Carlsberg—Euro Cup

© MATT HECK

I’m a creative leader and hands-on maker helping brands break out of their category through purpose, personality, and craft. My work spans world-class agencies and in-house teams, across channels and borders. Thanks for visiting.

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Carlsberg—Euro Cup

72andSunny, AmsterdamGlobal Creative Director

In the lead-up to the Euro Cup in Paris, fans were getting fed up. Ticket prices were soaring, corporate VIPs were flooding the stands, and football was starting to feel elitist instead of the working-class unifier it had always been.

Our response was La Révolution. Fronted by former national hero Marcel Desailly, the sponsorship campaign gave away thousands of UEFA tickets, putting the beautiful game back where it belongs, in the hands of real fans.

Fun fact: true to their history as a patron of the arts, Carlsberg gave the massive painting we commissioned a permanent home. The framed original now hangs at their Copenhagen brewery headquarters.

For artwork used across posters, OOH, and social, we commissioned a grand, Delacroix-style oil painting, packed with nation-specific Easter eggs to engage local audiences.

As part of their sponsorship package, Carlsberg had prime stadium ad space. One small hitch: alcohol ads are illegal in France. Suddenly, no beer, no logo, not even the tagline. Awkward.

It was a genuine creative challenge. We briefly considered consulting NASA and the guy from A Beautiful Mind. Instead, we landed on a solution that sparked plenty of online chatter and delivered the third-highest brand recall, behind Coca-Cola and Adidas, both of whom spent significantly more on sponsorship.