Panini is launching their 2022 Premier League Sticker Album and collection by partnering with West Ham United and England men’s star, Declan Rice.

Using Panini’s classic tagline #GotGotNeed, the campaign - created by Dark Horses and directed and produced by Pete Banks and Kode - aims to drive excitement for the new collection by targeting football-mad kids across the country. 

The 2022 Sticker Album cover was exclusively revealed on Panini’s social channels at the end of November, and the 20 and 10-second spots are set to debut on TV, YouTube and Instagram on January 6th. 

The creative opens with a young football fanatic desperately hoping to find a Declan Rice sticker in his latest packet, in order to complete his album. Echoing the “got, got, need” phrase so common to anyone who has ever collected stickers, he ploughs through the pack, commenting on the stickers as he sees them; “‘Richarlison, got! Vardy, got!”’. Realising that the coveted Rice sticker isn’t in the pack, he sighs and looks up just in time to spot none other than Declan Rice himself walking past. Not missing a beat, he asks the footballer for a Rice sticker. Declan reveals his collection, made up entirely of Declan Rice stickers and one solitary Mason Mount sticker, before reluctantly handing a Rice one over to the jubilant boy. The advert ends with a VO, voiced by popular YouTuber and influencer SV2, announcing that the sticker collection and album are out now.

Alex Nixon, senior account director at Dark Horses, said: “Working on a campaign for Panini is a dream brief for the child inside so many of us, and the fact that this is now our third campaign for the brand is incredible. In this spot we wanted to capture the essence of how it feels to search for that one last sticker; but do so through a humorous lens, and Declan played his cameo perfectly.”

Chris Clover, head of marketing - sport at Panini, said: “We’re very proud to welcome Declan Rice to the Panini family, and what better way to kick off our partnership than through a starring role in our campaign for this year’s Sticker collection. We set out to create a category defining campaign that harnesses the emotiveness of being an avid Stickers collector, and we think Dark Horses have captured this perfectly. We can’t wait to see how the ad is received.”