Miguel Ugaz, director of ContentLab at Grupo El Comercio of Peru, recently shared details with INMA members about the “la bandera del aliento” — the flag of encouragement — campaign, which brought valuable content to the streets and put it in the hands of the audience.

El Comercio, which will celebrate its 186th anniversary this year, created this content for the Peruvian Football Federation and launched the campaign just before the soccer 2024 Copa América.

The media conglomerate manages six news brands: El Comercio, its flagship newspaper; Diario Gestión, focused on economy and business; Trome, the most-read Spanish-language popular newspaper in the region; sports daily Depor; Diario Correo; and the newspaper Ojo.

During a recent INMA Webinar, Ugaz explained that after Peru’s national team qualified for the 2018 World Cup — ending a 36-year absence — the team regained prominence and sparked joy among the people.

In May 2024, the Federation approached El Comercio with the goal of restoring the fans’ strong sense of love and belonging to the national team for Copa América in the United States. This enthusiasm resurged after the 2018 World Cup in Russia but had waned somewhat due to the team’s poor start in the current qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup in North America.

For this reason, El Comercio created the “La bandera del aliento” campaign, with an added challenge: It not only involved the Federation but also the national team’s nine sponsors.

The goal was to connect with the 70% of Peruvians who, according to IPSOS data, are passionate about soccer: “The national team generates a lot of buzz, a lot of public opinion, and a lot of business, which is why there are nine brands behind it,” Ugaz explained.

A campaign rooted in national pride

The campaign’s first objective was to strengthen national pride for “La Bicolor” by leveraging the Peru vs. Paraguay match before the team’s departure for Copa América. El Comercio’s content needed to help sell 60,000 stadium tickets. The second objective was to give visibility to the nine sponsors.

Part of the campaign content included dozens of live reports from ContentLab journalists.

Beyond simply generating content to excite fans about La Bicolor, the goal was for people to take ownership of the content and spread their enthusiasm to others: “We wanted it to be something bigger — not just an El Comercio campaign but a campaign for the people,” Ugaz said.

El Comercio’s creative team realised that June 7, 2024, the day of the Peru vs. Paraguay match, was also Peru’s Flag Day. This insight led to the name and concept of “La bandera del aliento.”

“The concept materialised as a 150-meter-wide fabric flag that was taken to various locations across the capital Lima, where fans signed it and left messages of encouragement for the players of ‘La Bicolor,’” Ugaz explained.

The flag was signed by 10,000 fans in different locations chosen by the team’s sponsors. The signatories were as diverse as street cleaners passing by, a child selling candy on a corner, a dog that left its paw print, and even El Comercio’s director and his pet Ringo.

“My homeland is as beautiful as a sword in the air,” read one of the thousands of messages, quoting a Peruvian poet.

“Reading the messages on the flag was incredibly inspiring and heartwarming,” Ugaz said.

With just three weeks left before the match, sponsors had the opportunity to host their own events at their establishments, inviting fans to sign the flag.

Before each event, El Comercio launched an extensive promotional effort across its print and digital editions, as well as on social media, inviting audiences to sign the flag. All pre-event promotion was handled by ContentLab and amplified by each brand’s influencers, creating “an ecosystem of engagement,” Ugaz said.

“This way, we brought activations to gas stations, shopping malls, bank branches, and corporate offices, encouraging everyday citizens to create their own content and add meaning to the campaign.”

Content amplification

Each event was streamed live on El Comercio’s social media channels. The content was further amplified through articles and three-minute videos featuring interviews with brand executives and fans as they signed the flag.

To reinforce the campaign, a digital campaign was launched across social media and in El Comercio’s print edition, encouraging audiences to sign the flag.

Ugaz emphasised that part of the campaign’s success stemmed from the close relationship between the branded content team and the editorial newsrooms within the media company.

The campaign was so successful that competing media outlets referenced it — partly due to an initiative by the sponsors and the Federation, which sent journalists of different outlets small cardboard boxes containing pieces of the flag. In response, journalists signed the flag, praised the initiative, and featured it in their publications — without mentioning El Comercio, though.

After collecting more than 10,000 signatures, on the night before the match against Paraguay, representatives from the nine sponsors presented the “Bandera del aliento” to the players in a symbolic event known as the “banderazo.” The players had the opportunity to read some of the messages before the game.

On June 7, the flag was unfurled on the field of Lima’s Estadio Monumental in front of 60,000 spectators and millions of TV viewers. The visibility of the flag, the sponsors, and a packed stadium were reasons for El Comercio to celebrate, as the campaign’s goals had been met.

The campaign did not stop there, Ugaz said: They decided to cut the flag into pieces and stitch them back together at Copa América.

To capitalise on the momentum of the published content, as well as new content generated post-campaign, a microsite was created within El Comercio’s Web site. It featured a module allowing users who had not signed the flag in person to leave a digital message.

The results

Results from the initiative were impressive:

• Over 10,000 fans signed the flag.
• 60,000 people filled Lima’s Estadio Monumental.
• 16 million people were reached by the content.
• 1.6 million readers engaged with El Comercio’s print articles.
• 2 million organic video views.
• 54,000 unique users visited the microsite.
• 89,000 pageviews.

Ugaz’s key takeaway from the experience is that when more than 20 creative professionals work on branded content, it is possible to transform commercial content into newsworthy material. And with the help of editorial journalists, its impact can be amplified to reach audiences effectively and achieve outstanding results.

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