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FIFA World Cup: An Advertisers Dream Event?

June 23, 2006

Advertise Different, Advertising Agency, Globalization, Marketing, Marketing.fm, New Markets, Technology, Television

World Cup 2006

Or so says ESPN. (adage link – sub required)

John Skipper, who handles ESPN’s mega marketing machine, thinks that this has been a big opportunity for marketers. What has been staged as the “super bowl for the world” the world cup is a chance for multi-national campaigns to break through the normal “clutter” and perhaps make their mark on potential consumers.

In my opinion I have been made aware of many brands that I previously never knew about, bringing about the idea that in some ways this is overbranding. For example, now that I know about a watch brand, or beer company simply because of an expensive product integration – does this mean it worked?

What is the ultimate metric for global dominating advertising?

Checkout what MSN has offered advertisers – putting brands “in the middle of the action”.

…or this whitepaper material by Shoxygen boasting:

With no other sport is the World Wide Web a more effective advertising medium than with Soccer. The worldwide appeal of this sport, the passion of its fans, and its money-making prowess are undeniable.

Time will tell whether the World Cup of 2006 proves to be the advertising “holy grail” that the marketers are pitching – I for one think it will prove otherwise. I believe that it remains a strong medium for continued advertising throughout a team, or stadiums season, following intelligently into the time leading up to the world cup. It should not be used as a one size fits all marketing campaign that comes around every 4 years and drains your budget because of potential global “eyeballs” and reach.

Although I have a somewhat negative view of all this advertising – not everyone shares my cynicism: Thomas Hawk

Disagree? leave a comment…

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  • http://www.ericfrenchman.com Eric Frenchman

    I agree with you. I don’t think the World Cup will prove to be a big advertising event. I found that ESPN promoting the World Cup interesting because it just seems like a ploy to recoup on their investment. ESPN is about basketball, football, and baseball and their audience only cares about those three sports.

    Besides, I can’t stand advertisers who blow all of their money on a sporting event. Seriously, other than food, what brands do you care about at a sporting event. I laugh at the big companies that sponsor a billboard at a stadium. Do people really care about Verizon while they are watching a ball game?

    PardonMyFrench,

    Eric

  • http://www.ericfrenchman.com Eric Frenchman

    I agree with you. I don’t think the World Cup will prove to be a big advertising event. I found that ESPN promoting the World Cup interesting because it just seems like a ploy to recoup on their investment. ESPN is about basketball, football, and baseball and their audience only cares about those three sports.

    Besides, I can’t stand advertisers who blow all of their money on a sporting event. Seriously, other than food, what brands do you care about at a sporting event. I laugh at the big companies that sponsor a billboard at a stadium. Do people really care about Verizon while they are watching a ball game?

    PardonMyFrench,

    Eric

  • http://www.marketing.fm Eric

    Eric,

    Thanks for reading. I agree that advertisers shouldnt spend all their money in one “arena”. Any ideas on where we can find out about the success of the advertising that went on without a strong bias?

  • http://www.marketing.fm Eric

    Eric,

    Thanks for reading. I agree that advertisers shouldnt spend all their money in one “arena”. Any ideas on where we can find out about the success of the advertising that went on without a strong bias?

  • http://www.thomashawk.com Davis Freeberg

    I actually do agree with you, although I still think that there are ways to leverage soccer for advertisers. As much as advertisers might want to get in front of those eyeballs, I think it takes the right product, as well as the right placement to get real leverage from the ad dollars that companies have spent.

    I think that Yahoo! did a great job with their ads because they were able to tie their advertisment to a particularly crucial moment of the game, but Yahoo! was the exception. I don’t see how you can have a game where there are no commercials for 45 minutes and then expect people to tune into a billion 30 second spots all in a row.

    As far as overbranding goes, I’m not really sure if I agree with that. I do think people spent too much, but I don’t know that I’ve felt a bombardment of ads in watching the coverage. What I do think FIFA could have done better would be to have included electronic field ads that could change throughout the game. After seeing a dozen or so games, one does get sick of seeing the same advertisment for a month. Had they used sometype of electronic signage, they could shuffle the ads and give some variety to the viewer. It would have helped keep the ads fresh at least.

    Overall, I’ve actually been very disappointed at all of the high priced spots being so terribly, but I still think that Yahoo! is the one that scored the winning goal in this years advertiser’s world cup.

  • http://www.thomashawk.com Davis Freeberg

    I actually do agree with you, although I still think that there are ways to leverage soccer for advertisers. As much as advertisers might want to get in front of those eyeballs, I think it takes the right product, as well as the right placement to get real leverage from the ad dollars that companies have spent.

    I think that Yahoo! did a great job with their ads because they were able to tie their advertisment to a particularly crucial moment of the game, but Yahoo! was the exception. I don’t see how you can have a game where there are no commercials for 45 minutes and then expect people to tune into a billion 30 second spots all in a row.

    As far as overbranding goes, I’m not really sure if I agree with that. I do think people spent too much, but I don’t know that I’ve felt a bombardment of ads in watching the coverage. What I do think FIFA could have done better would be to have included electronic field ads that could change throughout the game. After seeing a dozen or so games, one does get sick of seeing the same advertisment for a month. Had they used sometype of electronic signage, they could shuffle the ads and give some variety to the viewer. It would have helped keep the ads fresh at least.

    Overall, I’ve actually been very disappointed at all of the high priced spots being so terribly, but I still think that Yahoo! is the one that scored the winning goal in this years advertiser’s world cup.