FCBARCELONA.CAT

09.06.2008 10:11

New Foundation campaign for education

www.fcbarcelona.cat

The Foundation has launched an advertising campaign “Football is not everything” to raise awareness about the importance of education for vulnerable children.

Almost two years after its last campaign to get across the challenges that lay beyond sport, the FC Barcelona Foundation is launching a new awareness campaign about the importance of sport as a tool for social inclusion.

The central message of the campaign is “Football is important, but their education is even more so”. The slogan shows the commitment of the FC Barcelona Foundation to international development cooperation with programmes and projects which use sport and especially football to give all-inclusive educational and healthcare support to the world’s most vulnerable children.

TV and print ads

The campaign consists of TV and print ads. The 25-second TV ad has been made in eight languages (Catalan, Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese and Arab) and shows an African child playing keepy-uppy and keeping count. As the ad goes on, the viewers come to realise that the child cannot count. The image generates affection but also shows a problem that is often forgotten, that these children have no schooling. This sort of problem is more important than football and hence the FC Barcelona Foundation is running programmes to reach more than 100,000 children in more than 15 countries in partnership with UNICEF, UNESCO and the UNHCR.

The print ad consists of three images which reinforce the all-inclusive assistance given by the FC Barcelona Foundation’s programmes. To communicate these programmes visually, the club badge appears without some of its usual features (the letters FCB , the football and the cross) which become part of the photo under the slogan “A part of Barça is with those who need us most”.

These symbols represent the aid which reaches the children: the football stands for the hope that has come to children in refugee camps; the letters FCB represent the educational projects which are being carried out all round the world; and the cross that represents the medical assistance. The campaign has been devised by Contrapunto, and the TV ad, made by Paolo Mitton, was shot in Barcelona this April.