10 rules for World Cup marketing

The World Cup, which is held every four years, is not only an opportunity for many young players to shine on the world stage and see their value soar, but it is also a marketing hotspot that companies and brands cannot miss. The following article summarizes 10 marketing rules for everyone, let's learn them together!

What rolls on the green field is not only football, but also gold!

Just look at this year's World Cup. More than 23 Chinese companies participated in various ways, with a total amount of US$1.395 billion, making them the largest sponsors of this World Cup.

In addition, countless brands and platforms have joined this rare marketing war, hoping to boost sales. The reason why the World Cup is valuable is that it has the highest attention and appeal, which is unique among global sports events.

From 1930 to 2022, the marketing environment of this football feast has also been quietly evolving. Based on its own observations, Party A Finance has summarized 10 rules for your reference and discussion.

1. The World Cup officially enters the "vertical screen era"

The last World Cup was the heyday of long videos.

Where can we watch the World Cup this year? There must be many answers to this question. Short video live streaming platforms with Douyin and Kuaishou as the core have all started the vertical screen live streaming strategy.

Douyin still supports the sports marketing space with a powerful content ecosystem. In addition to providing ultra-high-definition, high-frame-rate, and ultra-low-latency rights-holding broadcasts, Douyin provides multi-camera and multi-commentary resources for fans to choose from. During the event, it also provides two-way interactive methods such as real-time predictions, red envelope sharing, and customized gifts.

In addition to the competition, there are also many derivative contents, such as "DOU Comes to the World Cup", "Still Fan Zhiyi", "Huang Family Football Class", "Understanding Football Conference", etc. From the start of the competition to the championship, there are opportunities for brands all the way.

Kuaishou is still keeping with the down-to-earth style. During the World Cup, it jointly launched interactive live broadcasts with brands, such as "Talking about World Waves", which focuses on professional interpretation; "Let's Talk About Football Late at Night", where a football celebrity watches and talks about football with friends every night; "Legends Please Give Me Advice", which tells the legendary life of football stars; and it also launched a program "Girlfriends Say" for female non-professional fans.

In just four years, the old and the new have been replaced, and the money is worth investing. But whether it is live broadcast or secondary creation, everyone is a little disappointed that no World Cup content can be seen on WeChat Video Account. The traffic bonus of this month may be in the next door.

Second, the key to advertising effectiveness is creativity

To do marketing well, the concept still depends on content creativity.

In previous World Cups, there were many brands that won huge profits by relying on creativity. For example, the "France wins the championship, Vatti will give a full price refund" campaign by the kitchen and bathroom appliance company Vatti generated 1 billion in sales; BOSS Direct Recruitment's brainwashing advertisements received more than 130 new job type reports from 7 industries in a single day.

The final effect of each brand in this year's World Cup is still too early to be concluded, but some trends can be seen from the creativity. The most influential idea is LV's century-long photo of Ronaldo and Messi, which may be the "last battle" between Messi and Ronaldo.

This LV ad not only features Messi and Ronaldo working together, but also has a clever product placement, using the brand's classic printed suitcase plaid as a chessboard, allowing the two top stars to start a game of chess.

The subsequent effects of this operation were very significant. After sparking discussion among netizens, LV released a behind-the-scenes video that confirmed many speculations - the "same frame" was a post-production synthesis, and they did not really meet. This triggered a second wave of netizens' craze for crazy photo-editing.

LV has obviously broken the public's cognitive scope and creatively allowed them to "appear in the same frame", which satisfied everyone and stimulated heated discussions. After all, the enthusiasm of netizens' subsequent secondary creations still shows everyone's expectations for this appearance in the same frame.

This wave of operations proves that it is indeed a suitable direction for brands to produce explosive products by creatively creating things in marketing that break cognition but seem reasonable.

3. Playing with memes is the primary productive force

"I am Messi, and I am very panicked now."

This joke was popular again in WeChat Moments after Argentina lost 1:2 to Saudi Arabia. This was a popular joke during the 2018 World Cup. The picture was taken from a clip in Mengniu's "Born to Be Strong" theme TVC that year, and was repeatedly used by fans to make fun of it.

Brands don’t use memes easily, but if they do it well, it can have a huge impact with very little effort, which is indeed not easy for a marketing team.

In the creative TVC of this World Cup, Yili gave a new interpretation to the old football joke "Blame Benzema", which caught people's attention and made Benzema a phenomenal star.

The original joke was full of ridicule, and many critical eyes thought that his presence hindered his teammates' performance. However, Yili reinterpreted the joke and told his football journey in a more passionate way, from being a scapegoat to winning the Ballon d'Or. By leveraging the fire of the World Cup, it not only affirmed Benzema's value, but also the core of the football spirit, and at the same time made the brand concept of "passion" more deeply rooted in people's hearts.

This huge resonance based on a sense of identity has become a prerequisite for social communication and network effects. It is passionate and inspiring, but not offensive.

4. “Who will win the championship” is an eternal emotion

China's leading kitchenware company, Vatti, became the biggest winner in 2018, using a cost of 100 million yuan to create an effect that other companies could not achieve even with 300 million yuan.

During the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Vatti launched the "Full refund if France wins" campaign. Online sales soared 65% year-on-year, and sales of championship packages increased 152% month-on-month. Within one month of the company's marketing, sales revenue reached 1 billion yuan, but the actual refund amount was only about 79 million yuan.

This year, Vatti Company is sponsoring the World Cup team again. Although it has placed all its bets on the Portugal team, it is a pity that the game did not continue with the refund, because regardless of whether it can win again, Vatti may be the biggest winner.

In fact, many brands can grasp the emotions of guessing the winner to launch marketing activities. As long as the game rules are designed reasonably, they can attract many people to participate.

Especially for the first World Cup in the epidemic era, it will definitely become an outlet for fans' emotions. The stories, farewells, legends, and surrounding areas of this session will surely make people talk about it for a period of time. Grasping the emotional value means grasping the traffic code, and marketing communications will be more effective.

At the same time, this is also the first World Cup held in winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Following Double Eleven and the Christmas season, it is indeed a peak season for marketing conversion and has great money-making prospects.

5. Sportsmanship has a disruptive effect

From the customized World Cup slogans of various companies, it is not difficult to see that all brands want to make a name for themselves in the world through the spirit of football.

Mengniu upgraded its global slogan to "World Quality, Born to Be Strong", and based on this, designed the World Cup slogan "I am not born strong, I am just born to be strong".

Yili’s slogans are richer, such as “There is a kind of love called blue and white”, “Love is the bullfighter’s jersey”, “Love never walks alone”, “Love never fades”, “The arc that crosses youth is called love”, “Love, like the return of 7”, etc.

Panpan’s “Work together and win happily”; Telunsu’s “Every piece of land can produce better”; Hisense’s “First in China and second in the world”; Budweiser’s “Become a world hero”; Boss Zhipin’s brainwashing advertisements; Liepin’s “One carrot, one pit” short film.

Combining the spirit of sports with globalization, upgrading brand promotional copywriting and fully participating in discussions is a current trend in sports marketing. This method can quickly attract the attention of fans and participate in discussions, but it is still difficult to get out of the circle.

At present, the only thing that has gone viral is Hisense's borderline ball, and public opinion is also polarized.

6. Public welfare is a strategic proposition essay

Sports + charity has become a marketing proposition.

For example, this year Hisense and FIFA jointly launched the "Disappearing Stadiums" series of charity activities in South Africa to attract more people to pay attention to climate change and launch an environmental protection initiative to the world; Mengniu's 2022 Hope Project event "World Cup Youth Football Charity Tour" will help more young football players across the country pursue their dreams on the green field; Guojin Gold will donate 1 yuan from every set of products sold in the World Cup official authorized merchandise project to the "Youth Golden Seed".

Sports charity marketing is essentially a soft marketing, with audience attention, brand penetration and influence that are unmatched by other types of advertising, and the audience's resistance is relatively weak. It is also a kind of emotional marketing, which is a universal communication language.

Statistical studies have shown that if a company wants to increase its brand awareness worldwide, it will need to spend $20 million in advertising fees for every 1% increase in awareness; and through major sports events, this awareness can be increased by 10%, while also achieving better economic benefits.

7. The inevitable move towards the "metaverse" starts with Pico

The opening of the 2022 Qatar World Cup is a continuous advance towards the Metaverse. The two domestic giants that have won the broadcasting rights, Migu and Douyin, have both injected Metaverse elements.

Migu has created the first World Cup-themed social interactive viewing platform - Star Plaza, where users can log in with a virtual identity and watch the World Cup matches on the same screen with thousands of people, and "travel" through the Sky Arena, the Fighting Football Stadium, the Discos, the World Cup Cloud Mall, the World Cup Football Exhibition Hall and other plazas.

Douyin enters the main venue of the World Cup through the PicoVR all-in-one device, and invites friends to enter the room for real-time voice chat and interaction. Even Liu Yan can sit next to you and interact with you at any time.

In addition, China Mobile has also launched virtual reality event operations for various C-end users, including virtual humans, virtual concerts, immersive viewing, cloud games, etc.

However, it is not yet time to rely on the Metaverse to make a profit, but the Metaverse seems to have passed the conceptual stage and entered the substantive industrial exploration stage. According to Wind data, the World Cup concept index has risen by more than 10% in the past month.

8. The way young people participate is changing

Xiaohongshu has never stopped investing in sports events. In the past two years, professional national teams, clubs, and stars from multiple sports have joined the company.

Xiaohongshu signed two traditional red teams, Belgium and Spain, in this year's World Cup. It also signed world-famous coaches such as Zidane, Mourinho, Simeone, as well as top football players such as Lingard, Xie Hui, and Gary Neville, and brought the "Little Red Uncles" to become a highlight of this event.

Xiaohongshu is creating content that includes professional content about the game itself as well as life-related content outside of the game. For example, everyone can discuss food, clothing, housing and transportation related to football.

As a lifestyle platform, Xiaohongshu is also guiding people to make various related consumption decisions after watching the games. If we try to summarize Xiaohongshu's operation strategy for various sports events in one sentence, we can say that it has both planting and irrigation. The former connects lifestyle and consumption decisions, while the latter relies on the blessing and upgrading of professional forces.

The reason for this idea is that the way young people participate in the World Cup is no longer limited to watching the games. Further integrating the atmosphere of the World Cup into real life is a new way for young people today.

9. Don’t have too high expectations for whether a new brand can stand out

Kudi Coffee should be the youngest brand in this World Cup. Its first store was just opened in October this year, and it was announced on the same day that it would become the Chinese sponsor of the Argentina national football team.

Under the watchful eyes of the public, after Credit Suisse, Lu Zhengyao's Kudi Coffee entered the market with a high profile and spent a lot of money.

It has become a routine practice for many brands to release advertisements and new products during major sporting events. This express train can indeed allow the brand to receive the most concentrated exposure in a short period of time.

At the same time, sports marketing is also a great opportunity to help brands shape their awareness and reputation. For example, the brand slogan of Cotti Coffee is EVERY DAY@COTTI, which represents Cotti Coffee's hope to bring people a healthy and beautiful daily life through coffee, while sports show positive energy and make life full of vitality and passion.

But it is hard to say whether the new brand can really stand out and continue to have brand compound interest after the event. Especially in the context of intensified competition in the coffee market and the strengthening of the internal trend, the future of Kudi is still unknown.

10. The event will end, but the influence of the stars will continue

In addition to becoming an official sponsor, the most cost-effective way to spend money on the World Cup may be to bet on teams and players.

However, betting on team stars is not without risks. No brand has the ability to win the bet, and there are precedents of favorites to win the championship being eliminated unexpectedly.

This year, the competition for “people” is even more intense. The battle between Yili and Mengniu for Messi lasted for five months, which ignited the flames of war.

Mengniu is a meticulous sponsor. As the main sponsor, it signed a contract with Messi again and also signed French star Mbappe.

Although Yili is not an official sponsor, it focuses on aggregating more IP resources. It has not only joined hands with four football powerhouses, namely the Argentina national team, the Portugal national team, the Spain national team and the Germany national team, but has also signed powerful star players such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Beckham, Wu Lei and Benzema to form a dream team. By placing bets on multiple parties, it has shared certain risks to a certain extent.

The value of brand owners focusing more and more on "people" rather than "things" is self-evident. No matter which World Cup, top players and upset players will become topics, and their influence will last. The 2022 Qatar World Cup will not only have Messi and Ronaldo's last dance, but also various gimmicks such as the collective farewell of post-80s players and the Ragnarok War, which will be a permanent topic for fans and the "spiritual capital" that brands can use to prolong their marketing effects.

Author: Shi Qi

Source: WeChat public account "Party A Finance (ID: jiafangcaijing2019)"