The Milan talent on loan to Lecce, after scoring his first goal in Serie A, took off his shirt to reveal the bib used to monitor his performance. A case of “hidden” marketing, without breaking the rules. K-Sport would have had to pay almost €200,000 to achieve the same effect.

You never forget your first goal in Serie A, especially if it comes after huge expectations and a subsequent barrage of criticism because, for some, those expectations seemed to have been disappointed. Francesco Camarda, the 17-year-old talent on loan from Milan to Lecce, scored the equalizer against Bologna in injury time in the last round of the championship. In his celebration, he took off his jersey and remained in his bib, for the benefit of the flashbulbs and cameras. Unknowingly, however, he exposed the K-Sport brand, giving huge publicity to the company that produces these garments equipped with sensors that monitor athletes’ performance. “Camarda gave us a great assist, completely spontaneously because we have no commercial relationship with him,” say K-Sport.

In fact, the gesture of taking off his shirt was that of a young man who was not yet of age and simply wanted to express his joy, without imagining that he would find himself an unwitting spokesperson at a moment of maximum public exposure. Lecce, which uses the device, recognized by FIFA, like 80% of professional soccer teams in Italy, was also unaware of everything. K-Sport is not a technical sponsor of Lecce, so in theory Camarda could have broken Rule 4 of soccer, which states: “Players must not display clothing worn under their equipment that contains slogans, writing, or images of a political, religious, personal, or advertising nature other than the manufacturer’s logo. For any infringement, the player and/or his team will be sanctioned by the competition organizer or the national federation or FIFA.” However, in this specific case, the Football League has stated that Camarda was not punishable because the bib, although containing a logo different from that of the technical partner, is considered an extension of the match kit.

views—  The result is that, in compliance with the rules, the company in question benefited from enormous free publicity. Not counting television appearances, the image of Camarda wearing the bib reached at least 10 million people, including the press (500,000 views in total), YouTube (600,000), and the boom on Instagram, where Ibrahimovic’s post alone, recalling the first contact between the two in 2019, recorded 1.3 million likes. Max Sardella, sports tech entrepreneur and founder of Seven AI, explains: “From a social media manager’s point of view, it really seems like the perfect operation: spontaneous, viral, authentic. Camarda and Lecce had no promotional intentions, and that’s why the content exploded. That said, there is a risk of emulation. But the truth is that it only works when it happens naturally, without forcing it: Camarda’s moment was unique, linked to the context of the match and his enthusiasm, not to a planned strategy. It’s a textbook case of unintentional marketing and sports storytelling, but it can’t be replicated on paper. The magic lies in authenticity.”
Advertising return—  For K-Sport, the benefit is twofold. The Italian company, which also supplies Messi and Ronaldo, diversified its business last year. No longer just top-level professional athletes, but also youth and amateur sectors. That bib ended up on the private market, capturing the interest of a large segment of practitioners, especially young people. Thus, Camarda’s advertising takes on even greater significance. According to StageUp estimates, the value of the visibility gained is around €190,000, mainly through social media. This means that K-Sport would have had to invest that amount to achieve the same communication impact with traditional advertising. Giovanni Palazzi, president of StageUp, observes: “The newsworthiness of Camarda’s goal fully demonstrates the still enormous potential of sponsorship to increase brand awareness with limited investment compared to any other means of communication. Compared to sponsorships in the past, which allowed Italian brands such as Parmalat to become famous worldwide, the value of brand visibility, the power of the message linked to an emotion, and the difficulty of connecting only with the exposure of the brand and product on the jersey remain. What has changed, however, are the media through which the sponsor reaches fans: the dominance of returns through TV has been replaced by that of social media. This is a new development that opens up previously unimaginable opportunities, such as the ability for investors to build an advertising and content marketing campaign that connects the brand and product at an affordable cost, making it clear to fans that K-Sport’s wearable tech is not only for the great champions of Serie A but also a tool for any sports enthusiast who wants to have fun and stay in shape.