Brief Explanation

With an impeccable career of 31 wins and the title of world’s youngest Olympic boxing medalist, UK boxing legend Amir Khan faced a setback after being defeated by Canelo Alvarez. The news claimed his career was over. At a time when nobody backed a down-and-out Khan as brand ambassador, Sting decided to take up the opportunity and remake the boxer's reputation by re-energizing him back into the ring. Tapping into Khan's Pakistani heritage, Sting invited him to Pakistan and showcased an entire city as a gym and its people as coaches. The Mughal city of Lahore, and its residents, stepped up. A digitally led and highly integrated campaign by the name of #StingChallenge was launched, inviting Pakistanis to challenge and train Khan. Following a short teaser, an online film was launched that marked the beginning of Khan's #StingChallenge. The film showed the boxer training in the old city of Lahore using unconventional means: parkour on the rooftops of this old Mughal city, training with local wrestlers, jumping over rickshaws, shadowboxing with clotheslines. The film ended with a call to action: “Dare to challenge Amir Khan.” Following the video, every week a challenge post would be created which called out the digital audience to help train Khan by giving him challenges. The audience came up with incredibly creative challenges using local techniques (such as boxing to the tune of a traditional drum beat) and Khan met them head-on. "Remake The Boxer" was one of the most effective campaigns that PepsiCo has ever run: • Initial KPI of bringing brand back on to growth trajectory worked: We went from being -12% in Q4 2016 to a volume growth of 15% at the end of the campaign - a swing of positive 27pts. • The campaign firmly re-established Sting in the market as an energy drink, with a boost in Energy credentials by a massive 14 points. • The online film alone gained a cumulative of 16 million views online and was the fastest to 10 million views in PepsiCo's history. • Facebook alone showed a total campaign reach of 17.3 million people. • Total impressions crossed the 100 million mark. • Brand love after the campaign increased by 12 points. • In a complete knockout of the competition, sales increased by an incredible 26 PERCENT following the campaign. • Sting is now the biggest selling energy drink in the country. What makes this case stand apart, however, is the fact that the campaign’s success was not limited to the brand alone, but had a profound impact on the spokesperson himself. Amir Khan came back into the boxing ring, and against all odds, he won his comeback fight in April 2018 at Liverpool within an extraordinary 40 seconds. Not only had we remade a brand, we had also re-energized a boxer back into the ring.