MarketingVox reports some interesting findings of a recent Nielsen study examining the effectiveness of big consumer brands’ World Cup campaigns. According to Nielsen, Nike so far has trumped arch rival Adidas in terms of exposure – although Adidas is an official FIFA World Cup sponsor and Nike isn't. Adidas’ ball, jersey, and in-stadium advertising simply couldn’t compete with the viral power of Nike’s “Write the Future” spot – arguably one of the best sports ads ever made – which has gotten Nike twice as many mentions on English-speaking blogs, forums, and social networks than Adidas has had (also read this great interview with Trevor Edwards, Nike's VP of global brand and category management). The full-length Nike video has enjoyed almost 14 million views on YouTube since the middle of May. Adidas produced its own Star Wars-themed World Cup video featuring David Beckham and attracted more than 2 million viewers since the release last week.
Nike isn't the only brand to successfully “ambush” a World Cup sponsor, as the Nielsen study shows. Carlsberg, a sponsor of the England national team, had almost four times the level of mentions in English-language messages around the tournament than Budweiser, the official World Cup beer sponsor.
The Nielsen study also found that:
- "FIFA partner Coca-Cola had five times the level of association with the World Cup than Pepsi – despite the latter's 'Oh Africa' ad featuring World Cup stars such as Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry, and Kaká which has generated over a million views online.
- Triggered by Twitter retweets in early June to its FIFA YouTube page and its campaign to create the longest 'goal' shout, Visa had 15 times the World Cup association than MasterCard.
- Timing the launch of its 3D TV sets with the opening day of the tournament, FIFA partner Sony’s association levels were seven times higher than those of Panasonic and ten times higher than those of Philips.”
The most effective branding of course is when your consumers do it for you. Lego has been a master at tapping into its community of users for a while, and all they had to do with the World Cup is to activate the football fan in the Lego fan. Want an example? Just watch the hilarious animated Lego recreation of Robert Green’s goalkeeping goof. Or check out this German Legofussball site.
Comments