In last weeks blog we examined how Social Media Marketing has evolved between the 2010 and 2014 World Cups. In terms of Social Media Marketing, how can we learn and apply the lessons from the 2014 World Cup to our brands?
Community
For sports fans, when you follow a team you become part of a very exclusive community. Within this community fans share their experiences, debate tactics, discuss recent matches etc. This is the ultimate form of market research. From a Social Media perspective, the most important step to creating brand awareness is to build your community. To put it very simply, creating a community creates conversations.
Your community should be home to your brand advocates who will help spread your marketing message. Your devoted community should also buy into brand message and what your brand stands for. Finally engaging with your community is a mechanism to create those conversations that will help to define the success of your brand on Social Media.
Engagement – Off-line meets Online
At the 2014 World Cup brands are investing a significant proportion of their marketing budget into Digital Marketing. However most brands still put a great deal effort into their offline advertisements. However most brands now realise that using their offline channels is a way to generate Social interactions online.
Budweiser’s 2014 World Cup campaign central focus is to ‘Rise as One’ campaign integrates both offline and Digital Marketing channels to maximise fan interaction on Social Media. Budweiser is aiming to bring the offline conversation across all Social Channels by tailoring content that universally appeals to Football fans.
- YouTube – they have created a mini-series focusing on ‘Football Heroes’ who are ordinary people that use Football as a force of brightening people’s lives.
- Twitter – Budweiser have created the #riseasone hashtags encouraging people to discuss the World Cup.
- Twitter – Budweiser are asking to log on to their Twitter account to decide who the man of the match is.
- Facebook – They have created the #BudHotel where Budweiser are throwing epics parties and fans can hang-out to discuss recent games
What brands can learn from this type of offline-online marketing is to integrate all channels of communication to achieve maximum brand visibility. To achieve this type of success it’s crucial to create a brand campaign message and tailor content to suit each individual channel whilst keeping your message consistent. From a Social Media perspective it’s important to design and tailor your content that will engage your audience across the different channels. This will achieve maximum brand impact.
Real Time Marketing
During the Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans when a power outage occurred, Oreo instantaneously tweeted an advert ‘Power Out, No Problem’ with an image of a single Oreo with the tagline ‘You Can Still Dunk in the Dark’. This tweet went viral and heralded a new way in which we interact as brands and how to capitalise on topical moments in real time.
Uruguay’s Luis Suarez bite on his Italian opponent Giorgio Chiellini was without a doubt the most talked about incident at this year’s World Cup. In reaction to the biting incident, Snickers were quick off the mark in posting this advert on Social Media.
From a modern marketing perspective it’s vital for brands to adapt to Social Media and have the ability to react to topical events in real time. Brands who are able to react in real time to a seminal moment will create virility and therefore increasing brand visibility. In this situation it’s important for brands to be creative, relevant, memorable and fun.
If the World Cup 2014 is a barometer of how much Social Media and Marketing has changed, imagine what 2018 will be like? Between 2010 and 2014 there has been a seismic shift in how we market our bands online. As time progresses its essential to analyse current trends in Social Media. Your next step is to learn and adapt to these trends, therefore ensuring your brand stays relevant and grows. As for 2018 World Cup, well I am not Astrologist! But I hope Ireland wins 🙂
To learn how New World Digital can help you build your brand using social media marketing, Digital Marketing, SEO , or website design, simply Contact Us.
