BRIEF  

Pepsi MAX, renowned for its bold and innovative marketing, aimed to capture attention and ignite excitement around football with their latest Out of Home (OOH) campaign for the UEFA Champions League Final. Their goal with these activations was to connect and engage with football fans, attracting crowds for the upcoming games. 

With this objective in mind, the OOH executions needed to be inviting and captivating for all passing by. The concept was to craft a unique experience that would leave lasting, fun memories. 

STRATEGY/EXECUTION  

The activity is part of Pepsi MAX's broader football campaign, "Where There's a Ball, There's a Way!" designed to generate PR coverage and media buzz, encouraging viewers to visit one of the Hidden Pitch locations. 

The launch of these OOH activations kicked off with the Hidden Pitches tour at London's Observation Point, and it was a resounding success! This experiential campaign brought joy and excitement to passersby, featuring a unique Pepsi MAX vending machine. Participants were invited to scan a can of Pepsi MAX, which rewarded them with a Pepsi-branded football. Once the football was dispensed, an epic laser display projected a 2v2 pitch outline onto the street, signaling the start of a 10-minute match session. Best of all, participants got to keep the ball—everyone's a winner! 

The campaign's debut at London's Observation Point Southbank marked the beginning of a month-long tour, with stops at Manchester Cathedral Gardens and Liverpool One throughout May. The launch event was hosted by England football player Ella Toone, fresh from her FA Cup triumph, who kicked off the first 2v2 game, ensuring excellent PR amplification and social media coverage.  

High footfall and central locations resulted in extensive engagement with the activation. The London venue offered a picture-perfect backdrop, ensuring high-quality visual assets. 

To celebrate the final, we executed a full takeover of the NOW building at The Outernet London. This central London location provided the perfect canvas for creating an immersive Pepsi-led football zone, which was transformed into a dynamic viewing experience. 

For the Champions League final between Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid, Pepsi MAX creative content played across all four walls and the ceiling. The creative was swapped out to stream the live match on the south wall, accompanied by subtle motion animations on the other walls and ceiling. Given the bespoke nature of this creative canvas, which required 4k assets and extensive rendering, we enlisted Pixel Artworks Studio to handle the rendering on a tight timeline. 

Given the fixed date for this activation, timelines were tight, and it was crucial to create and approve content promptly. Additionally, permissions from UEFA, TNT, and UCL were necessary to stream the game. All teams were fantastic in their support to make this happen and doing all they could to push it through and make it the success it was.   

As part of this domination, the outdoor Vista Screens, visible to passersby on Charing Cross Road and Tottenham Court Road—an area with extremely high footfall—were also utilized. Sampling opportunities were abundant within this space, so the distribution of free cans of Pepsi MAX was included and given to watchers, ready to cheer on the winners. This effort fed into the broader campaign, with Pepsi MAX sponsoring the halftime show featuring Lenny Kravitz. 

This standout activity was underpinned by a much wider OOH plan which established a strong base of awareness and consolidated, beyond any doubt, the partnership between Pepsi MAX and UCL.

Through tactical digital activations on key match days, owning of key airport and Wembley routes, and even the unmissable domination of Wembley itself with activity booked a year in advance, Pepsi MAX was able to build excitement throughout every stage of the tournament, and by the time the campaign reached its peak with the UCL final, the brand was truly unmissable across London.  

 
Box Park Wembley, Wembley Park Station Takeover, owning airport route LFD: with the M4 Corridor and The Cromination, and many more exciting and strategic placements contributed to this campaign. The brilliant and unique Hidden Pitches and Outernet Live streams were the cherry on top. 

RESULTS  (Confidential)

The combination of these two activations alongside the wider Pepsi MAX OOH Champions League campaign had a major impact and yielded incredible results. The high footfall and central locations drove extensive engagement and provided an excellent opportunity to capture visual assets used to amplify Pepsi MAX editorially. With significant PR and influencer activity surrounding the event, the visual assets became a key component. 

Across the three cities—London, Liverpool, and Manchester—we saw audiences braving the elements to experience the winning combination of Pepsi MAX and football. With over 1760+ branded Pepsi MAX footballs being given out in London alone and a total of 323 participants.  

The PR team followed with a multi-pronged outreach approach to national and regional media. Alongside a hero talent press release, the team distributed tailored media alerts to local listings titles in the 3 cities, leading to 54 pieces of coverage! The media coverage got over 72m+ earned impressions and a total of $1.44m+ ad value. 

Beyond direct engagement and PR coverage, this campaign drove a significant uplift in brand performance.  

During the campaign live month of May, Pepsi achieved: