Fifa ambushed

DESPITE THE DRACONIAN efforts of Fifa to strangle it at birth, ambush marketing is alive and well and flourishing around the Soccer World Cup – without breaking the strict rules of the world football body. Research by The Nielsen Company shows how successful that can be. The online buzz of the 10 sponsors/partners with global footprints showed more people link the World Cup with Nike than with any other brand – yet it isn’t an official Fifa sponsor or partner. Nike received 30% of English-language references, adidas (an official partner and Nike rival) got 14% and Coca-Cola 12%. However, thanks to heavy, continuous global branding, Coke’s awareness was five times the level of its major rival, Pepsi.

“Nike wasn’t the only brand to successfully ambush a World Cup sponsor or partner,” says Nielsen’s executive vice-president of digital strategy, Pete Blackshaw. “Carlsberg, a sponsor of the England national team, had almost four times the level of Budweiser, the official beer sponsor.”

Blackshaw puts it down to “creative marketing”, adding: “It’s natural for a company with a large global footprint to associate itself with a major event. This study shows compelling, savvy marketing can establish this sort of connection in the eyes of consumers without having to write that expensive sponsorship cheque.”

But for most of the sponsors their official relationship has been a success. For example, Twitter “retweets” to Visa’s Fifa YouTube page and its campaign to create the longest “goal” shout contributed to World Cup association levels 15 times as high as MasterCard’s.

The study looked at Cup-related messages on blogs and social media sites between 7 May and 6 June.

Other insights come from Matt Cutler, of Visible Measures, a US online tracking service. He told Advertising Age only one of the five most-viewed “brand-driven online video ads related to the World Cup” was a sponsor. That was Coca-Cola, sharing space with Nike, Pepsi, Carlsberg and Puma – hot competitors of sponsoring brands.

All managed to imply a connection with the event but without infringing Fifa’s rules restricting any mention or visual image of Fifa, Soccer World Cup, the Jabulani football, the mascot and the like.

They countered with triggers such as sponsored football stars of teams competing in the event; creating an environment that could be a World Cup dressing room or hospitality tent; or using African scenes and music. You can stop them using trademarks but you can’t stop them marketing themselves to sportsmen and Africans.

Nike’s three-minute-long “Write the Future” commercial (with 23m views) showed soccer stars such as Wayne Rooney and Christiano Ronaldo competing on the field while varying visions of their future flash before their eyes; Puma produced a feel-good campaign – “Love Equals Football” – about the sport in Africa; Carlsberg’s “Team Talk” focused on the weight of expectations facing each player in a big competition; Pepsi’s “Oh Africa” features stars such as Lionel Messi and Didier Drogba playing against African village kids for a Pepsi Max – and losing, because the field, outlined by spectators, keeps moving.

In SA, Fifa missed a trick by not putting the vuvuzela and makarapa – the Cup’s most potent symbols here – on its list of no-noes. All you have to do to make an instant connection is show a vuvuzela-blowing group of dancing fans in yellow shirts and funny hats. Those triggers must have been used in anything up to 10 ads – and there’s not much Fifa can do about it.

Fifa is understandably paranoid about the ambush, because genuine sponsors, which have paid up to US$125m for the privilege, want their exclusive rights protected. Without sponsors there’d be no event. But its ruthless trampling of small transgressors – and, arguably, on our constitutional rights to freedom – wins it few friends.