EM Check 24
The amazing PR coup with the German fake jerseys
Status: 17:59 | Reading time: 3 minutes
One in five million: The Check24 jersey was a huge hit
Source: dpa/Christoph Schmidt
Check24 is offering free Germany jerseys from Puma. The European Championship jersey is not official, fans have to provide personal information, but demand is exponential. The free jersey is currently being traded for astonishing prices. The numbers behind the coup.
The new record was announced on Tuesday. DFB President Bernd Neuendorf grinned, and the supplier also rejoiced: “The pink jersey is the best-selling away jersey in the history of all DFB jerseys,” said Adidas spokesman Oliver Brüggen, who, however, remained tight-lipped about the exact sales volume: “We are delighted about the growing enthusiasm for EURO 2024 and the continued high demand for the DFB jerseys. Unfortunately, we are not commenting on production figures.”
However high the number may be, even if you add up the sales figures for the classic home jersey, the sporting goods manufacturer from Herzogenaurach will hardly be able to reach the same level of sales with the European Championship jerseys as another piece of fabric has already achieved.
Check24 had announced in the run-up to the tournament that it would be bringing its own Germany jersey onto the market and drummed up support with Lukas Podolski as the advertising face and Puma as a partner. The most important thing: it was free. At least financially, there was no price to pay. However, fans did give up personal information. Anyone who wanted to order a jersey with the Munich company’s logo on it had to first download the Check24 app and register there. “The jersey isn’t free of course, you pay with your data,” explained a lawyer from the North Rhine-Westphalia consumer advice center, according to “Wirtschaftswoche”.
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The campaign will, that much is already certain, go down as the biggest PR coup in the history of this European Championship. Up to 400,000 jerseys were sent to their new owners every day. The 5,000,000th will be delivered this weekend – and the campaign will end. Jerseys can no longer be ordered. The app, which was number one in the download charts for weeks, was still number two in the Apple Store on Thursday.
The punch line of the jersey story
The goal has long been achieved: Stadiums, fan zones and barbecues are full of the fake jerseys. There is hardly a TV report about German fans in which at least one white jersey with the Check24 advertisement does not flash through the picture. The European advertising champion has been decided. With five million jerseys, the comparison portal has exceeded its expectations four times over. They had hoped for a million orders and produced 1.5 million shirts.
Familiar image: German fans in Puma jerseys from Check24
Source: dpa/Christoph Schmidt
In order not to lose users again immediately after the jerseys have been delivered, the company is trying to keep fans on its app until the end of the tournament with a prediction game. The prizes include numerous vouchers, worth 24 million euros according to Check24. Investments with which the portal wants to tap into the young target group in particular and save costs on expensive customer acquisition.
How expensive the jersey campaign is for the company can only be guessed at. In a research, SWR estimated the production costs of the official Adidas jersey at 11.30 euros. The in-house creation commissioned by Check24 from Puma and manufactured in Turkey and China is likely to be less. At least if the shipping costs are not included. The design costs were also kept low. The eagle on the chest was generated by an AI and apparently alienated sufficiently to avoid a copyright dispute.
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But the punch line only comes now, after the actual end. Because production has ended, used Check24 jerseys are being offered on portals like eBay. The fake jersey is already fetching purchase prices of 40 to 50 euros, and the most expensive is already 95 euros – just five euros less than the price of a new, original Adidas jersey. But these are also almost impossible to get hold of at the moment.
