UEFA has created a trio of amusing virtual mascots to make their metaverse premiere ahead of the Women’s Euro, which will take place at Old Trafford from July 6 to July 31, 2022, starting with England vs. Austria and ending with the final at Wembley.
About the Virtual Mascots
Developed by metaverse games maker Dubit, Kai, Robyn, and Ashley will appear as virtual figures alongside Europe’s top players in “The Road to UEFA Women’s Euro” game on Roblox and educational video series on YouTube, which will also be distributed with schools across Europe via UEFA’s “Football in Schools” initiative.
The mascot campaign is a fantastic way to get kids to be more active and play football by using platforms they already use regularly. They’ll be able to customize their avatar with the colors of their favorite participating team and train with “Hat Trick,” the collective moniker for the mascots, to earn gaming powers before tackling a series of obstacle courses.
The Virtual Game and UEFA
This ground-breaking strategy attempts to reach out to young girls and boys directly and genuinely on the channels they use daily. UEFA is teaming up with Nike and Nickelodeon to host the game on Roblox, a platform with over 50 million daily active users, with over half of them being children under the age of 12.
Hat Trick, the collective nickname for the mascots, will blend their traits of skill (Robyn, number 10) power (Ashley, Hat Trick captain and number 7), and smarts (Kai, number 4) together in a skills challenge and instructive video series on YouTube.
UEFA Women’s Player of the Year Alexia Putellas (Barcelona FC and Spain national team player), 2017 UEFA Women’s EURO champion Vivianne Miedema (Arsenal FC and Netherlands national team player), and UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 host Lucy Bronze are among the twelve players included in the series (Manchester City FC and England national team player).
Encouraging Children to Play
The mascots try to encourage children aged eight to eleven to play and engage in football by enlisting the assistance of international players to help them ‘level up’ their skills, better understand the key skills required to play goalkeeper, defender, midfielder, or forward, and to teach them more about how to fuel their bodies and have a positive mindset for both football and life.
The Hat Trick mascot campaign aims to double girls’ and women’s participation in football by 2024, which is one of the primary goals of Time for Action, the UEFA Women’s Football Strategy.
