How to create a buzz for the World Cup without participating as a country.

Sporza

Denmark is Belgium. Support Belgium. Follow the World Cup live on Sporza.

1. The Challenge

Belgium did not qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. That’s a problem because it makes it less alluring for Belgians to watch the World Cup on television. So Sporza asked Boondoggle to come up with a campaign.

2. The Solution

We made a campaign that proves Belgium really did qualify and is participating in the World Cup. For each of the 32 World Cup teams, Boondoggle discovered a very good reason to claim that these teams were actually Belgian. Some of these reasons were translated into 3 hilarious TV ads. Take Italy for example: Gennaro Gattuso, an Italian player, fractured his knee and was operated upon by Dr. Martens in Antwerp.

During that operation he received a blood transfusion. Belgian blood. The logical conclusion being : Italy is Belgium! Another tv ad mentioned England. The English national team plays on grass developed by Desso, a Belgian company. So they play on Belgian grass. That’s Belgian territory, so England is Belgium!

The campaign was launched on TV and when the World Cup started, an application went live on Sporza.be which allowed users to post their own reasons for thinking that we can claim one of the participating countries as our own. That reason is posted on their Facebook wall and when their favourite country is playing, their status changes temporarily to ‘Peter Verbiest is watching the World Cup on Sporza and is cheering for Belgium’. Some of the reasons that were posted : Fellaini and Puyol have the same hairdo, so Spain is Belgium. Or the Germans stole the colours of our flag. So Germany is Belgium.

So don’t be embarrassed about boasting that Belgium will win the World Cup. We have proof that they will.