Man On Tree

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of football in contemporary Turkish culture. For the first time in Turkish history, both its local and national teams were performing at the highest level. Lig TV broadcasts national football league matches in Turkey. Although the channel was popular among Turkey’s many football fans, only a proportion of these were willing to actually buy a subscription. Lig TV recognized that a lot of people who watch the channel are “football freeloaders” who watch games at neighbours’ houses. The marketing challenge, then, was to highlight this consumer behaviour, overcome this price prejudice, and drive sales.

“Football freeloaders” knew their behaviour was cheeky, so the aim was to provoke a tipping point to convince them to take up their own subscription. Lig TV created its own medium designed to target the freeloaders watching Lig TV at their neighbours’ houses. Lig TV did this by placing dummy “football fans” in the branches of trees in high traffic residential areas in Istanbul, all dressed up in Turkish football club shirts, as if they were watching the game through the window of a nearby house. The message, written on a board hung up on the tree, was simple: “you can’t spend the whole season at your neighbour’s window. Subscribe now!”

The campaign generated extensive PR coverage and drove a 25% increase in subscriptions.