Entrant Company
Mosaic North America
Entry Type
Teams, Leagues, Governing Bodies, & Associations
Medium
Experiential/Activation
The Buffalo Bills are one of the NFL's most beloved teams — and not just in America. Over 20% of fans at any given home game come from Canada. Yet the team had never marketed directly to their Canadian fanbase. Heading into the playoffs, the Bills set out to change that with their first-ever campaign built specifically for Canadians: mobilize the diehards, convert casual fans, and mark their territory as Canada's team.
The challenge? Cross-border tensions were at an all-time high, Canadians were skeptical of big-brand American marketing, and "Bills in Toronto" still loomed as a failed footnote in local sports memory. The campaign had to feel for the fans, from the fans.
Enter Toronto's skyline — or rather, its street level. Toronto has the most construction cranes in North America, more than double LA and Seattle combined. With cranes come construction hoarding: black particle board walls stamped with POST NO BILLS across the city.
So to celebrate the Bills' playoff berth and rally fans into Wild Card weekend, we tagged the city. POST NO BILLS became GO BILLS, and hoarding walls turned into Herding Walls.
What began as a subtle streetside play on words grew into a multi-pronged, multimedia campaign that never lost its organic, fan-led feel. The wall transformations were filmed and cut into nimble social content, seeded to influencers and media outlets to spark a mysterious movement. After days of speculation, the reveal: this wasn't a lone Bills Mafia member gone rogue, but a team-led campaign inspiring fans to Billieve.
To democratize the movement, fans could scan QR codes on the walls for a chance to win a trip to the next playoff game. And when fans asked for merch, we moved fast — partnering with Peace Collective on a capsule collection that let fans wear their Billief across their chest.
The results were staggering. In just 12 days: one social post re-shared over 4,000 times, 24 earned media placements, and 25+ million impressions — enough to fill the Bills stadium more than 400 times.
And though the Bills fell short on the field, the campaign created a nation of fans that still Billieve.
GO BILLS!