A surprising and unprecedented communication action by the creative agency Havas Creative
Atlético de Madrid presents its new social initiative hidden under the celebration of a tribute to a historic player of the club that has kept the specialized media expectant.
Marino Uriel, a soccer player that nobody remembered, manages to confuse the entire community of soccer fans.
Madrid, September 25, 2024 – Do you remember Marino Uriel Hestfuz, an Atlético de Madrid player from the 70’s? Maybe if I told you that he scored a great goal in the final of the Intercontinental Cup in 1975? I’m sure you’ve hesitated for a moment and searched your memory. But it is difficult for you to remember because Marino Uriel Hestfuz is a player who never existed.
Surely you have doubted his existence for several minutes and you have doubted your own memory. And, in fact, that is the true meaning of the campaign, because the agency and the club want soccer fans to empathize with what Alzheimer’s sufferers feel every day. In fact, Marino Uriel Hestfuz is an anagram of Futuro sin alzhéimer.


Marino Uriel has been created by the red and white club to star in its new communication campaign, generating confusion and debate in specialized media and social networks about the figure of this footballer, to whom the club has paid a special tribute as if he had really existed.
The creative agency Havas Creative has devised and produced this campaign together with the club. For the creation of Marino, and with the aim of making him look as real as possible, the creative teams have carried out an intense previous documentation work, based on the search for photos from the club’s historical archive. Thanks to artificial intelligence they managed to generate the player’s face with different expressions and create a credible image archive. They also used audio AI to generate voiceovers of the player’s goals and statements.
With this material they have worked on the creation of a large deployment of content on the internet and social networks: publications of images, articles and statements of alleged former teammates of Marino. In addition to the implementation of an SEO strategy, so that these contents would appear when users searched for his name.
All this in order to promote the credibility of the player’s existence among fans and journalists, with the aim of getting them to attend the tribute that the club had organized.
During the celebration of the tribute to Marino Uriel, which took place in the auditorium of the Cívitas Metropolitano stadium, with the presence of media and journalists, Atlético de Madrid unveiled the real objective of the campaign: to give visibility to this disease and to transmit to all those present the reality suffered by people who suffer from it, highlighting the need to invest in research to combat it.
Marino Uriel Hestfuz never existed, but the reality is that, now, thanks to this solidarity action, he will exist forever, since Atlético de Madrid has designed his official T-shirt and will use the proceeds of the sales to promote from its Foundation the defense of the rights of people affected by Alzheimer’s and those of their families.