The Campaign

At the core of the creative idea lies the value of family’s love and a tribute to hardworking soldiers. Aged around 19, young soldiers from the Army, the Navy and the Marine are sweating through their usual Sunday morning drill, when they are explained to have been chosen as the South Korean military representatives to meet the Korean War veterans in person. Confused, they still hit the road to the skybox in Suwon World Cup Stadium. The young soldiers’ parents, on the other hand, are at a stadium in Suwon, some weeping and some beaming at the thought of their proud sons during their interviews with the crew. The soldiers arrive at the destination one by one, awaiting the veterans. But when the door flings open, they see their parents walk in with arms wide open. The soldiers smile confusingly but soon run up to greet their parents.

Creative Execution

The project kick-started with the collaboration with the Ministry of National Defense to post announcements on each troop’s social medias asking families for story submissions in exchange of U-20 World Cup Korea final match tickets. After careful selection of three soldiers among the 372, the production team headed to each of the Army, Navy, Marine and the studio to interview the soldiers and their families. Led by the team, the three soldiers and their families enjoy a day of surprise reunion at the stadium’s skybox. The 3-month-long project was documented and was loaded on multiple Facebook channels including official outlets of the MND and Visa. The KRW 126 million execution drew more than 267 engagement in Visa’s Facebook channel alone.

1. Collected over 350 heartwarming soldier’s stories nationwide in 3 days. 2. Within a week, the film of the reunions attracted over 300 thousands views and attracted 95% of positive feedback across social media. 3. FIFA.com headlined the celebrations behind the scenes of the Final. 4. 11 major media covered this tribute to soldiers’ service.

"Everywhere you want to be,” the very message that came into life via a 3-minute journey of young soldiers who Visa carried across the country for a surprise reunion with their parents, touched on the hearts of many. The creative was devised to reinforce the appeal of the Visa brand to the Millennials via a theme and means of communication native to them: freedom, and viral video. By liberating the young soldiers from the heavy duty for a World Cup match with family, it cleverly delivers the message that Visa is capable of bringing everyone to everywhere at any time.

Millennials take 2.5 billion of world-wide population and 30% of the total consumer force, which makes 2,807 trillion Korean won of annual expenditure. The project targeted social media as the main platform of communication Company survey revealed, however, that among the South Korean Millennials, 25% have not thought of which credit card network to choose; 24% responded that their Visa cards were recommended by the bank, another 16% by the card company itself, and 10% had no choice but to use Visa. The PR planning initiative, therefore, was to highlight the core distinctions from competitors, establish intimate relationship and form a stronger bond with the target consumers, and provide participatory consumer experiences and begin sharing common ground. Hence, building a solid rapport with them through constant exposure of Visa-related content via social media channels was imperative.