Exactly 20 years ago, Italy witnessed one of the most daring marketing campaigns the country had ever seen, a promotion that broke records for payouts and made news around the world.
The 2006 World Cup inspired many a creative ad campaign in il bel paese, but this one Italians will never forget.
With its Support Italy and Win promotion, electronics chain MediaWorld promised to refund any customer who bought a TV during the World Cup – on one condition: Italy had to win the competition.
And win it they did!
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of this legendary piece of marketing, we spoke to a man who was in the thick of it: Pierluigi Bernasconi, founder and CEO of Mediamarket SpA, the company that trades as MediaWorld in Italy.
In our interview, Bernasconi takes us through the origins of Support Italy and Win, the challenges that had to be overcome for the campaign to run and the reaction inside the company during the tournament. And he finishes with a couple of stories that show just how much the campaign caught the country’s collective imagination.
Let’s kick off!
Pierluigi Bernasconi, in 2006 you were not only CEO of MediaWorld Italia, a company you founded, but the brains behind Support Italy and Win, one of the most iconic marketing campaigns in Italian history. How did this crazy idea come about?
It was early 2006 and the heads of MediaWorld’s European subsidiaries were meeting to discuss opportunities for sales and marketing at the World Cup, which was just around the corner.
Someone had the idea of giving customers a prize if their team won the competition. But most people thought it was impossible to pull off, and my colleagues from other countries discarded the idea.
But I kept thinking about it, and once back home, started figuring out how it could be done.
What did you have to keep in mind for a campaign like this?
I really wanted the promotion to be for plasma TVs. Previously they’d been very expensive, but in 2006 prices were falling, making them more affordable to the public. That said, they were still high end: back then, a 42-inch plasma TV cost 2000 to 3000 euro. I decided this was the product to focus on.
My team did some forecasts, and we decided to insure the prize, just as if it were a sports bet. This is what made the campaign possible. The head of marketing and I contacted an international broker, who then went to the insurance market and insured an amount in the event that Italy won the World Cup. That amount was the sales revenue that we expected to make.
It was 18 million euro. Eighteen million euro in prize money for a marketing campaign was unheard of and instantly made Support Italy and Win the promotion with the biggest ever prize pool. It wasn’t until a decade later that this record was beaten, and not by much, when Esselunga [an Italian supermarket] ran their iPhone giveaway.
This amount was covered by nine insurance companies in Italy and abroad. We also asked TV manufacturers to give us discounted prices as a way to drive sales of 42-inch sets which, although considered small today, were the biggest on the market at the time. We explained the campaign to them and the resulting orders helped to pay for the insurance policy and the marketing campaign.
The ad campaign was run by MediaWorld’s communication department with Pinuccia Algeri at the helm, and required a multi-million euro investment: a massive budget for an electronics retailer to spend on a single ad campaign. And I still remember its slogan, 20 years later: “If Italy win, you win”.
And win they did! But you didn’t think the Azzurri had any chance of going all the way, right?
No, that’s not true. Italy weren’t such a long shot! I don’t know if you remember, but in a friendly a few months before the competition, Italy played Germany… and put four past them!
It ended 4–1, but luckily for us, we’d already taken out the insurance a couple of days before. Otherwise, the campaign would have cost much more!
If you ask us, part of the success of Support Italy and Win was down to a sense that the company had bitten off more than it could chew. Fans felt that, just like them, MediaWorld had got carried away by Italy mania… and bet too big!
To be honest, we hadn’t thought of that aspect, but looking back now, it was actually a key factor. In any case, the campaign was a resounding success.
And I have to say that we got everything spot on: the communications, the promotional prices, the store displays (because the campaign had specific messaging for each store), the flyers, the TV and radio ads…
We sold just over 13,000 TVs. Bear in mind that about 30,000 were sold altogether in the Italian market in 2006, which means the campaign drove almost 50% of sales that year in the product category.
It made suppliers, who were a bit annoyed at first because they had to discount their products, very happy. The campaign was incredibly well received by the public too – so much so that many remember Support Italy and Win to this day – and it even made the news on CNN in America.
Here’s a curious little detail: when my MediaWorld colleagues in other countries saw that we’d actually run the campaign in Italy, they were won over. Someone tried doing it in their own country, but couldn’t because it was too late!
Del Piero, Cannavaro, Totti and Pirlo were doing laps of the pitch, passing the trophy between them in tears of joy. Where were you at the time? And what was your first thought at the final whistle?
I was in Berlin, in the stadium, for the Italy–France final. At the final whistle everyone was asking me: “Pierluigi, aren’t you annoyed? Now you’ve got to pay out!” But I was happy as Larry because, the campaign being insured, I wouldn’t have to pay a penny.
And while we’re telling anecdotes, I’ve got two more nice little stories to share.
The first is this: the night of the final, people across Italy took to the streets to celebrate, naturally. And in Pescara, there was a bunch of lads driving around in an old convertible Fiat 500, and they were holding up this brilliant sign that said “Bollocks! I didn’t buy the telly from MediaWorld!”
We heard about it the next day in our media round up, and we loved it. This amusing image perfectly captured the campaign’s success.
The other story is more personal and happened when I was in Rome a few years later. At the airport, a car came to pick me up. The driver, in his nice dark suit, walked me to the car, but on the way, I noticed that he kept staring at me. Once in the car, with a hint of menace in his Roman dialect, he said: “Excuse me sir, but aren’t you Mr Bernasconi, the one from MediaWorld?” At this point, I started to worry, thinking maybe he was a customer who’d had a problem at the store. So, a little intimidated, I said: “Yes, that’s me. If you have an issue…” But, with a big smile, he said: “Ah no boss, I should be kissing you! It’s thanks to you that I won the Sony!” Next thing I knew, he was fussing over me and telling me how his wife didn’t want the TV, but that he bought it anyway and then later, with great satisfaction, went and gave her the good news.
These stories show how the campaign entered the collective imagination, and helped MediaWorld become a “love brand”. But immediately afterwards, did the company manage to capitalise on this extraordinary visibility, and the goodwill and connection it had built with consumers?
For the well over 13,000 fans who bought a TV, the prize was a voucher for the same value, worth about 1,500 euro on average. When we sent out these vouchers – and believe me, that was quite the logistical challenge – we also included a special promotional flyer.
Long story short: those 18 million euro of vouchers generated 24 million euro in extra sales. A great result!
After Support Italy and Win, MediaWorld gained credibility. So, buoyed by its success, we ran a couple more campaigns in the same vein over the next few years. For instance, there was one for air con that featured Colonel Giuliacci, a famous meteorologist. In it we said we’d refund the cost of the air con if it didn’t get really hot that summer.
Broadly speaking, there was an improvement in brand awareness and reputation. And MediaWorld was untouchable in that period: no competitor came close. And every customer knew it.
We would like to thank Pierluigi Bernasconi and Pinuccia Algeri for their willingness and kindness in taking part in this interview.