ARCHIVELete Turns Italian Football Passion Into a Brand Anthem
Acqua Lete launched "Chi vive il calcio, beve Acqua Lete" in Italy in January 2024, a 360-degree campaign created by VML Italy that pairs the brand with singer Sangiovanni and both the men's and women's Italian national football teams in a 90-second film designed to position Lete as the natural hydration choice of Italian football culture.
The campaign's creative line — "Un sogno Azzurro come il cielo, ma soprattutto come l'acqua" — translates as "A dream as blue as the sky, but above all like water," deliberately echoing the Azzurri identity of the Italian national teams while anchoring the colour and emotional register of the brand. Lete does not treat football as a media channel here; it treats it as shared identity. The tagline "Chi vive il calcio beve Acqua Lete" — those who live football drink Acqua Lete — is structured as a statement of belonging rather than a product claim, according to brand-news.it.
In Italy, the campaign arrived during a period of renewed public enthusiasm around the national teams, and its timing in January 2024 was deliberate, as reported by acqualete.it. The 90-second film features Sangiovanni performing an original song written and recorded specifically for the campaign, woven together with footage of football supporters and both national squads. The format is closer to a music video than a conventional advertisement, a structural choice that allowed the campaign to move naturally across television, web, radio, print, and social platforms simultaneously. A planned TikTok duet challenge, allowing users to sing alongside Sangiovanni, extended the campaign's participatory dimension into social media, per brand-news.it. The campaign was designed to run and evolve across a three-year arc, making it a long-form brand investment rather than a seasonal activation. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 66 out of 100.
ARCHIVEAcqua Lete has been a Premium Partner of the Italian national football teams since 2015, according to acqualete.it. That nine-year relationship is the strategic foundation on which the 2024 campaign rests, giving VML Italy a platform built on genuine institutional affiliation rather than opportunistic alignment.
Lete's involvement in Italian football predates that partnership. According to Acqualete, Lete expanded its football sponsorship activity beginning in 2013, and the brand served as the main shirt sponsor of SSC Napoli from 2005 to 2023, a two-decade presence in one of Italy's most passionately supported clubs, per the Italian-language Wikipedia entry for the club. Lete also maintained sponsorship relationships with clubs including Atalanta, Fiorentina, Inter, and Bologna, as reported by engage.it. This accumulation of football equity across clubs and the national programme is what allows the 2024 campaign to claim cultural authenticity rather than borrowed credibility.
In the Italian bottled-water category, Lete competes in a market that includes deeply embedded national brands such as San Pellegrino and Ferrarelle. No reliable public estimate for Italy's 2024 bottled-water market value is available, but the global market is substantial: the global bottled-water volume was expected to exceed 480 billion litres in 2024, representing a growth of approximately 30 percent over the preceding decade, according to Statista. In 2021, Lete described sport as a particularly suitable territory for the brand because it aligns with the hydration and vitality values the product represents, per engage.it. The 2024 campaign translates that positioning into storytelling, using football not as a backdrop but as the primary narrative engine.
Sangiovanni wrote and recorded an original song specifically for the campaign. That creative decision is central to the execution: rather than licensing existing music or using a pre-existing artist track, the production built a piece of original music from the ground up, giving the campaign a sonic identity it owns entirely.
The 90-second film functions structurally as a music video, intercutting Sangiovanni's performance with footage of Italian football supporters and both the men's and women's national teams. This format choice is deliberate. A conventional advertisement would have positioned Acqua Lete as a product present at football; the film instead positions the brand as part of the emotional fabric of the sport itself. The creative line — "A dream as blue as the sky, but above all like water" — operates on multiple registers simultaneously, referencing the Azzurri colour, the sky above Italian stadiums, and the clarity of the water in the bottle.
The campaign was created at VML Italy, the agency formerly known as Wunderman Thompson Milan, with Chief Creative Officer Lorenzo Crespi leading the creative leadership structure, according to brand-news.it. Creative Directors Alessandro Polia and Marco Rocca shaped the campaign concept, with Creative Supervisors Elena Pinillos and Silvia Mazzocco overseeing execution, per acqualete.it. Art Direction was handled by Martina Odoli Caravajal, with copywriting by Stefano Pacchioni and Silvia Filippucci. Executive production on the agency side was led by Virginie Alexandre, as reported by brand-news.it. The 360-degree format — spanning television, web, radio, print, and social — required the creative idea to sustain across fundamentally different media contexts, a structural test the original-song approach is well suited to pass.
The 90-second film accumulated more than 1.5 million views and 641 likes, with 54 comments recorded against the primary digital asset, as documented by Clapboard. Those figures reflect the campaign's initial digital footprint on a single asset, separate from its television, radio, and print distribution across Italy, which is not captured in a single public metric.
No verified aggregate performance data across all media channels for the "Chi vive il calcio, beve Acqua Lete" campaign is publicly available. What is structurally notable, however, is the campaign's design as a three-year programme rather than a single-season burst, as reported by brand-news.it. That architecture signals a brand willing to measure return on creative investment across a longer horizon than standard campaign metrics allow. The TikTok duet mechanic, which invites users to perform alongside Sangiovanni, creates a participation layer that extends organic reach without additional media spend, a structurally efficient choice for a campaign targeting a digitally active Italian football fanbase.
The original-song format also generates an asset with independent cultural life: a track that fans may seek out, share, and replay outside of any paid media context. For a brand that has maintained continuous presence in Italian football since 2005 across club and national team partnerships, the 2024 campaign represents not a departure but a creative consolidation — translating institutional equity into a piece of branded culture designed to last. The Clapboard Score of 66 out of 100 reflects a campaign that executes its strategic intent competently while leaving room for deeper emotional or formal ambition.
Acqua Lete launched this 360-degree campaign in Italy in January 2024 through VML Italy. It centres on a 90-second film featuring singer Sangiovanni and both Italian national football teams. Sangiovanni wrote an original song for the campaign, which is planned to develop across television, web, radio, print, and social platforms over three years.
VML Italy, formerly known as Wunderman Thompson Milan, created the campaign. Creative Directors Alessandro Polia and Marco Rocca led the concept, with Creative Supervisors Elena Pinillos and Silvia Mazzocco overseeing execution, under Chief Creative Officer Lorenzo Crespi, according to brand-news.it and acqualete.it.
Acqua Lete has been a Premium Partner of the Italian national football teams since 2015, according to acqualete.it. The brand's broader football involvement began earlier, with club sponsorships expanding from 2013 and a shirt sponsorship of SSC Napoli running from 2005 to 2023, per acqualete.com and engage.it.
Sangiovanni wrote and recorded an original song specifically for the campaign. The 90-second film is structured around his performance, intercutting with Italian football supporters and both national squads. This original-music approach gives Acqua Lete a branded sonic identity it owns entirely, rather than licensing existing material.
The Clapboard Score for the "Chi vive il calcio, beve Acqua Lete" campaign is 66 out of 100. The score reflects competent execution of a clear strategic intent — connecting Lete to Italian football culture — while indicating room for deeper emotional or formal creative ambition in a long-running three-year programme.
The primary digital asset for the campaign accumulated more than 1.5 million views, as documented by Clapboard. This figure covers the 90-second film on a single platform and does not include reach generated through television broadcast, radio, print, or social media distribution across Italy during the campaign period.
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