Menu
Online & Digital
 

Fans against all odds

Football club Lokomotiv

Issue 44 | September 2017

Agency

Leo Burnett Moscow

Creative Team

Creative Group Head Ilya Pryamilov Copywriter Viktoria Nazarova Art Director Dmitry Koshelev

Production Team

Production Loko-TV Creative Producer Kirill Breido Cinematographer and Film Editor Alexey Zharkov

Other Credits

Account Director Ilya Khrushev Account Manager Ksenia Zorina PR Head Irina Kartina PR Manager Ksenia Sharapova Lokomotiv Marketing Director Darya Spivak Director of the production Department Tatiana Kozlova Junior Producer Igor Popov

Date

April 2017

Background

Lokomotiv was one of the great Russian football clubs, sponsored by the Russian Railways company. Its values were those of railwaymen – men of iron, honest, dedicated and true.

However, the team had not won any championships since 2004. Fans were beginning to lose faith and attendance to games began to shrink.

The challenge was to inspire fans to support the club again.

Idea

Even though Lokomotiv had won nothing of note since 2004, there were a number of fans who supported the team despite their poor record.

In fact, these fans had never seen the club at the top of the table because they were fans born after 2004.

A video was shot in which these young fans were asked why they supported 'Loko'. Their answers showed that they understood the meaning of the club's slogan 'Steel together' better than their elders. They loved 'Loko' because it was their club and "relatives can't be changed".

The video interviews with the children were shown to the team to inspire them.

The children were all asked about their feelings for the club. Their replies were innocently heartfelt.

Results

One week after the video was shown to them, Lokomotiv won the Russian Cup. This meant they got to play the Russian Premier League winner for the Super Cup Trophy and admission into the UEFA Europa League.

Also media reach was more than 47,000,000.

Demand for game tickets increased by 33%.

More fans started attending Lokomotiv games.

Our Thoughts

The writer Paul Coelho once said: "A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason; to always be busy with something; and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires."

As this charming video shows, children can teach us a lot more. Loyalty, purpose and endless optimism, for instance.

Compare and contrast this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwFO9hwga8U with Jim Telfer's speech 1997 to the British and Irish Lions rugby team in the great documentary 'Living with Lions' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM0dx0h2xsw

There are different ways to get sportsmen and women to reach deep into their psyche to find a way to win and this is a new one.