In case you didn’t know, the World Cup starts in 41 days – but who’s counting, right?
Advertisers are. Actually – the World Cup arrived months ago for brands, agencies, and other businesses. Everyone will be trying to take advantage of the buzz surrounding the event that’s shaping up to be the most watched sporting event in history. Sorry, SuperBowl, although football is king here in the U.S., soccer has the most fans and players across the globe.
As the prime marketing opportunity of the year, Brazil’s World Cup will also be the most cluttered social conversation of 2014, so brands are spending a lot of money making sure they stand out from the crowd.
The Brazilian World Cup will be HUGE. A World Cup anywhere is a major event, but a World Cup in Brazil will be a social media blitz. Brazilians take their social media seriously – the country is the second largest market for Facebook and third largest for Twitter, as well as the second largest source of traffic for YouTube. Last year, even the Wall Street Journal named Brazil “the social media capital of the universe.”
The World Cup matters in the U.S. now more than ever before. Although soccer may not be the most prominent sport in the U.S., interest in soccer is at an all-time high. For a while, marketers and advertisers thought of the World Cup as an event with an exclusively Hispanic viewership in the states, but that is certainly no longer the case. Whether fans are rooting for the U.S. National Team, MLS Teams, or other leagues abroad, the hype is most definitely there, and this year’s World Cup will only intensify it.
So what does that mean for me? What can I do to take advantage of the best, biggest, and most exciting sporting event in the world?
1. Take advantage of every moment – but do it well. Real-time marketing doesn’t necessarily mean all-the-time marketing. While World Cups are all about the moments for fans, advertisers should be wary of producing real-time content with no goal in sight (pun intended).
For example, just because Oreo struck digital marketing gold with their timely Superbowl tweet, doesn’t mean that all brands can pull that off at any time. Make sure that you focus on creating shareable experiences that convey your brand voice and story.
2. Excite your crowd and give them a reason to share. Think emotional triggers and social motivations that will transcend cultural boundaries. Do you want to create contagious content that’s highly shareable? Then focus less on creative appeal and more on emotional appeal. Exhilaration is a particular emotion that most advertisers tend to ignore even though it’s been proven that content that evokes this feeling is shared more than any other positive emotion. There’s also no better emotion to use for such an exciting sporting event.
3. Think mobile. Keep second-screen use in mind. With smartphone and tablet use soaring, viewers will have their eyes on more than one screen at a time, so expect record mobile viewership. Think about how your brand can use that to its advantage.
Check out some of the content the Official FIFA Partners (highest level of association with all things soccer) already have in play:
Whether or not you’re a soccer fan – it doesn’t matter. The World Cup will take over our culture for one month and it will be the water cooler conversation around the world. Embrace it, get excited, and get ready for the big game.
Icons provided by The Noun Project
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