A social led 360 campaign based on Zlatan always being rumoured to be coming out of international retirement.

To promote Visa members’ access-all-areas to World Cup stadiums, we pulled a prank on the global football audience. We asked Zlatan to post that he was going to the World Cup. I wrote typically Zlatan-style comments like: “Zlatan will be the first player on the pitch at the World Cup.”

The media took the bait, and Zlatan was questioned by dozens of football journalists, plus Jimmy Kimmel. More posts kept speculation building across sports TV shows, fan forums and social media. Our posts encouraged the rumours, fanning media speculation and social chatter. It got so intense that Swedish National Coach, Lars Lagerbäck, had to hold a press conference to deny Zlatan's widely speculated "return."

Yet, thanks to Visa members’ access-all-areas, Zlatan was able to post from the Luzhniki Stadium that he was, as promised, the first player on the pitch at the World Cup. (With Visa, not Sweden.)

In the opening game, I wrote Zlatan’s commentary, for FIFA’s socials. I’d spent days watching interviews to write in fluent Zlatan. One day he said “Here comes the man who knows me better than I know myself”.

Throughout the campaign, Zlatan met social influencers such as freekickerz, Kotaro Tokuda & Tatiana Vasilieva.

Zlatan was fantastic, and a day after leaving our shoot, scored from the halfway line on his LA Galaxy debut. For him, it was a tap-in.

The campaign won a Clio Silver and was a Shorty Awards Finalist.

Directed by those other great Swedes, Traktor.

 https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/breaking-sweden-confirm-zlatan-ibrahimovic-12431741