CONTEXT & CHALLENGE
The CBF had been feeling Brazilians drift away from the Seleção, the national team. Bad at any time, worse on the eve of the confederation's biggest stage: the World Cup. With two World Cups ahead, the men's in Qatar and the women's in Australia and New Zealand, there were two chances to bring the fans back in a close, informative and fun way. And, on top of that, to build the CBF a base of qualified leads to activate partners during and after the tournaments.
INSIGHT
During a World Cup, the medium doesn't matter: TV, laptop, radio, phone. What matters is being connected. And in Brazil, being connected means WhatsApp, known locally as Zap. 147 million users, 94% of them opening the app every day. It's where Brazilians share memes, news and their entire lives. If the fans were on Zap, the Seleção had to be there too.
CONCEPT
Chama no Zap! (Hit me up on Zap!)
Every football fan likes Canarinho, the national team's canary mascot. So he was the one who left social media for the biggest network in the country. The mascot got his own WhatsApp number and became the friend every fan wants during the World Cup: the one who knows the lineup, sends exclusive videos and replies in the same tone as the banter.
THE EXECUTION
Zap do Canarinho was built to be simple and intuitive, with artificial intelligence, in a custom ChatGPT, to humanize the answers and keep conversations going. No customer service bot: Canarinho talks like a fan.
Inside the chat, content updated every day: service (Fan Fest call-ups, match schedule), fun (sweepstakes, memes and a WhatsApp sticker pack) and personalized activations, such as codes for Free Fire. And Zap went beyond interaction: it opened space for collabs with Guaraná, Gol, Vivo and other Seleção sponsors.
THE STICKERS
If Brazilians talk in stickers, Canarinho needed his own. The pack turned the mascot into fan vocabulary: Chama no Zap! (Hit me up!), Gooool!, É pênaaalti! (Penaaalty!), Faz a pose de cria! (Strike the home-grown pose!), Hoje é no amor! (Today it's all love!), Quem é o único penta? (Who's the only five-time champion?). All ready to go from Zap do Canarinho straight into the family group chat.
RESULTS
- ~100,000 visits to the main menu alone, 100% inbound: fans reached out, nobody was cold-messaged
- 96% delivery success on Canarinho's broadcasts to the full base
- Partners on a high: 83% success on the Guaraná broadcast (full base) and 97% on the Seleça Mastercard one (São Paulo base)
- 300+ pieces of content published and 10+ brands activated throughout the project
- 90%+ open rate on direct communication
- A project that began at the Qatar World Cup, in November 2022, and ran until the end of the Women's World Cup, in August 2023