My Spare Boot - Costa Rican National Amputee Soccer Team | Clapboard Ad Archive

The Costa Rican National Amputee Soccer Team’s 2019 campaign My Spare Boot, crafted by Havas, confronts the financial barriers that threatened to derail the team’s historic qualification for the Amputee World Cup by transforming the players’ unused soccer boots into powerful symbols of sacrifice and need. Rather than depicting the team’s struggles through direct exposition, the campaign leverages what Clapboard’s taxonomy identifies as FORMAT#3—Symbolize the Problem—using the single, spare boot left behind by each amputee player as a tangible metaphor for the missing resources required to attend the tournament. This approach transforms an ordinary piece of sports equipment into an emotive artifact, inviting the public to buy these boots as a gesture of solidarity and practical support, bridging the gap between the athletes’ physical realities and the financial hurdles they face. Executed through digital media, My Spare Boot harnesses storytelling that centers on community engagement and empathy, showcasing the players’ resilience while making the fundraising effort an inclusive movement rather than a distant plea. The campaign’s digital asset crafts a narrative that connects the audience directly to the human dimension of disability sport, elevating awareness around broader societal challenges that athletes with disabilities endure beyond the field. This strategic fusion of sports, social impact, and innovative fundraising captures the essence of how emotional symbolism can drive participation and funding when conventional sponsorship falls short. The campaign earns 63/100 in Clapboard’s global creative archive. My Spare Boot matters to the industry because it demonstrates how creative communication can translate physical absence into a compelling call to action that mobilizes community support for underfunded athletes and signals a shift toward more empathetic, symbol-driven storytelling in sports marketing.