Transcriber: Virginie Labeye Reviewer: Els De Keyser
Good morning ! I have to confess something...
I'm not a diehard football fan,
and I'm not a diehard fan of the Belgian Red Devils either.
Of course, I was there in 1986, at the World Cup in Mexico,
when me made it into the semi finals, when we beat Russia, when we beat Spain.
I was a big fan then, and I think some people who are about my age
probably have been big fans too at that very moment.
But I was not there when we played against Morocco in 2008,
in the King Baudouin Stadium.
In fact, only 8,000 people were there,
8,000 of the 40,000 people that the King Baudouin Stadium can contain.
And of those 8,000 people, 6,000 people were Moroccan.
So it was not a big success.
I was not there, but I was there in 2012
when we started all the qualification games for Brazil.
I was not alone, because the tickets sold out more quickly than Tomorrowland.
In fact, that’s me in the middle.
So we really succeeded.
And in fact, the story of getting Belgium behind the Red Devils again
is not only the story of the Red Devils,
it’s also the rebirth of getting me behind the Red Devils again.
But I don’t want to talk to you about rebirth in the classical way,
because in the classical way, rebirth is always about starting all over again,
and in fact, it’s often just the contrary.
In fact, the secret of the rebirth of the Belgian Red Devils
is the secret of David Bowie.
Of course, you know David Bowie, I think. People who are about my age know him.
He’s known of course for all the great music he produced,
for the influence he had on fashion, on art, design and culture in general.
He’s also known for the many characters and the many alter egos which he produced:
Aladdin Sane, Ziggy Stardust, Pierrot, the Man Who Fell to Earth, and many others.
Now, he produced all those different characters, all those alter egos,
but he always remained David Bowie.
David Bowie was always David Bowie, and he always kept true to his essence.
And that’s the whole idea I want to share with you:
rebirth is not about starting all over again,
it’s about reinvention without losing your essence.
That’s what we did for the Belgian Red Devils:
we reinvented all the time, yet we kept very much true to our essence.
Now, what was the essence of the Belgian Red Devils?
We defined it as “together forward”.
Now, that’s not rocket science, of course, but it was very important to us.
Why the “forward”?
Of course because we want to win.
“Together” because in modern sports, you don’t win any more on your own,
even if you have great players, which we certainly have at this very moment.
If you do win, it is because you have the support of the fans,
you do it because you have the support of the technical staff,
of the Belgian Federation, of the media, and even of the government.
That’s when you win, and that’s when you become a team.
So that was our essence.
If you have that essence, the question is, how are you going to reinvent it?
The first thing that we really reinvented was the mission.
Our mission was not to qualify for Brazil, because that would have been a mistake,
because if we had failed, then our mission would have been on its flat ass.
And we redefine the mission as follows:
we want to build the best and the biggest fan legion ever.
A fan legion which is there when there is a game,
but also when there is no game.
A fan legion which is there when we have good results,
but also when the results are weak.
A fan legion which can produce positive enthusiasm
and can make it contagious,
but also a fan legion which can neutralize scepticism,
and we know Belgians tend to be very sceptical.
So, changing the mission was really very important to us,
and it really was reinvention number one.
The second reinvention which we did, was:
if we want to build the biggest and the best fan legion,
the question is, how are you going to do that?
And the way we did it, was our other reinvention,
because we didn’t want to tell people how to feel.
That’s what this campaign did. It said, “We have to be all part of the team.”
But it’s not because you say to people that you have to be part of the team
that they become part of the team.
And we wanted to do it in a different way.
We wanted to do it by creating a contagious behaviour,
a behaviour which was very entertaining, which would make people feel united.
And that’s when we created the Devils’ Challenges.
The Devils’ Challenges, actually, it’s an activation campaign.
It is a campaign which is meant to make people feel united.
It is a game between the fans and the players.
And in fact, it is very simple. How does it work?
The players launch a challenge towards the fans,
a challenge which is entertaining,
which is accessible to everyone and rooted in popular football culture.
And then, the players respond if the fans have succeeded in the challenge.
They respond by doing a counter performance
which shows them as a team and which shows them as players.
So we had different kinds of challenges.
For example, for the game against the Netherlands,
we had the challenge to colour the country red.
And for example the city of Geel, 'yellow' in English,
changed its name to 'Red'.
For the game against Wales, we asked people
to produce 500,000 decibels of noise.
And you had for example these elder people
who produced a noise hitting tins and cans.
They made a magnificent movie about it which you can see on the Facebook page.
For example, for the game against Macedonia,
we asked children to make children's drawings
and fill the whole stadium with children's drawings,
and they massively responded.
And then, when you had the challenges, you also had the counter performances.
For example this one, were the players
were playing against young children, different kinds of football.
or when they went unexpectedly to a home and surprised a fan,
and they helped in the kitchen, they helped to do the dishes,
and they also helped to prepare for school in a very spontaneous way.
So you had the challenges and you had the counter performances,
and together, they united people.
This was our reinvention number two.
But if you want to build, again, this big and this best fan legion,
you can only do that if you build it on an honest relationship.
And that is where we have authenticity.
In fact, the whole campaign is about authenticity.
The players were not mere actors in the campaign,
they really were the carriers in the campaign.
And there were really very real.
They believed for 300% in the mission and in the campaign.
And just to show how it worked,
I’ll show you Vincent Kompany at the beginning of the campaign,
with his statement.
Kompany: "If we compare the Red Devils to other national teams,
we realize that something unique is being created,
not only on the field, but especially in the stands,
it's the relationship between the fans and the players.
It's that relationship that we need to reinforce.
One of the best proofs we got
of the unconditional support of the fans
was during the match against Austria.
We went to Austria with more than 2500 fans,
idem in Germany, idem in England.
I think the message is this,
that regardless of the lack of results,
we have been able to get something positive out of it,
thanks to the support we got from the fans.
Let's reinforce the bond we have created thus far."
Vincent Kompany after -- at the start of the campaign.
When we had the fourth Devils’ Challenge,
in which we asked children to produce as many drawings as possible,
for instance when he came about this drawing,
he immediately put it on his Twitter and on his Instagram accounts.
So it was all very authentic. That was reinvention number three.
The fourth reinvention was that we fundamentally tried
to change our way of campaigning.
In the past, you always had like one campaign for all the games,
but we didn’t want to do it anymore.
In fact, we made one campaign per game.
It means we had a campaign for the game against the Netherlands --
'Color Belgium Red'.
We had for example the campaign for producing noise,
and we also had the campaign for example in which we asked female fans
to show that they could be as big supporters as the men were,
and they really responded in a great manner.
And for example when we went to Scotland,
we asked the fans in Scotland to make us proud.
And we had all this magnificent content which was produced.
Doing this gave us the possibility to turn every game into an event,
and not just the whole campaign.
And if we won, we could build up towards the next game,
and if we lost, we could again focus on the next game.
So it gave us a lot of advantages.
Reinvention number five is about the tone of the campaign.
In the past, we had all those campaigns which were really deadly serious,
the tone we find in the Nike campaign or in the Adidas campaign,
with lines such as,
“The moment lasts a second, and the legend lasts forever”,
and then you have this big picture of Ronaldo all over the place.
But we didn’t want to have that kind of campaign.
We wanted to have a campaign which was highly entertaining,
and we wanted to have a campaign which was truly Belgian.
And we, Belgians, we are a bit surrealist.
After all, we are the land of Magritte.
And that’s why we looked for another kind of a tone.
And, for example, when we had produced all of the 500,000 decibels,
in fact, for the second Devil Challenge,
we all put it in a mega blaster, we put this mega blaster on a boat,
we drove out in the sea
and we blasted all this noise in the direction of Wales
just to show that the whole country was behind the Red Devils.
Or for example, we asked the grandmother of Courtois to knit a bonnet.
The bonnet was auctioned, and the money was given to charity.
It gave us a lot of credentials. It created a lot of entertainment.
Our other reinvention is that instead of having a campaign
for everyone separately, namely a campaign for the Federation,
a campaign for the media partners
and a campaign for the commercial partners,
that meant now we had one campaign for everyone,
so everyone contributed in the same campaign,
which made us much stronger.
The seventh reinvention was about the status of the campaign.
In the past we had a very static campaign, with billboards all over the place,
but now, we wanted a very agile campaign.
That is why the campaign ran on Facebook.
Facebook really became the heart bone of the whole campaign.
And you had all these fans
who were really producing the campaign, posting this magnificent content,
content which got everybody very enthusiastic and very optimistic.
And it gave us the possibility to change very quickly too.
I think some people remember this challenge in which we asked the fans in Scotland
to make us proud.
But what had happened before?
We had a friendly game against France
and there the Belgian fans were not behaving in very sportive way.
They were whistling each time the French players got the ball.
So that’s when we changed in fact the next Devils' Challenge.
We asked the fans going to Scotland to make us really proud,
and we also asked all the other fans to support them.
And they really did.
The reinvention number eight was also a major change.
In fact, we stopped being a brand which always asked things from people.
In fact, we started to be a very generous brand.
We wanted to give to people.
And that’s why we did this:
in fact, we asked all the fans at the beginning of the campaign
if we could have their profile pictures on Facebook,
but we didn’t tell them why.
And we printed all the pictures on the new players’ bus.
And in fact, I’m very close to the wheel!
And you had a very beautiful story.
Those fans could be with the players forever,
and they would support them forever.
And the last reinvention is really a very important one too,
the fact that in the past you had all these different parties,
all these different stakeholders for the Belgian Red Devils,
really not working in a synergetic way.
Now we had the players, [the trainer] Wilmots,
the Federation, the commercial partners,
the media partners, the agencies,
our colleagues from Bonka Circus as well.
They were all collaborating as one big team.
And we’re really getting the whole idea of the campaign.
So, I’ve been talking now a lot about rebirth and about reinvention,
I think I mentioned eight of them.
And in fact it really worked for us,
The whole idea of rebirth is of course reinvention without losing your essence.
And how it worked for us,
I want to show it with our fifth Challenge
in which we asked women supporters
to show that they could be as great fans as men supporters.
We also asked them to fill one block in the whole stadium.
Now, it’s a bilingual movie but I think you will get the message.
(Music)
De Bruyne, goal!
(Music) (Cheering)
Red Devil Mertens: Dear fans, for the next Devils' Challenge,
we want the largest group of female diehard fans in the history of the Red Devils.
Our ladies are the best fans in the world.
But we don't see enough of them.
So we reserved a block in the King Baudouin Stadium
for the largest group of female diehard Red Devils fans ever.
Secure your place on the block.
Sing, chant, dress up
and post your clip or picture on Facebook.
Propel the Red Devils to victory.
In return, they make themselves fully available to their female counterparts.
(Music)
Red Devil Benteke: Congratulations, ladies, on succeeding in the fifth Challenge.
RD Vossen: Today, we are available to the ladies.
(Music)
RD Mignolet: We go for a real warming up? One or two touches?
RD: No, they are girls. No, go ahead, two touches.
RD Simons: Ladies, faster, please. (Laughter)
RD: And higher, please, keep in mind we are going to Brazil. (Laughter)
RD Mignolet: Oh no!
RD Mignolet: Justine, keep a few for the match!
Player: 3-2-1? Girl: In a diamond, one in the center.
RD Vossen: We are the trainers, remember. (Laughter)
(Team shouting) (Applause)
(Music)
RD Defour: Nice! Other side!
RD: Nice shot!
RD Mignolet: No problem, well done!
RD Benteke: Keep really really close!
RD: Turn!
RD Benteke: Oh, magnifique !
RD Defour: Attention, cocktail ! (Applause)
RD: Wow, wow!!
RD Benteke: Come on, one ...
RD: One less, there? RD Mignolet: You okay?
Lady: Oui, oui...
(Red Devils cheering and applauding)
RD Vossen: Anyone in need of towels? Lady: Yes. (Laughter)
RD: It's clear you never did this before.
(Music)
RD: The laundry. (Laughter)
(Crowd cheering) (Music)
The fifth Devils' Challenge. Each time I see it again, it moves me again…
I’ve been talking about rebirth, I’ve been talking about reinvention,
I’ve been comparing
the rebirth of the Belgian Red Devils to the story of David Bowie.
And I just want to conclude with the following:
if rebirth is about reinventing without losing your essence,
I would like to ask you,
have you asked yourself what is your essence?
And how are you going to reinvent yourself all the time
without becoming boring?
Because that’s the whole idea: you have to catch your people.
I would like to thank you for your attention
and I would like to thank everyone who helped
the campaign and the mission,
because we are going to Brazil,
the players, the trainer, the Belgian federation,
our commercial partners and media, our colleagues at Bonka and Boondoggle,
because they all really participated.
The new campaign starts next week.
I hope you will participate.
Thank you ! (Applause)