrics in our key markets alongside brand awareness uplifts."
- Marko Jevtic, Product Marketing Manager, Nordeus
“We wanted to put football fans in the suits of the managers at the tournament by taking the headlines from that day’s back pages and turning them into bite-sized challenges for a football-loving online audience,” explains Marko Jevtic, Product Marketing Manager. Each day required fans to consider which they would follow – the head or the heart.
Focusing on the head-versus-heart theme, Nordeus built a campaign targeting males aged 24 to 45 with smartphones and a passion for football across the UK, Italy, Germany and France. To capitalise on media and public interest, the campaign started one week before the first day of Euro 2016 and finished seven days after the tournament ended.
Nordeus layered a number of creatives to tell an integrated story across formats and contexts. The team created a video featuring popular football manager Jose Mourinho on set with YouTube presenters from the Football Daily channel. The video was promoted through YouTube TrueView ads. Then, interactive YouTube Lightbox ads were used to target people who had previously viewed the video, asking whether they would they use their heart or head to solve the day’s management challenges. Remarketing ads were also served on YouTube to users who had seen the hero video, with a call to action encouraging them to download and play Top Eleven.
The campaign was a huge success, delivering 4 million video views on YouTube, 10 million views across all channels and over 50,000 shares of the video, which resulted in a big boost in app downloads. During the tournament, the campaign produced 200,000 direct AdWords conversions and a million downloads – a 65% increase in installs over the previous month. Meanwhile, the video’s messaging clearly resonated with viewers: affected audiences demonstrated 50% uplift in ad recall and up to 20% uplift in brand awareness. “This sets a great foundation for future acquisition initiatives within the targeted markets,” Marko says.
