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Both the importance, and the potential, of a brand harnessing an effective social media campaign on Twitter at the World Cup just gone by was crystal clear long before it began.
The previous competition, that of South Africa in 2010 was, stated Tom Wiltshire, head of the site’s World Cup campaign, the “largest period of sustained activity for any event in Twitter’s history”. In March, that is over three months before it all kicked off, the amount of posts about the World Cup in Brazil had already surpassed the 2010 total. By the end of the tournament this World Cup generated 672m tweets, therein becoming the social media giant’s biggest event yet.
(Twitter stats pre-World Cup)
Twitter & Brazil 2014 Landmarks:
- Most tweeted single sports event: Brazil v Germany achieved 35.6m tweets during the game.
- Most tweets per minute: The final enjoyed 618,725 tweets per minute.
(This record was actually broken twice; it had been set after the fifth goal in the Brazil v Germany semi-final.)
To put it far too lightly brands which didn’t plan and formulate a detailed World Cup social media strategy, with Twitter as a huge component, were missing a trick or two.
Who made it work?
Here we analyse case studies of brands which delivered a successful Twitter World Cup campaign and how. An analyst from Mattr, a social media marketing agency, stated “Overall, Adidas and Nike seem to be really ahead of the others. They were the only brands to match the most engaged persona of @FIFAWorldCup, that of a rugged persona.” Accordingly it is these upon which there is most focus
- Adidas.
@adidasfootball – 1.56m followers
One of the official tournament partners, Adidas, were also one of the top brands to demonstrate a consistently strong Twitter presence. With the three tiered FIFA sponsorship system (introduced in 2002) and Adidas in the top tier which collectively pays $783m (£459m), assuming the six in the top tier all split this equally then the firm paid $130m (£76m) in sponsorship alone. Adidas and FIFA have a long running relationship with the company having produced every World Cup ball since 1970.
Some of their achievements…
- Most used brand hashtag with #allin (used 917,000 times)
- Twitter handle @brazuca gained 2.98m followers with growth of 603% during the tournament (Note: it now has 3.47m followers)
- – Most discussed brand in relation to World Cup
The brand was certainly helped by the exceptional selection (and a bit of luck) of which teams and players to sponsor. The performances and continuing presence of the following helped Adidas to sustain its own presence and thus exposure and Twitter mentions..
- both Adidas finalists including the winners, Germany
- Adidas Golden Ball winner – Leo Messi. (Also the second most mentioned player on Twitter.)
- Adidas Golden Boot winner – James Rodriguez
- Adidas Golden Glove winner – Manuel Neuer
- sixth most discussed player on Twitter – Oscar
- Most tournament assists – Juan Cuadrado
- FIFA Team of the Tournament – 8 adidas players out of 11
Tom Ramsden, Adidas Global Brand Director of Football, explained; “We always knew that real time communications would be the best way for Adidas to win the World Cup. We are so engrained and connected to the sport through our products, players and federations, there is never a moment in football where we are absent and, I believe, our knowledge and understanding of the game means we are the most engaging brand with football fans.”
Indeed the #allin hashtag generated three times more than any other brand’s attempts whilst the @brazuca handle was one of the most engaged in the sports category throughout the competition with 530k user interactions. The #f50, in relation to the Adidas adizero f50 boot, was the most used football footwear hashtag at the tournament with 257,000 mentions.
Adidas also had Luis Suarez on board as one of its ambassadors for the tournament but opted to drop the Uruguayan from any further marketing once his ban for biting Chiellini was put in place. An advert featuring Suarez baring his teeth however had already been released prior to the incident by the German firm with one such advertisement board in Rio featuring extensively on social media.
(One such #allin tweet utilising sponsor and tournament star James Rodriguez)
Attributing increases in real sales to social media campaigns is incredibly difficult. Accounting for exactly how much actual income these type of digital campaigns create, even establishing a reasonable estimate is challenging, and so the question remains as to how much these campaigns are worth?
What Adidas know is that it has exceeded its target for sales of the Brazuca and will sell over 14m worldwide in 2014. Ernesto Bruce, Adidas America’s Director of Soccer, noted: Our U.S. goal was to have around a 15-percent growth from the last World Cup. We are doubling that with over 30-percent growth on the brazuca. It’s a huge highlight for us.”
How much of these sales can be attributed to Twitter is uncertain but 3.47m followers for a football must count for something.
(‘Posto Adidas’: Adidas’ digital world cup team command centre in Rio)
- Nike.@nikefootball: 2.18 followers
The company’s #riskeverything hashtag gained 267,000 mentions. This was the second most used hashtag after #allin. Nike was not an official sponsor meaning it outperformed the likes of Coca Cola, McDonalds, Budweiser and others in social media marketing performance yet avoided paying out excessive sponsorship fees to FIFA.
In the initial stages of the World Cup finals Nike’s #riskeverything campaign was actually outperforming #allin but, due to a number of factors, including a lack of impactful tweets from their sponsors this later faltered.
Nike have one of the most popular footballers on Twitter in Cristiano Ronaldo (26.5m followers) and this certainly benefited early on. For example when he tweeted Nike’s second World Cup ad, viewings shot up and it hit 70m in just a few days. There is in fact a direct parallel in fall of in the #riskeverything campaign and Cristiano and Portugal’s exit from the competition in the knockout stages. The Portuguese star ended proceedings as the fourth most mentioned player in the tournament overall. The firm also have Neymar, the most mentioned player on Twitter at this World Cup, on their roster. The use of brand’s sponsored stars is clearly effective in that Adidas with the majority of sponsored players who had the most success, including both teams in the final in Germany and Argentina, saw their Twitter performance increase as the tournament progressed.
The most mentioned players and their World Cup sponsors…
- Neymar: Nike/ Beats
- Messi : Adidas/Pepsi/Samsung/Turkish Airlines
- Suarez: Adidas
- Ronaldo: Nike/Coca Cola/Emirates
- Robben: Adidas
- Oscar: Adidas
Other Examples
Most official partners or sponsors of FIFA had a direct competitor with which to compete across social media and other marketing platforms
- Coca Cola
Coca-Cola, another of the key FIFA partner sponsors, fared well at the digital World Cup and increased their Twitter following by the third most in terms of brands, after Adidas and Sony.
- Hyundai
The most positively received brand throughout the tournament’s duration with 17% of total brand mentions of positive sentiment.
- Budweiser
As an official partner Budweiser were in the privileged position of selecting the 2014 Fifa Man of the Match. The firm opted to allow fans to decide who could either cast their vote on FIFA.com, or by using the #ManoftheMatch hashtag tweet. Budweiser furthered increased their reach and engagement levels with voting available in six languages.
