The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2021
Elena's turns a one-litre ice-cream tub into the five stages of football grief
After Mexico lost the 2021 Gold Cup Final to the USA, Elena's launched a one-litre tub divided into the five emotional stages of football grief.
Elena's
What it had to solve
Everyone knows the trope that ice cream can fix a broken heart, but can it cure every breakup? When Mexico lost the 2021 Gold Cup Final to its biggest rival, the USA, the entire nation's heart broke at the same time, and Elena's decided to step in.
How it works
Everyone is familiar with the trope that ice cream can fix a broken heart, but can it cure every breakup? When Mexico lost the 2021 Gold Cup Final against their biggest rival, the USA, the entire nation's heart broke at the same time, and Elena's decided to step in.
The brand's answer was a special edition one-litre tub for heartbroken fans, divided into the five emotional stages of football grief. Instead of one flavour of consolation, the product portioned out the process of getting over a defeat, helping Mexican fans through every step of the way.
The tub gave a collective national loss a tangible, shareable form, and the work is filed in the D&AD awards archive.
Why it lands
- The product made the brand's own promise literal: ice cream as the thing that helps you through a breakup, applied to a whole nation's breakup with a final.
- Dividing the tub into five emotional stages gave the grief a structure and an order, rather than offering one generic tub of consolation.
- Acting in the immediate aftermath of the defeat made the brand feel like it was grieving with its fans, not selling at them.
What it did
A single national heartbreak became a product you could portion out and move through: the special edition gave fans a shared, five-step way to process the loss, and the work is filed in the D&AD awards archive.
What you can take
When an audience shares one emotion at once, design the product as the coping mechanism: giving grief a shape and an order turns a gesture into something fans can hold, share and finish.
Since then
The limited edition followed Mexico's loss in the 2021 Gold Cup Final and is filed in the D&AD awards archive. The archive records no sales or reach figures, so the case stands on the mechanism: one national heartbreak, portioned into a product that lets fans move through it — an idea any brand in a shared emotional moment could adapt.
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