Overcome – Siemens & FC Bayern

For the 2021/22 season, Siemens leveraged its FC Bayern partnership through a socially responsible video series called #Overcome which saw a team of seven celebrity ambassadors share their own stories about the biggest challenges of their lives and how they overcame them (spanning contemporary social topics) in order to inspire viewers and fans not to give up no matter what challenges they have to #overcome.

Territory: Germany

Agency: Rapid Peaks GmbH, Faktor 3 AG, DropIn-TV GmbH & kivili

Objective

For the previous two seasons Siemens partnership with FC Bayern Munich, which dates back to 2017, was primarily based around data-driven, statistics-led storytelling activations visualize the fans’ relationship with the game (eg #ReimagineTheGame, the #FCBayernPulse and the #HeartBeatFinal), but for the 2021/22 season Siemens switched approach to a more emotional campaign focused on purpose and social sustainability.

During ongoing challenging times, the sponsor’s aims was to leverage its partnership through ‘bold messages of encouragement’ to the target audiences and also to raise awareness of social issues relevant to the company, the club and the fanbase. The aim was to ‘create what people care about’ by tackling critical social issues – specifically, the sustainable development of society.

According to Siemens, the aim was to ‘create what people care about’ by tackling critical social issues all advocating for social impact in a way that reinforced and brought to life Siemens’ existing, umbrella ‘DEGREE’ sustainability framework.

Activation

Working with a group of agencies led by Rapid Peaks, the #Overcome activation was based around a set of celebrity protagonists – such as former NBA player Paul Zipser and French international footballer Dayot Upamecano – and their personal, often intimate stories.

Starting in November 2021 and running through to summer 2022, each story focused on an authentic real world challenges and important contemporary topics – such as integration, inclusion, recovery, diversity, and equality – each one which many fans either have faced or will face at some point in their lives. The aim was to provide inspiration to help supporters overcome their own challenges.

The #Overcome video episodes were published to a bespoke campaign web hub (https://new.siemens.com/content/dam/internet/siemens-com/global/company/topic-areas/fcb/overcome/en/index.html) and across the brand’s social platforms.

The engagement funnel sought to lead fans to the #Overcome campaign hub through a combination of social media assets, plus a PR strand and via digital boards in the FC Bayern stadium and FC Bayern Basketball arena: for the in-stadium/arena strands, the lights were dimmed before each episode was screened to enable viewers/fans to fully immerse themselves in the stories.

The join team of marketers leading the project included Siemens AG’s Anna-Lena Müller (Strategic Communications Lead), Christos Palamidis (Performance Marketing Manager) and Florian Martini (Senior Corporate Spokesman), plus a group at Rapid Peaks which included Insa Heegner (Account Director), Daniel Krettek (Senior Copywriter), Ulrika Novakovic (Senior Production Manager), Hannah Gretsch (Junior Project Manager), Aimée-Merle Nützel (Senior Art Director), Ben Fuchs (Strategic Planning Director) and Stefan Geltl (UX Designer), as well as Faktor 3 AG Sven Labenz (COO), DropIn-TV’s Duc Pham (Creative Producer) and Manuel Durst (Executive Producer), kivili Software Developers Maximilian Soltner and Christoph Peters and Director Goetz Werner.

Outcome

During the 2021/2 season, #Overcome reached more than 75m people, generating 220,000 total engagements worldwide: a year-on-year rise of 316% and 252% respectively compared to the previous season’s activation campaign).