Company

Kia is one of the world’s best known car brands and a sponsor of the UEFA Europa League. In 2021, the Kia Worldwide brand marketing team led the return of the UEFA Europa League Trophy Tour, a global campaign that usually brings fans face-to-face with the trophy in cities across Europe.

The 2021 Tour ran under the #LiftYourDream banner and supported the UEFA Foundation for Children, inviting fans everywhere to create and share content inspired by UEFA Europa League legends.

Challenge

The Trophy Tour has always been built on physical moments, with fans getting up close to the trophy in their own city. In 2021, global restrictions took most of that away, but the sponsorship expectations stayed exactly the same.

A broadcast-style digital campaign would have delivered reach, but reach only shows that a fan saw the brand. It doesn’t show whether they stopped, took part or genuinely cared about the UEFA Europa League, and that depth of engagement is what a partnership is really worth.

Fan content was also scattered across TikTok, Instagram and X, where platforms report views but keep the audience data for themselves. Sending fans to a separate form tool to take part would break the experience at the moment they were most engaged.

Kia needed one owned destination that could bring the Tour to fans online, invite them to take part, collect consented first-party data, and show what that participation was worth.

Solution

Kia used Amondo as the central hub for all of its Trophy Tour content. Instead of telling the story through a single brand channel, the hub brought many voices into one place and put Kia at the centre of them all.

One owned home for the whole Tour

Amondo built a Gallery that gathered content from UEFA Europa League ambassadors, influencers, creators and fans, alongside official Trophy Tour content. Posts from TikTok and Instagram Stories sat next to videos and photos fans submitted directly, so legends of the competition and everyday supporters appeared side by side.

That shifted the Tour from a one-way brand moment into something fans were part of. It also moved the activity off platforms Kia didn’t control and into an owned destination, where every view, tap and submission generated first-party data on how fans engaged.

Data capture built into the content

The Gallery also included a Form Tile that let fans upload their #LiftYourDream videos and photos directly, without leaving the experience. In one step, fans added their name, email and date of birth, attached their video or photo, and accepted the terms and privacy policy.

Every submission did two jobs. It gave Kia a rights-cleared piece of fan content to feature in the Gallery, and a consented first-party contact tied to the campaign that brought them in. Because Kia knew which campaign each fan had engaged with, and what they had shared, it could retarget them with relevant follow-up rather than generic brand ads. Data capture sat inside the content experience rather than next to it.

First-party data for every partner

Click-Through Tiles sat within the Gallery itself, so Kia could highlight campaign moments and guide fans to partner destinations without interrupting what they came for. Fan stories sat right next to clear routes to act, linking participation directly to intent.

The value reached beyond Kia. Everyone involved in the sponsorship received first-party data from the activation, giving them consented contacts they could retarget through their own marketing long after the UEFA Europa League season had finished.

Taking the hub to where fans already were

The Gallery was promoted through a TikTok hashtag, Instagram Stories and X. Putting the hub in front of fans on the channels they already used drove more of them to submit their own videos and photos, which gave the Gallery more fan stories to show.

Social did the job it does best, driving discovery. The hub then did what social can’t, turning anonymous followers into known contacts that both the League and Kia could recognise and reach directly.

Results

The Trophy Tour hub generated 500k content impressions, and fans didn’t just see it. They stayed, explored and took part, giving Kia a measure of engagement that reach alone could never show.

Behind those numbers sat a growing base of consented, first-party contacts. Kia and its partners came away knowing who their engaged fans were, with a direct line to keep reaching them after the Tour.

The 2021 Trophy Tour showed that sponsorship value doesn’t have to stop at visibility. When fan stories are designed into the activation, and data capture sits inside the content rather than beside it, sponsors can see what fans actually did and prove what the partnership delivered.