Jorn Wemmenhove

The last weeks Argentina has been talking about ‘the curious case of Javier Mascherano’. Mascherano is a famous Argentinean football player playing for Liverpool FC, captain of the national team and known for his mental and fysical strength. The buzz occurred when Argentinean journalist Luis Dapelo began to release material of an extensive research on Mascherano.

Dapelo started his research when he received a note saying ‘tell them the truth’. The note came with a file containing Mascherano’s medical records revealing some strange results. Check out pictures of the document here. The medical results showed that Mascherano had such a great fysical condition there were doubts whether this could be natural. After receiving more secret information about a suspicious looking hospital the journalist found this picture of Mascherano with a big scar on his chest.

It turned out to be one of the few pictures of Mascherano showing his chest. Together with this draw by a doctor showing the incridible distances Mascherano runs during a match the main question was ‘How is it possible Mascherano runs that much?!’

Journalist Luis Dapelo made movies during his research and released those movies on his blog ‘El Caso Mascherano’. The videos found their way to YouTube and to the national media which invited Dapelo to tell his story in many different television programs.

The reactions of the audience were strong. Basically Dapelo accused their beloved player of being a phony. Those reactions got even stronger (and funnier) when Dapelo revealed the results of his research after receiving more information: Mascherano got his incredible fysical condition from the latest technology Multijet engine by Fiat!

The curious case of Javier Mascherano is a very succesful viral campaign using different media to tell an original story. The journalist Luis Dapelo does not exist, but was given an identity by creating a LinkedIn-profile, a Facebook-page, a Flickr-account and a Twitter-account (which could have been used better). In a televisionized country like Argentina where football is one of the favorite topics this viral campaign was highly successful. A part of the time on television was paid for, but the biggest part was based on free publicity.

Funny thing is that even after it got really obvious it was a campaign for Fiat, people still believed Dapelo was a real journalist. They asked how Mascherano could pass the metal detectors at airports and if the Gatorade power drink contained petrol in Mascherano’s case to keep his engine running. People also started to make very entertaining spoofs of the campaign.

Great work by Fiat and agency Leo Burnett lead by Sebastián Olivieri and Pablo Capara. Check the official campaign blog on the Caso Mascherano here.