Inside Uefa's impactful lifesaving campaign that trained 180,000 fans

Purpose

UEFA works to promote, protect, and develop European football across its 55 member associations. This also involves caring for the health and well-being of all people active in football, which has become a pivotal point for the organization's social responsibility strategy. The European Resuscitation Council proved to be the perfect partner as their mission is to preserve human life by making high-quality resuscitation available to all. Both organizations have connected on the shared objective to raise awareness of, and where possible prevent, unnecessary death through sudden cardiac arrest.

Social Objectives

Two simple but ambitious social objectives were set for the Get Trained, Save Lives campaign:

• The first was to maximize awareness of the seriousness and prevalence of sudden cardiac arrest, the importance of bystander CPR, and the relative ease of learning basic life-saving skills.
• The second aim was to educate over 100,000 fans in basic CPR skills across UEFA’s major football competition finals next to providing in-person training to all participating teams, officials, volunteers, EURO2024 staff, and fans visiting the ten organizing EURO host cities.

Audience

The campaign was aimed at a broad European adult football fan audience (15 years+, m/f) not intrinsically interested in medical issues like sudden cardiac arrest. However, they were characterized by a strong sense of (football) community. To make the campaign message applicable across borders of, e.g., languages, cultures, ethical values, and traditions, the focus was placed on what they had in common; a shared heart/passion for football.

Strategy

Representing 55 members and interacting with a plethora of NGOs and public stakeholders, UEFA acts in a diverse European working field. Partnering with the ERC helped to understand national approaches towards CPR training and close collaboration with national football federations helped to cater to ethical and cultural differences. Messaging was customized and translated into national languages and local media partners were involved to reach out to local markets. Elite player ambassadors helped to tap into their local home markets.

To reach all different age and gender groups within the diversified target audience, a 360° multi-platform approach was chosen. This included a mix of UEFA’s digital and social channels and real-life events at fan festivals, training camps, and final days. Momentum was built around the natural highlights in the football season, culminating at the EURO2024 tournament and carried by football ambassadors and other football stakeholders which aided reach and engagement tremendously. Very powerful was the training of all participating football teams during UEFA’s competition finals. Their role model behavior had a strong positive effect on awareness levels and conversion towards the educational goals.

Execution: Creative Excellence and Implementation

Millions of people enjoy football in Europe - whether training at their local club, competing in matches, or cheering on their favorite team in a stadium. Their hearts beat for football. But what if a heart suddenly stops? Every day, many people die from sudden cardiac arrest in Europe. It can happen to anyone, anytime, and anywhere. Getting medical assistance and starting CPR immediately is crucial; every second counts.

Core messaging:

“OUR HEARTS BEAT FOR FOOTBALL BUT... ARE YOU PREPARED TO SAVE A LIFE IF ONE HEART SUDDENLY STOPS...?”

This campaign aimed to train as many as possible football fans in basic life-saving techniques, therefore a simple and clear call to action was required; Get Trained, Save Lives! As the campaign needed to express a strong sense of urgency, the visuals were kept very clean, maximizing visual and minimizing textual explanation. This also helped with implementing the campaign across different cultures and languages. Only two colors (red and blue) were used, not only representing the colors of both the UEFA and ERC organizations but also representing the oxygen-poor and rich blood flows in the human heart.

Many football stars got involved as role models in the campaign. Their exemplary impact was further strengthened by CPR training every player active in the EURO2024 tournament. These stars spoke directly to the audience with calls to action and CPR poses with forward-stretched hands and interlocked fingers. By keeping the visuals simple and authentic throughout the campaign (personalized and not heavily UEFA branded), the message became relatable for the audiences. On each of the platforms (online module, chatbot, quizzes, TV ad), it was the players who invited fans to participate, not UEFA. This created a much closer and more authentic message. The fact that the players also received CPR training added further to the feeling of authenticity.

Implementation

Throughout the football season, four educational approaches were implemented, all aimed at specific target groups:

1. An online learning environment (get-trained.com) featuring famous players guiding website visitors through an interactive dressing room.
2. Instagram chatbots (e.g., Erling Haaland, Gareth Bale) and quizzes in the stories section targeting a younger demographic.
3. Fan booths with heart compression games at ten EURO2024 fan zones.
4. CPR training (45 mins) of national associations, clubs, UEFA staff, volunteers, and professional players throughout the campaign. This included all national teams participating in the EURO2024 tournament.

To further increase awareness and drive conversion, a continuous social campaign was implemented across UEFA's social media channels. International media outlets were informed at key moments in the campaign. Messaging was further promoted during match day two of EURO2024 with a TV ad, match programme ads, LED perimeter boarding, stadium giant screens, and a dedicated sticker in the official Topps album.

Results: Outcomes and Effectiveness

The uniqueness of this campaign is that it succeeded in mobilizing a strongly diversified group of individuals around a common purpose. It mobilized fan power across animosity and rivalry between countries and clubs and united people in a community on a cause that was not the easiest to address and demanded quite significant dedication. In numbers, the campaign surpassed its ambitious objective of educating 100,000 football fans in basic resuscitation skills by 79%!

This was partly due to a well-performing online educational module that achieved almost 79,000 full completions, a completion rate of 62%, and an astonishing conversion rate of 6.5%, next to nearly 49,000 course completions on Instagram. At the EURO2024 fan zones, over 40,000 fans joined for hands-on CPR training at one of the ten fan booths. Jointly, they performed over 4 million compressions on practice manikins. And until today, 9,100 fans, players, volunteers, and UEFA staff have taken part in the 45-minute real-life GOAL CPR course. Through strategic media outreach and releases, a readership of over 5 million people was achieved representing a PR value of close to EUR 2 million. The objective of creating awareness of the need for bystander resuscitation was hit out of the park with a mind-blowing reach of 2 billion and an engagement score of 4.7 million! The success of the campaign has spurred a collaboration with the European Club Association to train the teams and fan groups of their (700+) professional club members.