• At its launch on 5 September - the Global Day of Action for the Amazon - Claudio Marchisio and Giorgio Chiellini will personally take on all the gamers participating in the virtual football game. The project is based on an idea by We Are Social. 

Dubai, UAE:– Lavazza has officially entered the metaverse by launching a football videogame designed to raise awareness among youngsters about one of the most urgent environmental issues, deforestation. Lavazza Arena enables the community to have fun and at the same time understand the extent of the phenomenon: everyday, the Amazon Forest is losing over a million trees, equivalent to the area of a football pitch every 20 seconds.

On the Amazon Day, September 5, two football greats – Claudio Marchisio and Giorgio Chiellini – will be special guests during the live Twitch streams of Marcy7 (https://www.twitch.tv/marcy7), from 8.30pm to 9.15pm, and of ilGattoSulTubo (https://www.twitch.tv/ilgattosultubo), from 5.30pm to 6.15pm, respectively, to challenge all the gamers who join.

Lavazza is well known for its dynamic and innovative communication but also for preserving a heritage that goes back over 120 years. It is vital for the brand to monitor new idioms, styles and communication channels so that it can talk about projects and issues of interest to the community, because innovation is a key value for the company. For Lavazza, all its communication activities are designed to create an emotional, value-inspired bond with consumers, going beyond the brand itself to engage and stimulate thought, as in this case with a young Gen Z audience. The company firmly believes in involving the new generations by using various platforms - digital, experiential events, music - to stimulate dialogue on cultural and social topics relevant to the community.

Well aware of today’s environmental problems and the urgent need to make as many people as possible aware of the serious situation in the Amazon rainforest, Lavazza wants to help young people understand this issue by engaging them on Roblox with an entertaining football videogame and using straightforward and emotionally involving language. The game was inspired by one of Lavazza Foundation’s many projects (*), working in this specific case with Cesvi to support native communities in the reforestation of the Peruvian Amazon, in Tambopata province in the Madre de Dios region (**).

Lavazza Arena is a virtual world to discover and explore, completely different from ordinary football pitches. Players enter and find themselves on a completely ‘clean’ field. Once there, they can start participating in the various areas in the Arena: the more matches they play, the more the game map fills up again with green spaces, nature and trees. Players can compete on the field or simply have fun in the Practice Area, where various practice drills will put their skills to the test.  Alternatively, they can spend time in the Lavazza Cafè or in the Learning Area, where they can find out about deforestation issues. Amazon-specific skins and power-ups are also available to personalize your avatar.

Lavazza Arena is available on Roblox, the online platform that recently reached 50 million daily users. Also involved in the launch, in addition to footballers Claudio Marchisio and Giorgio Chiellini, were the game’s creators Marcy7, ilGattoSulTubo, Queen_Giorgia and OwengeJuiceTV, who will explore the Lavazza Arena and organize a full-fledged tournament with their community during a live Twitch stream. And throughout the week, Slends and Rupthy will use Tik Tok to share their experiences in this new Roblox world created by Lavazza.

The initiative grew out of an idea by We Are Social, which provided the strategy, creativity and production. The game was developed by Dubit.

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(*) LAVAZZA FOUNDATION - REFORESTATION PROJECTS: 

In 2004, the Company set up the non-profit Giuseppe e Pericle Lavazza Foundation to coordinate and manage sustainability projects. Today, the Foundation supports and finances, both independently and through public and private partnerships, 32 projects in 20 countries across three continents, benefiting over 136,000 coffee growers. The main goal of the projects supported by the Lavazza Foundation is to improve coffee yield and quality, promoting both entrepreneurship among growers and improvements in their living standards. In the last few years, the Lavazza Foundation has stepped up the development of projects that support reforestation, a growing problem in all coffee producing countries. In partnership with non-governmental organisations and international institutions, the Foundation is now active on this front in Ethiopia and Peru with specific initiatives, and in Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Colombia with sustainability projects involving reforestation, among other things. In this way, the Lavazza Foundation has so far enabled the planting of over 15 million coffee bushes (2015-2020).

(**) LAVAZZA/CESVI FOUNDATION - PROJECT IN PERU:

This project will plant 1,000 walnut trees a year to restore the Amazon rainforest ecosystem. The collaboration has so far enabled the protection of over 30,000 hectares of forest and four local communities, the reforestation of 295 hectares of land and the improvement of the nutrition and socio-economic conditions of 570 people in native communities.

LAVAZZA ARENA CREDITS

Agency: We Are Social

Executive Creative Director: Alessandro Sciarpelletti 

Executive Creative Production Director: Daniele Piazza

Creative Director: Paulo Gonzalez, Mattia Lacchini

Senior Creative: Lorenzo Canazza, Antonio Mitra

Creative: Francesco Ravelli

Senior Art Director: Stefano Summo

Art Director: Paolo Palazzo, Luigi Muraro

Editorial Supervisor: Alessandro Romeo

Senior Editor: Federica Mordini

Head of Client Services: Miguel Lima

Senior Account Director: Luca Temporelli

Account Manager: Camilla Beghi

Senior Account Executive: Andrea Dagoberto Belloni, Silvia Appiani

Writer: Maneh Kocharyan, Federica Camilloni

Innovation Director: Luca Della Dora

Influence Marketing Manager: Edoardo Cioli Puviani

Influence Marketing Manager: Sofia Sarcina Di Fidio

Technology Director: Simone Scremin

Technology Supervisor: Cristian Schirru

Video Editor: Dario Sepe

 

Game development: Dubit Studio

Lavazza

Lavazza, founded in Turin in 1895, has been owned by the Lavazza family for four generations. Today the Group is one of the leading players on the global coffee scene, with turnover of over € 2.3 billion and a portfolio of top brands that lead their respective markets, such as Lavazza, Carte Noire, Merrild and Kicking Horse. It is active in all business sectors and has operations in 140 markets, with 9 manufacturing plants in 6 countries and over 4,200 collaborators all over the world. The Group’s global presence is the result of over 125 years of growth and the more than 30 billion cups of Lavazza coffee produced every year are a testament to a remarkable success story, with the goal of continuing to offer the best coffee possible, in all forms, by focusing on every aspect of the supply chain, from the selection of the raw material to the product in the cup.

Lavazza Group has revolutionised coffee culture by investing continuously in research and development: from the intuition that marked the company’s earliest success - the coffee blend - to the development of innovative packaging solutions; from the first espresso sipped in Space to the dozens of industrial patents. The ability to be ahead of the times is also reflected in the focus on sustainability - economic, social and environmental - which has always been a benchmark for guiding corporate strategies. “Awakening a better world every morning” is the corporate purpose of Lavazza Group, with the aim of creating sustainable value for shareholders, collaborators, consumers and the communities in which it operates, combining competitiveness with social and environmental responsibility.

We Are Social

We are a global socially-led creative agency, with unrivalled social media expertise.

With over 1,100 people in 16 offices around the world, we deliver a global perspective to our clients in a time when social media is shaping culture.

We make ideas worth talking about. We understand social behaviours within online communities, cultures and subcultures, spanning the social and gaming landscape. 

We work with the world’s biggest brands, including adidas, Samsung, Netflix and Google, to reach the right people in a strategic, relevant and effective way.  

We Are Social is part of Plus Company.

To learn more, visit www.wearesocial.com

For further information, please contact:
Sabrin Al-Aloul
ASDA’A BCW 
Sabrin.AlAloul@bcw-global.com