The FIFA World Cup is right around the corner, and while this one is obviously different, the anticipation for the world’s biggest sports event still remains. Not only is this an exciting time for football fans, but the competition is a hot property among marketers as everyone tries to capitalize on the hype around this event.
Though the global tournament is undoubtedly a significant opportunity for reaching audiences, there are multiple factors that scare away major brands, especially as there are various alternatives to official sponsorship.
World Cup Opportunity
Though there is debate among marketers regarding the correct approach to a World Cup, there is one thing they all agree on: it’s a big deal. FIFA president Gianni Infantino said the 2018 World Cup was watched by four billion people, so with over half the world’s population tuning in, the opportunities for brands to reach audiences are limitless. As Chris Curtin, chief brand and innovation marketing officer at Visa, puts it, the World Cup is one of the “last unchallenged bastions of appointment viewing” and has “the biggest audiences in the world”. Not only does the World Cup bring in unparalleled viewership figures, but these cover virtually every existing demographic across global markets. On this aspect, Curtin says the World Cup provides “a borderless view of the world and bringing the world together. It is unlike anything else, and for a global brand like Visa, that’s why we are attracted to it. It hits every generation, every nationality and both females and males.”
Such high-profile events are significant for marketers in a world where consumers are getting more power to choose what they consume and, more importantly, whether they see ads. The advent of streaming and adblockers allows consumers to bypass a large portion of advertising, making it difficult for marketers to reach them. Roel de Vries, global head of marketing and brand strategy at Nissan, says the best way to reach consumers today is through live sport:
“Live sports is the one area where people want to engage, they still want to watch it. It is not as exciting to watch the game on the DVR the next day. You may watch highlights but if you are a fan of the game you are going to watch it live.”
Despite live sports offering a good remedy to the issue of dwindling live TV audiences, they are by no means a replacement for digital marketing strategy. In fact, any live sports marketing effort must entail a significant digital element. Visa, an official FIFA partner, is aware of this fact, as Curtin says, “We have some TV in select markets, but it will be anchored in digital, partly to reach younger demographics and because we are aware that a lot of it will be consumed on multiple devices. Also a lot of people are starting to share the content.” The advantage of digital is that it can be more cost effective and usually brings significantly more invaluable earned media through content sharing than its TV counterpart.
Furthermore, live sports do not only have unparalleled audience reach, but brands associated with them are deemed more trustworthy by consumers. A Nielsen study found that brand sponsorships in sports events is the second most trusted advertising channel, with 81% of people trusting the brands they see at such events. This combination means that major sports events, like the World Cup, are unmissable from a marketing perspective. The only question that remains is how to take advantage of this opportunity.
Official Sponsorship Categories
If brands elect to become official sponsors of FIFA and the World Cup, there are three categories to choose from.
Partners have the highest level of association with FIFA, which includes long-term strategic arrangements that extend beyond the actual tournaments. World Cup sponsors have global rights to the tournament, allowing for strong brand association, use of selected marketing assets and media exposure, and ticketing and hospitality offers for events.
The final tier, regional supporters come within the pre-defined regions of Europe North & Central America, South America, Africa & the Middle East, and Asia, and can promote with the World Cup in their domestic and regional markets.
Downsides To Official Sponsorships
The most obvious deterrent to companies becoming officially associated with FIFA is the high cost. Becoming an official partner can cost up to $100 million per year, which for a large number of companies is either unfeasible or unjustifiable as a single marketing expense. Even for those brands who can afford to pay the astronomical sponsorships fees there are reasons to stay away.
Though such partnerships bring in a significant global audience, there is minimal differentiation between official sponsors and other associated brands among consumers. During that 2014 World Cup in Brazil, nearly 40% of consumers wrongly believed MasterCard, Nike and Pepsi were World Cup sponsors.
While none of the competitor brands are officially linked to FIFA, they are all heavily present throughout sports in form of various partnerships, suggesting that perhaps an association with the tournament or football in general is sufficient to benefit from the World Cup fever.
This conclusion is further supported by a survey conducted by Atomik Research, which found that, while 61% of UK adults watch the FIFA World Cup, only 36% of respondents could name an official FIFA partner or sponsor, indicating that just over half of those who watch the tournament have any recollection of its official sponsors.
Yet again brands that are not officially linked to FIFA rank highly, with Nike being the second most recalled brand.
In an age where content creation is easier than ever, an association with a player or team is sufficient to capitalize off the World Cup hype. Creating a story around it and engaging with audiences effectively allows brands to gain the same exposure but at a lower cost.
Rules Around Sponsorships
World Cup sponsorship is a major source of revenue for FIFA and so they must safeguard the commercial partners of their flagship event. To do so, FIFA need to protect their brand and ensure their offering isn’t diluted if they are to provide the best possible outcome to brands who become official partners. An important element of this is preventing other brands from piggybacking off of FIFA and the World Cup through tactics known as ‘ambush marketing’. The global football association define this as “prohibited marketing activities which try to take advantage of the huge interest in and high profile of an event by creating a commercial association and/or seeking promotional exposure without the authorisation of the event organiser”, and they have strict rules around it.
In essence these dictate that brands cannot use FIFA IPs (official emblem, corporate logo, official mascot and World Cup trophy) in any marketing efforts without prior authorisation. They claim these activities are always conducted with the same main objective: free advertising. FIFA aims to prohibit such activities as they devalue official sponsorship for the brands that do spend astronomical sums to become official partners. FIFA’s “prohibited marketing activities” include any advertising or promotions using tournament designations, giving away or raffling tickets, marketing activities by non-sponsor companies that seek to take advantage of the huge public interest in the event through physical on-site presence in or around event sites, and implementing creative campaigns that indirectly associates a brand with the tournament using imager or textual references that aim to create a link to the event. The last of these is most relevant to companies seeking to benefit from the World Cup without becoming official partners, as there is significant value in merely being associated to the event. Nevertheless, there are still ways to become associated with the World Cup without officially stepping on FIFA’s toes.
Alternatives
Despite the strict rules surrounding it, there is clearly still value in activating around the World Cup due to the vast audience it attracts. Ross Arnold, director of marketing services at Wasserman, said on this topic, “Of course, they will need to be wary of the rules, but with clever marketing techniques and an authentic end product, it’s not just the big spending official sponsors who will be able to capitalise. What non-sponsor brands need to consider are the merits and pitfalls of trying to tap into a World Cup audience while not actually appearing to run a World Cup themed activation campaign.” The advent of social media and easier content creation provides more room for such ‘clever marketing techniques’ to emerge.
One option for larger brands is to invest heavily in partnerships with players and teams, and to use these high-profile ambassadors as part of their marketing campaigns. An example is Nike’s 2010 World Cup campaign with Rooney, Ronaldo, Cannavaro and Drogba, which the brand launched shortly before the tournament began. The ad video had 20 million views within 5 weeks, which, according to Nielsen, granted Nike a 30.2% social media buzz during the 2010 tournament, the highest among all brands and more than double that of Adidas, a direct competitor and official FIFA partner.
A similar but slightly more inspired approach was taken by Visa during the last World Cup in Russia. Using their ambassador who wasn’t even playing at the World Cup, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the brand launched the very creative ‘Visa’s Ultimate FIFA World Cup FOMO’ campaign, which featured the self-proclaimed king of football being brought to Russia on a throne and vowing to qualify by himself. This entertaining and self-aware campaign using a player that isn’t even participating in the World Cup demonstrates the event’s power. It is a clear example of the value of having someone around whom one can create engaging content rather than a mere official link to the tournament. Content creation and storytelling is more important to consumers, and this can be done in a more cost-effective way with individual athletes as ambassadors and partnerships with teams compared to highly expensive official sponsorships of tournament organisers.
If brands aren’t looking for global exposure, there are a wide range of regional campaigns that can be run concurrently to the World Cup. Three, the UK mobile carrier, capitalised on the euphoria around the English national team in 2018 with a ‘Three lions’ storefront, activated with a store opening by England legends Teddy Sheringham, Tony Adams, Ray Parlour and John Barnes. Fans reportedly queued to take selfies with the players and attempt the challenge called the #ThreeWallBall. Though simple, this physical campaign effectively addressed the brand’s target audience, and will not have racked up a bill anywhere near as high as official sponsorship or even the high-profile campaigns outlined above.
Though not necessarily recommendable, brands can take a more radical approach to World Cup campaigns, such as the guerrilla marketing efforts of Bavaria, the Dutch brewery that quite literally ‘ambushed’ official sponsor Budweiser at the 2010 World Cup. During the game between Denmark and the Netherlands, 36 women in Bavaria-branded dresses had to be removed from the stadium by FIFA officials for breaking their ambush marketing rules. The brand made headlines around the globe, generating about $30 million worth of free publicity, which resulted in the sale of 200,000 dresses (three times as much as expected), and increased beer sales of 41%. However, the ambush campaign resulted in the arrest of the participating women and FIFA filing criminal charges against Bavaria, so any brand looking to replicate this effort should think twice.
Ultimately, the best method for benefiting from the World Cup without becoming an official partner is the use of player ambassadors for marketing campaigns, similar to Visa’s approach with Ibrahimovic. There are countless examples of this, all of which promise lower cost and higher ROI. UberEats ran a campaign with Andrea Pirlo in 2018, when Italy failed to qualify, which was incorporated into it as a distraught Pirlo search for a new national team to support. Beats launched a campaign with Neymar focusing on pre-match music routines, in which Neymar is warming up (presumably for a World Cup match), but without a Brazil shirt or FIFA logo in sight it remains in line with FIFA’s strict rules. E-commerce brand Wish wanted a more global reach and so employed the services of multiple high-profile players from around the world including Neymar (Brazil), Paul Pogba (France), Gareth Bale (Wales), Tim Howard (USA), Robin Van Persie (Holland), Claudio Bravo (Chile) and Gianluigi Buffon (Italy). The use of player ambassadors presents a cost-effective alternative to high-ticket World Cup sponsorships while still providing comparable reach.
EMW & the World Cup
We at EMW work with both official and unofficial sponsors around the World Cup and other major tournaments. For official sponsors we coordinate talent appearances for brand activations. The more exciting and creating work, however, is in the ‘unofficial sponsor’ space, producing campaigns for some of Asia’s top regional brands.
One such campaign we launched recently is between Neymar Jr. and Malaysian snack brand Mister Potato. Neymar is potentially going into his last World Cup, and with Brazil being one of the main favourites to win the tournament, a collaboration with their most well-known player will draw significant customer attention and engagement as well brand recognition.
In addition to forging partnerships between brands and world class athletes, we have also partnered one of the worlds largest mobile gaming brands PUBG Mobile with the national teams of Argentina, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. The former is another title-favourite who come as a package deal with one of the greatest players of all time who has one last chance to achieve the final milestone in his career at Qatar 2022: Lionel Messi – who EMW also recently announced as a global ambassador of PUBG Mobile.
Furthermore, by partnering with the Iraq and Saudi Arabia, PUBG Mobile is capitalising on the football fever in the Middle East, caused by the first World Cup ever hosted in the region. These campaigns are further examples of ‘unofficial partnerships’ around the World Cup that can be targeted at specific demographics, and have been a resounding success, cumulatively generating over 500 million impressions, 150 million views, 37 million interactions.
Partnerships such as those outlined above demonstrate the power of events such as the World Cup, and further evidence that viable alternatives to official sponsorship exist. While great visibility can be generated from being an official FIFA partner, brands can ride the World Cup wave and get equal attention through ancillary marketing activities at a fraction of the cost.
