Women are taking over the social universe (and perhaps the stadium stands!) during the World Cup, according to our social analysis for the opening week of June 9. What’s been a constant ‘Rugged Male’-dominated audience for @FIFAWorldCup the last couple of months, has now switched genders, with the women coming out ahead based on social engagement. Were World Cup Marketers in tune with the fact that females would enjoy futball as much as their male counterparts?
World Cup Official Sponsor Coke seems to be in the know. After several misses over the last few months in regards to which Personas they were attracting on social media, they’ve now hit a bulls-eye, with 25% of their social engagement coming from ‘Rugged Females’ (matching @FIFAWorldCup ‘Most Engaged Persona’ this week).
Week Highlights: Women Rule the World (Cup)!
Coke’s engagement shot up during the opening games of World Cup as expected for all Official Sponsors. Great news for them! But even better news is that it appears they caught the eyes of the same ‘Rugged Females’ whose eyes were glued to the matches. It was obvious that Coke not only pushed their digital campaign last week, but did it in a way that resonated with these passionate women. Was it luck? Perhaps. What’s clear is that, as Coke has stated, they’re “taking a Marketing leap and trying something innovative” through their digital campaigns.
In fact, Coke created 2 in-house teams prior to the World Cup, designed to bring their real-time digital campaigns to life. World Cup 2014 stands as Coke’s largest collaborative approach to real-time digital to date- and that’s no small feat!
Kudos to them for deciding to take this jump during one of social media and digital’s most popular events worldwide. To stay ahead of the game, Coke needs to rely less on ‘experimental approaches’, and more on FIFA audience analysis and segmentation to really discover what type of content is most valuable to soccer-enthusiasts.
Of Interest: Pepsi Falls Flat on Social, but Scores Big as a ‘Sponsor’
Pepsi didn’t fare as well as Coke in regards to engagement during the first few matches. Although they pulled a hair of engagement from the most engaged FIFA personality (Rugged), both Sophisticated Males and Females were almost even in the rankings. Which means Pepsi is missing the boat with the actively engaged and super passionate World Cup audience of Rugged Males and Females.
On a more positive note, non-sponsor Pepsi apparently scored the highest awareness as a World Cup ‘sponsor’ among US consumers- meaning that although they didn’t pay the high bucks to sponsor the actual tournament, there are still several consumers who believe they’re an official sponsor. Pepsi has a real chance to use this ‘notoriety’ to their advantage, and pull more engagement on social through the coming weeks.