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By Ian Thomas
While the city of Miami has been taken over by football fans in the build up to Super Bowl LIV, the city’s newest team is hoping that fans will follow its own brand of fútbol, set to launch in less than a month.
Inter Miami CF, which will debut in MLS this season, launched its first-ever marketing campaign the week of the Super Bowl titled ‘Your Fútbol Is Here.’
“We want to make sure we’re doing things that are a little bit different, but in a South Florida-Miami way,” said Jurgen Mainka, Inter Miami chief business officer. “With that framework and the big game happening in our backyard, it allowed us to be playful with the way we approached the campaign that will hopefully resonate with the hardcore fan, the casual fan, and maybe even the non-fan.”
Before this campaign, Inter Miami’s marketing approach has mostly been digitally focused and organically led. With attention on the Super Bowl across the city, the incoming MLS club looked to create several touchpoints throughout Miami.
Inter Miami rolled out three murals in key locations in the city in the popular neighborhoods of Brickell, Midtown, and Wynwood. Facing the Dolphin Expressway in downtown Miami, the club also placed a big wall scape that says, “Your Fútbol Is Here,” with the word “Football” struckthrough.
“The idea behind ‘Your Fútbol Is Here’ are the fans,” said Mike Ridley, Inter Miami vice president of brand and marketing. “It’s been 20 years of waiting for this moment, and it’s finally here, so we want to celebrate the fans’ passion.”
Ridley said the club wanted to lean into the city’s artistic history with the design of the street murals.
It also decided to lean into the usage of fútbol, in large part of the city’s demographics – 70% of the population of Miami is Hispanic. Inter Miami is the only team in the league with Spanish in its logo.
Despite not yet playing an official match, Inter Miami has made inroads into the city. It has more than 200,000 followers across Twitter and Instagram and is ranked as the third-most engaged with MLS club on Instagram.
Inter Miami has also more than 109,000 pre-orders of its jersey in the U.S., more than any club in MLS history. It also has more than 41,000 pre-orders globally, which ten times more than any other MLS club. While the club will not begin to play in Miami in MLS for at least two more years – it will play its home matches in Fort Lauderdale until lit opens a stadium in the city, currently scheduled for 2022 – this campaign will be broadened to reach all of South Florida.
“It’s meant to be attention-grabbing, what we’re calling the right amount of rogue,” Ridley said. “That will roll out across our street teams, on our digital and social accounts, and other high-impact out of home places.”
That means the campaign will evolve to include the club’s next significant milestones, Ridley said – “Your first goal is here, your first victory is here, your first championship is here,” he said.
“We view this as the beginning of something that will continue to celebrate what we think will be a great and successful franchise,” Ridley said.
