Itaú Bank transformed pitch hoarding ads into interactive touchboards for one of Brazilian football’s most-anticipated matches of 2024, driving a 400% increase in first-time users to its online marketplace.
Each time the ball flew off the pitch and made contact with the ads, discount coupons would appear on the screen and reveal Black Friday offers for various products on Itaú Shop.
Itaú Shop is small compared with Itaú Bank, which is the largest banking institution in Latin America. However, the Touchboard Discounts campaign — which ran during the Botafogo and Palmeiras match on 26 November — successfully drew awareness to the platform.
Africa Creative created the campaign. The agency’s joint CCO, Angerson Vieira, saidthat while Itaú Bank has sponsored the Brazilian national team for five decades, it ‘always felt like it was not making the best use of soccer as a platform.’ So, the client challenged its agency to leverage its influence in football and come up with ‘something new that would make it stand out from all the players talking about Black Friday.’
Generating excitement with supporting media
The Touchboard Discounts campaign ran during one of the deciding matches of the Brazilian Championship, which guaranteed a packed stadium.
‘We used a media format in a different way but we also had a lot of supporting media talking about it. We used social media during the day before the game, which was at 9pm in Brazil. On the day, we used the bank’s social media to tell fans, “Pay attention, you’re going to have a surprise if the ball goes out of the field tonight.” We also used OOH media around the stadium, informing people about the campaign,’ Vieira disclosed.
In addition to the social media posts and OOH ads, Africa Creative leveraged TV broadcasting so that fans watching at home could also keep an eye out for the vouchers.
‘It wouldn’t work if you just set the boards and don’t tell anybody about the idea,’ Vieira added. ‘We used this media ecosystem to explain the idea and bring people’s attention to the activation.’
Good numbers for a small platform
The campaign yielded impressive results, considering that Itaú Shop is only a small platform
Vieira revealed that the touchboard ads drew in 20 million new users and generated R$3 million (£404,512) for the platform. Additionally, the marketplace recorded a 35% increase in customers making their first purchase. These are ‘good numbers for a very small platform,’ said Vieira.
While the campaign was a success, it did not come without challenges.
‘Touchboards are everywhere but the technology is not that developed for big screens. So the technology, of course, was the most challenging because we had to try something new. And it worked. We spent almost a month developing them and testing them, and it worked,’ said Vieira.
