Banco Pichincha Turns Fan Noise Into a Trophy With The Cheering Cup
Banco Pichincha launched The Cheering Cup — also known as Copa del Impulso — in Ecuador in May 2019, a live experiential activation in which audio sensors captured the cheering of approximately 50,000 spectators at a Liga de Quito match and converted that sound data into a 3D-printed trophy created in real time, demonstrating the bank's sponsorship value through a tangible object born entirely from fan energy.
The campaign was created by MullenLowe Delta, the Quito-based agency operating within the MullenLowe Group network, for Banco Pichincha, Ecuador's largest bank by assets. The activation sat at the intersection of finance and sports, two industries the campaign fused deliberately: Banco Pichincha was already an official sponsor of Liga de Quito — the club known across South America as El Rey de Copas, or the King of Cups — and the experiential work translated that sponsorship into something the stadium crowd could witness being made in their presence.
In Ecuador, the campaign represented a meaningful strategic step for a bank that had undergone a comprehensive corporate rebrand in 2018, led by Spanish design agency Erretres, with the explicit aim of appealing to younger and future generations, according to Ads of the World. The Cheering Cup extended that repositioning into lived experience rather than broadcast media, replacing a passive audience with active co-creators. The activation contained a single media asset and was published in May 2019, as documented on Clapboard. Clapboard awards The Cheering Cup a score of 79 out of 100, reflecting strong creative ambition and award-validated execution within the experiential category.
Banco Pichincha held approximately 25.7% of Ecuador's total banking-system assets at December 2019, according to Euromoney, making it the dominant financial institution in the country by a substantial margin. That position of market leadership created both an opportunity and a challenge: the bank needed its Liga de Quito sponsorship to feel like genuine community membership rather than transactional logo placement.
The strategic insight driving The Cheering Cup was precise. Banco Pichincha did not simply attach its name to a football match; it proposed that the fans themselves — not the players, not the institution — were the true force behind Liga de Quito's identity as El Rey de Copas. By making crowd noise the literal raw material for a trophy, MullenLowe Delta reframed the bank's role from distant financial backer to active enabler of collective pride. This is a meaningful distinction in a market where emotional proximity to football culture carries social currency that conventional bank advertising rarely achieves.
The competitive context in Ecuador sharpened the rationale further. The three largest banks in the country — Banco Pichincha, Banco del Pacífico, and Banco Guayaquil — together accounted for approximately 52.27% of Ecuador's banking-sector assets in 2020, according to research documented at Repositorio Utmachala Edu Ec, with Banco del Pacífico holding an estimated 14% to 15% market share. In a consolidated market where product differentiation between leading institutions is limited, brand affinity and cultural relevance become primary competitive levers. The Cheering Cup addressed both by generating a story that no competitor had told and that could not easily be replicated without the specific sponsorship relationship Banco Pichincha held with Liga de Quito.
MullenLowe Delta built the activation around a technically precise pipeline connecting live audio capture to physical fabrication. Audio sensors positioned within the stadium recorded the frequency and intensity of crowd cheering during the Liga de Quito match; software then converted that audio data into the geometric parameters required to direct a 3D printer, which produced the trophy in real time as spectators watched, according to documentation on Ads of the World.
The creative leadership at MullenLowe Delta brought significant depth to the project. Chief Creative Officer Carlos Oviedo oversaw the campaign, with General and Creative Director Chacho Cabrera — also credited as Carlos Cabrera — directing the creative execution, as documented on Ads of the World and Clapboard. Associate Creative Directors Marco Salvador and Sergio Alzate contributed to the concept development, supported by copywriters Ingrid Ramos and Andrés Neidl. The art direction team included Ricardo Lopez, Juan Suarez, Julio Correa, Luis Argoti, and Fabian Vasquez, with design by Betty Pacheco.
The creative decision to produce a single, physical object rather than a broadcast film or social content series was itself a strategic one. A trophy carries intrinsic symbolic weight within football culture — particularly in the context of a club whose identity as El Rey de Copas is inseparable from the objects that name implies. By making the trophy the output of the fans' own voices, the campaign collapsed the distance between the abstract concept of bank sponsorship and the concrete ritual of winning. The experiential format meant the activation lived primarily as a witnessed event in Ecuador before becoming an artifact for wider distribution, a sequencing that gave the story a verifiable origin point and an object that could serve as evidence of the crowd's own agency.
No verified performance data for The Cheering Cup — including reach figures, earned media volume, social engagement metrics, or brand-tracking outcomes — is publicly available at the time of writing. Assessment therefore rests on structural indicators and the campaign's award record.
The Cheering Cup earned a Bronze Lion at Cannes Lions 2019, according to Ads of the World, and a Bronze award in the Public Relations category at Clio Sports 2020, as reported by Clapboard. These two independent recognitions from different awarding bodies confirm that the campaign was evaluated by industry juries against international competitive fields and found to meet a defined standard of creative excellence across consecutive years.
Structurally, the activation demonstrates several attributes associated with durable experiential effectiveness. The mechanism — audio capture converted to 3D form — is legible to a stadium audience without explanation, which limits the barrier to emotional participation. The trophy as output is a culturally resonant object within the specific football context of Liga de Quito, ensuring the campaign's symbolism is loaded rather than generic. The fact that Banco Pichincha held approximately US$11.4 billion in assets by December 2019, according to Euromoney, and was already an established Liga de Quito sponsor, meant the activation built on an existing relationship rather than constructing one from scratch — a structural advantage that increased the plausibility of the bank's claim to fan solidarity. In Ecuador's concentrated banking market, the campaign's ability to generate a distinctly ownable cultural moment represents a form of competitive value that standard product advertising is unlikely to replicate.
The Cheering Cup is a 2019 experiential campaign by Banco Pichincha and MullenLowe Delta in Ecuador. Audio sensors at a Liga de Quito match captured the cheering of approximately 50,000 fans, and software converted that sound data into a 3D-printed trophy produced in real time at the stadium, according to Ads of the World.
MullenLowe Delta created The Cheering Cup. The Quito-based agency is part of the global MullenLowe Group network. Chief Creative Officer Carlos Oviedo and Creative Director Chacho Cabrera led the work, as documented on Ads of the World and Clapboard, alongside a full team of art directors, copywriters, and designers.
The Cheering Cup won a Bronze Lion at Cannes Lions 2019, according to Ads of the World, and a Bronze in the Public Relations category at Clio Sports 2020, as reported by Clapboard. No verified awards from Effies, One Show, D&AD, or WARC are recorded in publicly available sources at this time.
Banco Pichincha was an official Liga de Quito sponsor. The club is known as El Rey de Copas across South America. Connecting the campaign to an existing sponsorship allowed the bank to translate a commercial relationship into a cultural moment, positioning it as an enabler of fan pride rather than a passive financial backer.
Banco Pichincha held approximately 25.7% of Ecuador's total banking-system assets at December 2019, according to Euromoney, with US$11.4 billion in assets. It is Ecuador's largest bank by assets, operating ahead of competitors including Banco del Pacífico and Banco Guayaquil in a concentrated national market.
Clapboard assigns The Cheering Cup a score of 79 out of 100. The score reflects the campaign's strong creative concept, technically precise experiential execution, and validation from two independent international award programmes — Cannes Lions 2019 and Clio Sports 2020 — across the finance and sports categories.
.webp)
Creative Collaboration Platform: The Backbone of Modern Creative WorkWhat is a creative collaboration platform?Clapboard defines a creative collaboration platform as the operational core for today’s distributed creative teams. This is not a collection of digital collaboration tools stitched together; Clapboard’s system
Understanding the Creative Production MarketplaceWhat is a Creative Production Marketplace?Clapboard defines a creative production marketplace as a structured ecosystem where brands, agencies, and production talent converge to execute video, advertising, and branded content at scale. Unlike the legacy agency or freelanREAD FULL ARTICLE
The Urgent Need for a Creative Production Operating SystemWhy Traditional Creative Production Models Break DownClapboard sees the creative production landscape shifting under pressure. Content velocity is no longer a buzzword—it’s a mandate. Modern advertising demands relentless output across dozens of channels, each wREAD FULL ARTICLE
.jpg&w=256&q=75)
