BackFifa World Cup marketing on digital overdrive
There is a reason for the absence of traditional advertisement this time, and to understand that, you need to go online
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Sao Paulo: As you pull out of the Guarulhos International Airport in Sao Paulo, neatly arranged billboards lined one after another come into sight. The city will host the opening ceremony of the World Cup, as well as the opening game and a semi-final down the line. But the 30km drive from the airport to the city centre features only eight billboards related to the tournament.
There is a reason for this absence of traditional advertisement, and to understand that, you need to go online. Viral videos, static digital banners and box advertisements, contests, cola promotions, insurance offers and footballers asking you to start banking with the best in Brazil bombard you.
The World Cup has always been a marketer’s dream, perhaps the single greatest marketing event in the world. “The last World Cup was viewed by over 3 billion, 715 million for the finals alone. To put things in perspective, the Super Bowl this year was viewed by only 108 million," says Juhi Manwani, account director for advertising agency Grey Group, Singapore. “While there was digital advertising present in the last World Cup (in South Africa in 2010), it wasn’t to the degree of the content quality, reach and the scale that we now have."
The numbers make a compelling case for the digital.
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (Fifa) sponsor, Budweiser, which has created a digital and social hub for all content generated during this time and is also doing an entirely social-based selection for Man of the Match, has 11 million likes on Facebook. Fifa partner Coca-Cola’s ‘Todo Mundo’ video for the World Cup has had 3 million views since its release on 8 May. Portugal and Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo has over 24 million followers on Twitter, and Spain international and 2010 World Cup-winner Andres Iniesta has 16 million Facebook followers. Nike’s ‘Winner Stays’ video, featuring top footballers, had over 64 million views in just three weeks. Nike’s digital community is about 200 million strong, about the same size as Brazil’s total population.
“The wired generation is at all times a very demanding audience," says Arjun Chatterjee, CEO of Mumbai-based digital solutions firm Run-Time Solutions, explaining the reason behind the brands’ shift in focus from the traditional out-of-home and print marketing campaigns to the digital media. “Since most of them have high-powered, data-driven gadgets, their demands are not unjustified. It is, therefore, a challenge for marketers and advertisers to make this available to them in as real-time as available. Digital is straddling across viewers and users by democratizing access."
Nike marketing director for India, Avinash Pant, says his company’s focus will remain on the digital. “We will utilize our resources to be extensively present on those platforms that today’s youth are active on," says Pant.
Brands don’t only want to be seen, but they want to hear what their consumers have to say about them. Online marketing brings in a great degree of analytics which moves the needle from the past marketing style of spray and pray. Digital campaigns allow brands to measure every click and ‘like’ to create a sketch of the consumer so that marketers can target their spendings more effectively and aim towards rationalizing the return on investment.
Digital campaigns that engage users longer are in demand as of now. “Brands want their agencies to develop ideas that don’t just tell people what the brand is about, but ideas that will encourage consumers to interact and spend time with their brand," says Manwani.
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