Ask many a sports enthusiast and they would probably agree- a sporting event just isn’t complete without a cold beverage. Specifically, a cold beer. And that mentality holds true for the previously dry stadiums of Brazil, which will be required to serve beer in all 12 stadiums hosting the World Cup matches.
Budweiser is the official beer sponsor of the World Cup in Brazil.
That’s reason enough for Budweiser to take the role of official beer sponsor again this year (they’re one of FIFA’s longest standing sponsors). Pushing to be recognized as an International beer brand, U.S. brewed Budweiser has a suitable Marketing canvas through the World Cup. Their ‘Heroic’ World Cup campaign, themed ‘Rise as One’, will be highly visible now through the end of the month-long tournament.
Budweiser became one of the first World Cup sponsors to announce significant partnerships for World Cup- specifically with Fox Sports and Vice Video- to unveil several documentaries celebrating “humanity and perseverance”. These partnerships lead nicely into part three of our World Cup series, which focuses on identifying your audience’s interests and most shared media to improve your overall campaign. We’ll discuss ways Budweiser might enhance their ‘Rise as One’ campaign, as well as ways that rival Miller Lite, which has yet to step into the World Cup Marketing trenches, might compete with the official sponsor.
Their Eyes Are on More than the Ball
Digging deep into your audience’s interests isn’t a new Marketing concept, and it’s one all Advertisers should take advantage of in order to gain an advantage in any campaign. It’s important to know where your audience’s eyes, wallets and loyalties lie. Looking at the @FIFAWorldCup audience, you can identify not only their most popular interests- everything from brands, to media, to celebrities- but also those interests that are most unique to @FIFAWorldCup engagers in relation to all of Twitter.
Looking at the list of ‘Top Unique Interests’ below, you’ll find that most of them might seem somewhat obvious for a soccer fan- so they might already be areas that are saturated with World Cup noise. But you’ll also find more unique interests buried in the list, like tennis player Andy Murray or the founder of the Virgin empire, Richard Branson.
FIFA unique non-soccer interests include Andy Murray and Richard Branson.
Partnering in some way with tennis-themed media or television might have been a good decision for Budweiser, assuming the same eyes will be fixed to the World Cup in June.
Similarly, if you’re on the Miller Lite Marketing team and you’re planning a unique ambush attack, partnering with Virgin might be successful- perhaps a series of in-flight TV ads on all Virgin flights or a series of YouTube ads with Richard Branson as the celebrity endorser. If you’re a smaller brand with a smaller budget, you might have to be more creative using the same themes. How can you incorporate tennis or Richard Branson in your online campaign?
Put Content Where Content is Shared
Looking at the media that your audience shares the most is a great way to identify where to promote your campaign. Take a look at the FIFA audience’s most currently shared media below:
Advertisers might consider posting content on Goal.com, one of the FIFA audience’s most shared media.
After examining the most shared media for @FIFAWorldCup, either beer brand might decide to initiate a World Cup themed Instagram campaign, since it tops the list of shared media. Or they might utilize the largest soccer website in the world, Goal.com, for online ads, interesting polls and other Marketing tactics- assuming that since the FIFA audience is sharing a lot of information from the site, they might also be clicking through to get more info.
These are just a few hints on unique ways Advertisers can push through the noise of the World Cup, and get noticed by their fans. Beginning next week, we’ll publish the first of a series of reports to track the Personas of both the FIFA audience, as well as the World Cup official sponsors and ambush Marketers, to see which brands are on the right track with their campaigns.