‘Our love letter to the tifosi’ – Peroni Nastro Azzurro 0.0% toasting partnership with Ferrari

“Now let’s do this for the fans” is the opening line from Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur as he starred alongside his drivers in a 60-second heist movie marking the start of the team’s partnership with Peroni Nastro Azzurro 0.0%.

Expertly delivered by the Frenchman, the words also sum up what was at the heart of Peroni’s first activation alongside new partner Ferrari at the start of the year.

Peroni took the unprecedented step to rebrand 2024 bottles of ‘Tifosi Nastro Azzurro 0.0%’ produced and launched via a heist-style film, starring both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz as well as Vasseur.

For Gareth Morgan, global marketing manager and partnership lead for Peroni Nastro Azzurro, reaching out to the global Ferrari fanbase was key to their deal with the Scuderia.

“It was a big move for us, three years in Formula 1 and the move to Ferrari was a significant one,” he explains.

“There is more brand resonance; obviously two icons of Italy coming together and the size and scale of the Ferrari fanbase was of interest to us. The first year for us was about how we authentically land with that fanbase.

“We wanted to make sure there was focus there because, unlike a lot of the Ferraris partners, we don’t make the car go faster, we don’t help the team perform better, we’re there to showcase the passion of the fans, celebrate them and elevate their experience.

“We thought the simplest way of doing that was to relabel our bottle with their name on the front. So that was the initial thinking and then came the idea around the drivers breaking into our brewery to relabel the 0.0% bottle.

“We filmed it in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way, very different to what we’ve done previously, and we put lots of Easter eggs in there that we knew fans would love. It massively outperformed what we were aiming to achieve with the piece. We called it our love letter to the tifosi.”

Strategically launched at the start of the year when there was no racing and a fan hunger for new content, the result was an audience reach of 2.1 billion and record commercial results for Peroni Nastro Azzurro 0.0%, with the cinematic film earning over 20 million views.

“We are grateful to our new partners at Ferrari, they got on board with the idea, they really liked it and really helped us make and deliver it – the drivers and their management teams were open and flexible,” added Morgan.

“It is symbolic of the shift that’s happening within F1 and the sporting space, you have to appreciate that you can’t take fanbases for granted, and you need to do things to entertain and engage them.

“It was a real labour of love, but we had to make it happen and the results speak for themselves in terms of how well it landed. We are all very proud to be in consideration and shortlisted against some really strong case studies for the Brand Partnership of the Year award, we are in great company.”

Kate Bevan, a member of the judging panel and a former director of Hospitality F1, advisor to the board of More than Equal and Deputy Chair of Europe Sport Integrity Alliance, was impressed by Peroni’s activation.

“This campaign put Ferrari fans at the heart of it,” she said.

“It crossed multiple platforms; the renaming of the beer was a clever element, and it created a playful image not always associated with Ferrari and using that playfulness always cuts through the noise.”