While Carlsberg's name might conjure images of big-budget productions and global campaigns, this project told a different story.
Carlsberg has a long and iconic association with football traditionally centred around elite-level sponsorships and professional matchdays. As football culture evolved, the brand recognised a need to deepen its relationship with fans by showing that its commitment to the game goes beyond the biggest stadiums and brightest lights. Unlike premiership-level budgets, our production resources were however more akin to a grassroots team's.
Guided by Carlsberg’s brand mission to give more people access to more of the best, the objective of If Carlsberg Did Matchdays was to celebrate the passion, commitment, and community spirit that exists at the grassroots level of football, where the love of the game often goes unrecognised.
The campaign set out to:
By shifting the spotlight from professional athletes to unsung heroes of the game, the campaign aimed to prove that football’s magic doesn’t fade — and neither should recognition for those who play purely for the love of it.
If Carlsberg Did Matchdays was built on a simple but powerful insight: while professional football thrives on atmosphere, attention, and adoration, grassroots football - where the majority of the game is played - often unfolds quietly, without fanfare.
Research commissioned by Carlsberg revealed that 24% of people aged 55+ had given up on the idea of ever experiencing the magic of football fanfare, and 56% felt their ambitions were considered less important than those of younger generations. This highlighted an emotional gap and a cultural opportunity for the brand to act meaningfully on its promise to give more people access to more of the best.
Walking football became the perfect lens to tell this story. As a fast-growing, community-led format played largely by over-50s, it represents resilience, camaraderie, and a refusal to let age or physical limitations diminish passion for the game.
The campaign centred on St Helens Walking Football Club, a local team who turn up week after week despite injury, disability, and age — playing purely for love of football and community. Carlsberg transformed an ordinary Monday afternoon match into a professional-level matchday experience, typically reserved for elite players.
The activation included:
The experience was captured in an emotive, documentary-style hero film, supported by a multi-channel content strategy. Working with Meta, the campaign used sequential storytelling. We moved audiences from teaser content, to product integration, to conversion-focused assets, connecting emotional storytelling directly to product.
Earned media amplified the story across national and sports press, while organic social media ensured the content lived authentically within Carlsberg’s football ecosystem. Every touchpoint worked together to build a cohesive, emotionally resonant content journey rooted in truth and community.
If Carlsberg Did Matchdays delivered results that went beyond expectations, proving that emotionally led, community-rooted storytelling can outperform traditional football advertising across both brand and performance metrics.
Specifically the campaign achieved the following:
Increased awareness: Through paid social alone, the campaign reached 6.17 million individual users and delivered 64.3 million impressions, outperforming planned impressions by 154% while remaining highly cost-efficient, with CPMs coming in 40% lower than forecast.
Built relevance and generated engagement: Engagement significantly exceeded expectations, with clicks overdelivering by 442% and a CTR of 0.18%, more than 2× higher than forecast and nearly 3× platform benchmarks.
Performance was driven by storytelling and tapping into football culture, rather than product-led messaging. Short-form, people-focused assets that reference famous internet moments delivered the strongest engagement, including a standout 0.49% CTR on the “Well Done” asset, seven times higher than benchmark. This demonstrated that emotional validation and human connection were the most powerful drivers of action.
Drove brand affinity: A Meta Brand Lift Study showed a +9.7pt lift in ad recall, more than double the industry benchmark, alongside a +5.4pt lift in brand favourability, confirming that awareness translated into positive brand perception. The strongest impact was seen among audiences aged 35–54, reinforcing Carlsberg’s relevance with core football fans.
By collapsing the gap between brand storytelling and performance marketing, the campaign reframed Carlsberg’s role in football, proving that when brands give more people access to “the best,” audiences reward them with attention, action, and affinity.
