Audi's Messi V Neymar Keepy-Uppy Barcelona Challenge

Keepy-Uppy, the kingpin of playground football skills, is the creative theme of Audi’s latest Barcelona partnership activation as the premium car brand pits team mates Lionel Messi and Neymar Jr against one another in a viral video based around the ultimate keepy-uppy competition.

The objective behind the skills stunt was to drive awareness of Audi’s own energy recharging technology.

The simple 60-second challenge, which was inevitably turned into something of a viral video sensation, challenged each player to touch the ball as many times as they can without it hitting the floor ‘in order to recharge it with energy’.

The competition between the Brazilian icon and the Argentinian genius was close.

While Neymar led for much of the contest, a late burst saw Messi take the win by 1,004 watts to 984 watts.

The video was seeded across both both Audi’s social channels as well as on Barcaelona’s impressively popular digital assets.

With 4,655,411 YouTube views, plus 17,807 ‘Likes’ and just 1,545 ‘Dislikes’ (probably from Real Madrid fans), this online video shows that if you have the right stars then straightforward and simple can equal success.

This clash of the giants, energy-generating awareness stunt actually took place at an event that saw this season’s Barca squad presented with their new first team vehicles.

This presentation was also shared via a partner online film called ‘Inside View – Audi Presentation’.

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The Audi/Barca relationship is one of the longer auto brand partnerships in the football world.

The sponsorship began in 2006 when Audi became a premium partner of the Catalan club and its official car worldwide and it was renewed in 2011.

Under the alliance Audi receives hospitality services at the club’s Camp Nou, has ad right across Barcelona’s owned assets, and retains the right to use the Barcelona brand, including player images, for promotional and marketing purposes.

In addition, Audi supports of the club’s first-team pre-season tours and provide first-team players with cars.

Audi’s ‘keepy-uppy’ stunt was just part of a tidal wave of online and social media activity from the club during November/December as Barcelona also uses its own digital channels to celebrate its 115^th anniversary via a campaign called ‘Soc Culer’

This initiative aims to share the celebrations with Barcelona members and fans all around the world.

Using the tagline ‘Sóc Culer’ (‘I’m a Barça supporter), the club is calling on fans to take a photo or record a video while making a C symbol with their hands over their hearts and saying the words ‘sóc culer’.

They can then share the images on social networks using the hashtag #FCB115.