The Background
Soccer Aid for UNICEF is the world's largest celebrity football match, raising millions every year to give children the best start in life. When the Soccer Aid for UNICEF team asked us to create their schools product for 2024, we didn't need asking twice.
The Brief
The Soccer Aid team wanted a new schools product aimed squarely at teachers and the school community, primarily primary schools — though it needed to work for secondary too. The brief was to build something that would get schools fundraising during Soccer Aid, while introducing the Soccer Aid brand to a whole new audience of children and staff.
It had to be fun, genuinely easy for teachers to deliver, fit naturally into the curriculum, and sit confidently alongside the updated Soccer Aid branding for 2024.
The Work
We wanted to create an event that brought an entirely new community of pupils and staff into the Soccer Aid experience — something that felt like too good an opportunity to miss. So Soccer Aid Academy was born.
We built it as a week-long event in the lead-up to the match, with enough flexibility for teachers to run a short activity each day or bring everything together into a single all-day event.
The week kicks off with a Kick Off Video introducing the activities and building excitement with some familiar Soccer Aid faces. Each day, a new video drops with a celebrity host revealing the next challenge — ranging from football skills like goal celebrations and a top bins challenge, to a global knowledge quiz that ties back to UNICEF's work around the world. The week closes with a Final Whistle broadcast — the big finale, complete with questions from the children and a highlight reel from the week.
UNICEF's cause runs through everything. We built bespoke activities that connect directly to UNICEF's work and case studies, making sure the event educated as well as entertained — football skills, global knowledge and a lot of fun, all in one package.
The Creative
The creative had one job: get schools to sign up. It needed to look fun and educational, feel like something pupils would genuinely want to be part of, and sit naturally alongside the master Soccer Aid brand. We also built it to work as a standalone — with or without celebrities front and centre — so it could lead the campaign in its own right.