the world cup 2014 : the m2m review
DESCRIPTION
All of the World Cup news, views, campaigns and thinkpieces have been distilled into a review by M2M covering the battle between ITV and BBC, official sponsors vs. non-sponsors, social media, what Nike and Adidas did and loads of other stuff. And there’s a handy final slide which covers 5 key take-outs.TRANSCRIPT
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The World Cup 2014
The M2M View
• Official sponsors vs. non-sponsors
• The World Cup effect
• BBC vs. ITV
• South Africa vs. Brazil
• Social media
• The best of the rest
• 5 lessons from Brazil 2014
What will be covered?
Official vs. Non-Sponsors Who won the marketing World Cup?
Who won in the official vs. non-sponsors
battle?
Official Non-sponsors
• Two-fifths (38%) of UK, US and Brazilian consumers mistakenly believed
MasterCard to be a World Cup sponsor, with rival credit card brand Visa scoring just 4% higher recognition at 42%, according to research from GlobalWebIndex.
• http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1299331/nearly-40-wrongly-believe-mastercard-nike-pepsi-world-cup-sponsors?DCMP=EMC-CONMarketingDailyBulletin&bulletin=marketingdaily
Nearly 40% wrongly believed Mastercard, Nike
and Pepsi were official sponsors
• FIFA were very tight on ensuring non-sponsors are banned from stadia
• http://www.brandrepublic.com/brandrepublicnewsbulletin/login/1299271/
• However, sponsors were left unhappy when FIFA corruption allegations lingered for the
duration of the tournament
• http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/fifa-sponsors-adidas-sony-and-visa-demand-investigation-into-2022-qatar-world-cup-bid/story-fnda1bsz-1226949359611
• Furthermore, being an official sponsor limits creative freedom so brands are sometimes hampered in what they can produce
Is official sponsorship worth the $70m?
http://www.unrulymedia.com/article/29-05-2014/nike-samsung-and-castrol-top-unruly-braziliant-brands-tracker/1401350594
Non-sponsors beat the sponsors on social
media
Nike delivered their biggest social campaign
to date with a multi-layered content strategy
88m
65m
20 episodes
10m
4:13 mins
5:28 mins
Whereas Adidas went #allin with a reactive
social campaign
• Adidas had the ambition of being the most talked about brand at the World Cup helped by their War Room in Rio and a social media led approach to their comms.
• We Are Social spent a year gathering content on 100 Adidas players that could be used on the fly. It was gathered into a content bible of 1,000 images and 160 videos primed for use in reaction to game play. Planned spontaneity.
• 1.6m tweets, RTs and replies, 570,000 mentions of #allin, +200,000 subs of YouTube channel and posting 4-5 videos a day
• “A system and a framework versus traditional media planning”
• http://adage.com/article/global-news/embedded-adidas-social-media-team-world-cup/294016/
• According to Google Trend data, over the course of June-July during the World Cup, Adidas overtook Nike when it came to worldwide search interest right at the end
• This occurred the day after the final in which Adidas (official) was deemed to have beaten Nike (unofficial) as two of its teams contested the final.
• http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-13/the-all-german-world-cup-how-to-tell-if-adidas-won-too
Adidas won the World Cup Final
Nike
Adidas
Less ‘ads’ more ‘long form content’
• Ad lengths varied, although long-form ads by Nike, Samsung, Visa and Beats featuring big names were commonplace
• Long form ads were only viewed as effective if they had a consistent storyline and got viewers emotionally involved
• http://brianjuicerblog.wordpress.com/2014/06/11/land-of-the-giants/
The World Cup effect
What happens beyond the game
• Oh the joy of hindsight. How could anyone have ever expected England to reach the
final? But it goes to show that the effects of matches goes well beyond the pitch and
spreads throughout whole economies.
• http://www.cityam.com/article/1401841986/england-world-cup-final-worth-1bn-retailers
It was predicted England’s performance could
have had a £2.5bn effect on the economy
But in reality World Cup euphoria has little
impact on business
• "The actual economic factors are rather limited for all those not hosting the World Cup -
leaving aside ice cream and beer consumption or the sales of football shirts” says Holgar
Bahr (German Economist). He is sceptical about the conviction that winning the World
Cup creates a nationwide wave of positive energy with a subsequent favourable
economic impact.
• It is just as wrong to deduct that the World Cup had an adverse effect on the Spanish
economy as it is to say that Germany's victory will boost business. Drawing such
connections gives you pseudo-correlations. Correlation isn’t causation.
• http://www.dw.de/world-cup-euphoria-has-little-impact-on-business/a-17788695
BBC vs ITV Who won?
BBC aimed to deliver a multi-platform world
cup experience
• For the first time all WC matches were available across all platforms.
• “All audiences, all platforms, any time”
• 50% increase in coverage from South Africa 2010.
• http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/128775-bbc-unveils-digital-plans-for-its-world-cup-coverage-24-7-on-all-
platforms
ITV Player FAIL during the opening match
reminiscent of England vs. USA 2010
• Problems with ITV player during Brazil-Croatia fixture. Reminiscent of the troubles
experienced on ITV HD during England vs USA at the 2010 World Cup.
• http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jun/13/itv-player-glitch-world-cup-brazil-croatia
Lineker v Chiles (Lineker wins!)
• Reactions from the public differ towards both presenters with their
contrasting styles. Gary Lineker cheers on rivals to help England’s cause.
Adrian Chiles has petition to get the sack for poor coverage.
• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/worldcup2014/article-2663815/Gary-Lineker-shows-support-
Italy-wearing-Azzurri-shirt-live-air.html
• http://www.ftbpro.com/posts/jamie.spencer/1097246/sack-adrian-chiles-internet-campaign-
gathers-pace#/posts/jamie.spencer/1097246/sack-adrian-chiles-internet-campaign-gathers-
pace
Phil Neville nearly as complained about as
The Vuvuzela
• Phil Neville was roundly criticised for his commentary debut for England vs. Italy with
plenty of social media criticism
• 445 people complained to the BBC (vs. 545 for the vuvuzelas at the last World Cup)
• http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/a578058/phil-neville-england-world-cup-
commentary-sparks-445-complaints-to-bbc.html#~oKhWo3i1dY24ca
• But he turned it around!
World Cup final draws 20.6m viewers
• The BBC were able to draw 16.7 million viewers for the World Cup final, resulting in
complete domination over ITV’s 3.9 million. It was the biggest sporting event viewed
on British television since the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in 2012.
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-28289943
South Africa 2010 vs Brazil 2014
As with South Africa 2010 all the pre-
tournament talk was around Brazil being ready
• Prior to the World Cup questions surrounding the incomplete stadium structures
mixed with protests over government expenditure on hosting the tournament
casted doubts over Brazil’s capabilities.
• http://www.forbes.com/sites/andersonantunes/2013/06/12/can-brazil-really-handle-the-2014-fifa-world-
cup/
But as soon as it got started it was Goals
Galore and a Truly Global Event
• By the time of the quarter finals, the goal tally in Brazil had already reached that
achieved in the entire South Africa 2010 tournament. The popularity of the tournament
was reaching audiences not usually associated with the beautiful game with the US
falling in love with the USA performance against Belgium.
• http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/06/30/world-cup-2014-145-goals-matches-2010_n_5543086.html
• http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2014/07/how-far-can-soccer-go-in-the-usa.html
World Cup 2014 was decreed the best
tournament of the modern era
• Some writers have concluded that this may indeed have been the best World Cup
tournament of the modern era. The mix of exhilarating football mixed with the
unpredictable nature of the game produced some of the most memorable matches the
tournament has ever seen.
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup/10963666/World-Cup-2014-Was-this-the-greatest-
tournament-of-all-Yes.html
Sepp gave it a 9.25
• Although a controversial figure in the game, the head of FIFA, Sepp Blatter gave the
tournament a 9.25 out of 10 rating in comparison to South Africa’s score of 9.
• http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/story/fifa-president-blatter-believes-2014-world-cup-a-huge-success-071514
Russia will spend $20bn on WC2018 making it
the most expensive in history
• After Brazil’s 4th place finish in the World Cup, the mood was of disappointment with views
one eye firmly placed on the future. Russia meanwhile picked up the World Cup mantle
immediately after the tournament and began their promotion by stating a whopping $20
billion will be spent on Russia 2018, making it the most expensive World Cup in history (if
Russia still hosts the World Cup after the recent MH17 atrocity).
• http://www.cbsnews.com/news/world-cup-2018-russia-looks-ahead-brazil-rethinks-future/
• http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/07/14/from-brazil-to-russia-2018-world-cup-host-insists-finishing-stadiums-will-
not/
Social Media
The tournament was hyped up as ‘The Social
World Cup’
• Before a ball was kicked, the World Cup generated more social buzz than any comparable
event and was hyped to be the most social sporting event ever. Adobe Digital Index collected conversations from blogs and social networks across 230 countries. Its analysis put the event ahead of the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics in Sochi, with a total of 19m mentions in the 12 months prior to kick-off. According to Twitter, 90% of users would tweet about the World Cup ahead of the tournament.
• https://blog.twitter.com/en-gb/2014/11-facts-about-twitter-users-and-the-2014-world-cup
• http://www.warc.com/LatestNews/News/EmailNews.news?ID=33108&Origin=WARCNewsEmail&CID=N33108&P
UB=Warc_News&utm_source=WarcNews&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WarcNews20140612
And the stats back this up…
Twitter’s weekly reporting
• Nielsen compiled weekly analysis of social activity and reach in the U.S. across airing networks, breaking down the matches and moments that engaged fans and reached the biggest audiences on Twitter. As well as this, they interestingly measured brand affinity (only amongst
official sponsors) – showing the % of brand tweeters who also tweeted about the World Cup. Adidas and Emirates were the winners here.
• http://www.nielsensocial.com/fifa-world-cup-2014-top-matches-on-twitter-the-week-of-77/
How brands tweeted during the World Cup
Final
• The World Cup was a global event that sparked an equally global conversation, and every moment of the tournament played out on Twitter. As Germany took on Argentina and beat the South Americans in the final, the match generated a massive 32.1 million Tweets, and set a
new Twitter record of 618,725 Tweets per minute (TPM). • https://blog.twitter.com/en-gb/2014/how-brands-tweeted-during-the-worldcupfinal
Activia and Shakira won the social media
‘share’ battle
• So which brands are the social video football champions of The World Cup 2014? Unruly has selected its dream team based on the 11 advertisers with the most football ad shares. The tracker ranks videos by the number of shares they attract across Twitter, Facebook and the blogosphere as opposed to the number of views.
• http://www.unrulymedia.com/braziliant-brands • http://viralvideochart.unrulymedia.com/chart_keyword/World_Cup_2014?interval=all_time
Meme alert: ‘Persieing’
• “Persieing” became the latest viral craze to spread across social media. Of the 1.7 million Van Persie mentions observed across social media, over 100k relate to his “flying” moment and include memes, Vines and Instagram uploads of creative examples playing on the image of the Dutchman’s headed goal. ESPN’s effort at a meme amassed 17k retweets to become the most retweeted tweet on the topic.
Actually RVP’s 93 yr old Granddad!
The best of the rest
The weird and wonderful
Things don’t always turn out the way you
planned
Whether it was the Singapore anti-gambling ad which chose to run with a boy telling his
friend that he hoped “Germany wins” as “my Dad bet all my life savings on them” which
most likely glamorised gambling as he’s now rich. Or the Nike line-up of stars in their creative
work being lambasted for not qualifying, being injured or going out after two games. The Nike
curse highlighted in 2010 happened again in 2014. And finally Asda’s wearable flags were
slightly ill thought out after someone pointed out they had more than a passing resemblance
to the Ku Klux Klan hoods…you can’t make this stuff up.
Watch the Anti-gambling ad here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRValgHDvxE
Meme alert: #thingsTimHowardcouldsave
Luis Suarez bites Chiellini and it became the
biggest talking point of the World Cup
• 30,000 mentions on Twitter the night that it happened
• Lionel Messi gets 20,000 when he plays a blinder…
Brands quickly got on the Suarez bandwagon
Some missed the bandwagon
• Betfair changed its name and logo to Bitefair
• Unfortunately it was 5 days after the event when coverage had
moved on
Yet this poster on Copacabana beach was the one
thing everyone wanted to ‘engage’ with
Paddy Power were at it again…
5 things we learnt
• Content strategies need to be multi-layered
E.g.. Nike Risk Everything, Last Game and #askZlatan
• Plan spontaneity
E.g.. Adidas spent a year developing a content library
• If you’re going to ‘react’ then think beyond Twitter and do it fast
E.g.. Specsavers and Paddy Power had tweets live quickly and posters
up in 24 hours. Betfair took 5 days.
• Owing to the time difference the sporting media ecosystem
mutated
E.g.. Print held off printing papers until the early hours, Twitter was more
popular than ever, London ran more night buses to cope with late kick-
offs
• Standing out is more difficult than ever
E.g. Standing out takes real creativity
The lessons from Brazil 2014