McCann

Client: BT Group
Product: BT Sport
Title: Whatever it is, cancel it.
Media: OOH/Print/Social
Country: United Kingdom
Date Of Campaign: 01/06/2019

Background: BT Sport had been showing the Champions League for six years. But they wanted to become famous for it.The challenge was to weave BT Sport into the fabric of Champions League culture and conversation, leveraging the all-English final to reach more fans than ever before.No one expected an all-English Champions League final to happen. But it did. And millions of football fans were left wondering, “What am I doing on June 1st?”

Idea: Everyone’s busy in June. 12% of all weddings happen. That’s 53,000 people getting hitched. An average of 100 guests each. That’s 530,000 people. Not to mention the 54,571 babies born. Hundreds of thousands of birthdays, barbecues and Bar Mitzvahs. So we asked fans to cancel… everything. Because nothing is more important than football.We advertised the biggest football match of the year, without showing any football. Flooding major rail, road and underground locations with ballsy copy set in football's primary colours.We had one simple message ‘Whatever it is, cancel it.’ With a few more light-hearted jibes thrown in for good measure, like ‘For anyone getting married tomorrow, commiserations.’ and ‘There’ll be another anniversary next year.’But that was just the beginning as we offered fans the chance to win a VIP Champions League Final Experience – two tickets, travel, luxury accommodation, the works. All they had to do was cancel their plans. The moment the tweet went out, social media blew up.

Results: 2.14 billion impressions worldwide. 45k mentions on Twitter. #BTSport and #cantmissit were 3x more popular than the Champions League itself.It wasn’t just the UK. Fans from Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australasia all wanted in. Our winner cancelled his child’s first birthday in Austria with family flying in from across the globe to be thereOver a million people visited the BT Sport website on the day of the final. Their highest volume of traffic ever.11.8 million fans decided to cancel everything and watch. The highest viewing figures in BT Sport’s six-year history.