Essence of Lions - ZSC Lions | Clapboard Ad Archive
Essence of Lions, the 2021 direct campaign from Serviceplan for Zurich’s ZSC Lions, stands as a singular example of pandemic-era sports marketing that moves beyond the familiar tropes of digital engagement to craft a tangible link between team and supporter at a moment of profound physical separation. With the Swiss government’s Covid-19 restrictions keeping fans out of arenas and placing more than 4,000 season-ticket renewals in jeopardy, the brand intervened with a gesture loaded with both inventiveness and emotional intelligence: a 15ml bottle of water, produced by melting ice from the team’s own home rink where the disrupted season had played out behind closed doors, sent directly to loyal fans as a collectible memento. Developed as both a token of gratitude and a catalyst for ongoing engagement, the gift pack transformed the absence of live attendance into a platform for playful connection, encouraging recipients to imagine the water’s fantastical power — from welcoming newborn ZSC fans into the community to nurturing houseplants, dispelling negative vibes, or even polishing club trophies. Rather than constructing a narrative arc or aiming for broad reach, the strategy hinges entirely on the product’s origin as the central idea, aligning with what Clapboard’s taxonomy defines as FORMAT#11—Unique Personality Property, a device that elevates physical provenance into the campaign’s creative and emotional core. With no need for testimonies, comparative claims, or staged spectacle, ZSC Lions and Serviceplan trusted the authenticity and symbolic resonance of melted rink ice to serve as a call to renew, an emblem of survival, and a badge of communal identity through a crisis. In a fiercely competitive Swiss hockey landscape — where regional pride, fan culture, and financial self-sufficiency are under constant negotiation — this campaign sidestepped digital fatigue and transactional messaging to score a deeper affective win, embedding the team’s spirit literally and metaphorically in the hands of its supporters. As a direct response to the economic and psychological pressure facing both club and fans, the work fuses gratitude, imagination, and a flair for product storytelling, funneling the volatility of the pandemic into a branded ritual that only this club, with this history and this fanbase, could credibly own. The campaign earns 64/100 in Clapboard’s global creative archive. This work matters because it reframes a season of absence as a season of connection, reminding the industry that when access is lost, intimacy and invention can raise the stakes of belonging.