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Delighting people with a personalised slice of their history.

2018’s desk drop was a celebratory nod to personalised and nostalgia marketing, through the lens of the planet’s biggest sporting event - the football World Cup.

Every four years, the World Cup ushers in a global wave of nostalgia. Even the most ardent critic of the beautiful game has at least one shared memory of where they were, and who they were with, during the most iconic moments in their national sporting history.

The Challenge
Connect with our clients on a highly personal level, and show how nostalgia can trigger emotion and resonate in a meaningful way. We also wanted the recipients to open something that was clearly tailored to them but not in a creepy way. We wanted to charm and delight.

The Solution
We sent our clients a gift that whisked them away to a different point in time.
Based on their age and nationality, we identified the ‘signature World Cup’ for each client. For example, an Irish person between the ages of 30 and 40 is very likely to have fond memories of Italia ‘90. Even if the individual is not a huge football fan, we felt a significant World Cup for their nation will always be something talked about, that leaves an impact for that country.

The gift itself was a framed miniature jersey, designed to match the kit from their chosen World Cup. And because everyone has secretly dreamed of scoring that 90th-minute winner, we personalised it with their name on the back.

Each individual pack (for 60 people from 21 countries) had carefully crafted copy, written around iconic World Cup moments, and cultural events in that year/summer. The eight or nine lines of prose would appeal to their national pride, with some reference to the tournament and key humorous or interesting insights from that time.

For a retro, yet contemporary look, we commissioned custom-made, satin black boxes that had the same dimensions as packaging for football boots. They were wrapped with a bellyband featuring the Lou Reed quote “I don’t like nostalgia unless it’s mine” in spot uv varnish.

Unboxing Nostalgia
The result was a beautiful triple texture of black. For typeface, we extended the lines from certain letters to recreate the retro parallels synonymous with retro sports branding. The mini jerseys themselves were mounted in a custom, matte black, shadow box, closed grain wooden frames. They were then printed on 5mm PVC backed on constellation-snow paper.

The Results
The packs were delivered to 60+ clients and new business contacts. We had video testimonials of people delighted with their DM pack and jersey. We were aiming for an emotional response when we sent these out, and one senior contact with a very significant client was close to tears after receiving a shirt which acknowledged their beloved team from the 1990 World Cup. For a business response, we generated several new conversations on the back of individuals receiving their personalised DMs.