Grimaces resulted in international honors for FIFA 22

When the video game publisher Electronic Arts (EA) set out to create hype around their new “End of an Era” cards in the popular football video game FIFA 22, we grabbed our cameras to meet Christian Gauseth in Mjøndalen. His untraditional portraits in the FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT) game mode had gathered attention from fans all over the world, which EA wanted to honor.

Mjøndalen IF has been a part of the FIFA game series by EA since 2016, and every year the player Christian Gauseth has chosen a bit of an untraditional approach to the portrait photos that are used for the game. Every season Gauseth has chosen a unique grimace to represent him in the game, to the joy of fans all over the world. The portraits have been a hot discussion topic on the popular internet forum Reddit, and when it became known that Gauseth planned to retire in 2021, EA took action. They decided to give Gauseth an “End of an Era” card in the game, which is traditionally reserved for international superstars, by the likes of Ronaldo or Messi for when they change clubs or retire. For this special occasion EA wanted a funny video they could use for the card announcement.

Mjøndalen IF has been a part of the FIFA game series by EA since 2016, and every year the player Christian Gauseth has chosen a bit of an untraditional approach to the portrait photos that are used for the game. Every season Gauseth has chosen a unique grimace to represent him in the game, to the joy of fans all over the world. The portraits have been a hot discussion topic on the popular internet forum Reddit, and when it became known that Gauseth planned to retire in 2021, EA took action. They decided to give Gauseth an “End of an Era” card in the game, which is traditionally reserved for international superstars, by the likes of Ronaldo or Messi for when they change clubs or retire. For this special occasion EA wanted a funny video they could use for the card announcement.

In collaboration with EA, a team of three from PR-operatørene started hashing out the plans for the video. With a creative and humorous angle, we wanted to surprise and engage the fans with the untraditional honor. When the plan was in place the team from PR-operatørene traveled to Consto Arena in Mjøndalen with the boot full of camera gear, and after some editing by our in-house content producer the result was ready.

The video was shared in a number of EA’s own social channels where almost 4 million people saw the video posts, and thousands commented to express how great it was to honor Gauseth in this manner. The twitter post actually got twice as many likes than the launch video for the game itself, which can only be counted as a great achievement. EA also got compliments for showing that they understand what the fans appreciate. Many called the video their best content of the year.

In addition, the video was also shared by many big youtubers like Macartney and FraFilter. It was also mentioned in both Norwegian and international sports and entertainment media.