A little remains before the start of the 2018 world Cup in Russia. Football fever is already here and every day it will capture more people. Together with athletes and fans, marketers and advertisers are now at a low start. In anticipation of the main event of the summer, let's go through the advertising campaigns, see what trends they pick up and what was successful in them and what was not so good.
Sponsor's expanse
The largest and most attractive promotions for customers are traditionally held by official FIFA partners and sponsors of the 2018 World Cup: Adidas, Coca-Cola, Hyundai/Kia, QatarAirways, VISA, Gazprom, WandaGroup, Bud, McDonalds, Hisense, Vivo, Alfa-Bank. In their hands, the most important advantages are the ability to use the official symbols of the world Cup and raffle tickets for matches.
McDonalds started "cooking the cart" literally in the winter. From February 1 to March 31, the chain's restaurants hosted the traditional prize draw "For the 2018 FIFA World Cup with McDonalds". To participate, you had to have a meal in the amount of 400 rubles or more. Among the most tempting gifts are tickets to group matches, as well as a chance for children to take the football player to the field.
The company conducts the "Player Support" campaign for all world Championships. At the same time, interest in it does not fade and thanks to the social component, it is supported by famous football players and coaches.
In addition, McDonalds cooperates with Panini - the official manufacturer of branded albums for stickers for the world Championships. As part of the partnership in restaurants, customers of children's meals receive a set of stickers, including exclusive stickers from a special spread with the Russian national team (or other national teams, depending on the country).
Coca-Cola announced its marketing campaign "#ready" for the 2018 world Cup as the largest in history.
It includes a prize draw with the championship's signature design, a presentation of the world Cup's own anthem and a mobile app for Vkontakte that allows you to win tickets to world Cup games. A special draw is provided for teenagers: they are invited to compete for the right to enter the field as an accompanying judge. The Corporation also conducts the "FIFA world Cup Cup Tour", during which the main trophy is displayed in different cities of the country.
It is worth noting the activity of the regional sponsor of the World Cup "Alfa-Bank". As part of an official partnership with FIFA, the advertising campaign managed to attract Lionel Messi himself – the captain of the national team of Argentina and Barcelona. No doubts, this is a top choice: in terms of recognition, only a couple of world sports stars can compete with it. The image of a football player in the form of "alpha" was used for outdoor advertising, as well as commercials for TV and the Internet.
The second trump card of the Bank was a large-scale drawing of tickets for World Cup matches. Or rather, not even a trump card but a real Joker. After all, tickets are the most effective way to influence the client. They are also good in that they attract a wide range of passive fans who are usually not very interested in football but during major competitions they light up with the idea of getting to the stadium (after all, "this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance").
In addition to advertising with Messi, the draw was promoted with a series of videos featuring the increasingly popular actor Yevgeny Kulik. He gave life hacks on how to start understanding football and earn money during the World Cup (for example, renting an apartment to a gang of screaming Latinos straight from the Brazilian favelas), leading the viewer to the conclusion that the best way is to take part in a Bank promotion.
The videos were funny, not devoid of color but raised questions about the choice of the main character who just a couple of weeks before appeared in an ad for Sberbank, trolling competitors, including alpha itself.
Find a loophole
Attempts to violate the copyright of FIFA threaten business with trouble. We are talking about the illegal use of symbols of the World Cup, its mascots, elements of corporate identity, slogans that are only available to sponsors or companies that have purchased license rights from FIFA. Special mention should be made of the right to raffle tickets for the World Cup which is also only available to holders of sponsorship contracts.
So, at the end of 2017, the Afanasy brewery had to deal with the FAS of the Tver region which ignored these rules during the promotion. Then the company's PR team managed to get out of it, bombarding the thematic public sites of Vkontakte with patriotic advertising posts in the spirit of "the Russian company was forbidden even to mention the home World Cup". However, the fact that with FIFA jokes are bad, the example shows more than clearly.
However, the history of advertising at the world Championships proves that the lack of sponsor status has never been an obstacle to creativity. The main task here is to build a customer's connection between their brand and the main sporting event of the summer. For example, Pepsi released another juicy video for the 2018 World Cup which starred such football stars as Marcelo, Toni Kroos, Dele alli and the same Messi.
The video is designed in a recognizable style and plays with the visual elements of the manufacturer's corporate identity. Add here limited-edition packages with portraits of players (including six players of the Russian national team) – and the company deftly emphasizes its involvement in the 2018 World Cup.
In our opinion, a successful move among domestic companies was made by the marketers of the Magnit retailer which offered customers a series of sporting goods under the brand of the legend of the Brazilian national team, Ronaldinho. The choice of the face of the campaign is successful not just in fact (the former player of "Barcelona" and "Milan" is a very respected person) but also because he finished his career relatively recently.
Its recognition is quite high among different categories of customers (both teenagers and older people, and even those who do not follow football especially). Moreover, the Brazilian visited the company's hometown of Krasnodar, and a photo of Ronaldinho strolling along the Magnet caused a storm of emotions in social networks (now you've seen everything, Yes!).
Photo from a photo report of the Krasnodar edition Yugopolis.ru
No matter how good the bags, fan hats and balls are, the most coveted prize for near-Mundial promotions is still tickets. A number of companies that are not bound by contracts with FIFA, still managed to get them into the prize Fund of their shares at the expense of VISA. As a sponsor of the World Cup, the payment system has a solid ticket quota which, in addition to its own drawings, it shares with partners.
This loophole was used, for example, by the Pyaterochka and Auchan retail chains whose customers can also compete for the coveted tickets when paying for the required number of checks for a certain amount by VISA. The same trick was performed by VTB, Sberbank, and Tinkoff. The latter also managed to come up with a set of "chips" for the promotion. For example, cardholders are offered cash back for purchasing sporting goods, bonuses for attracting friends, paying a certain amount and fulfilling other conditions.
Tinkoff stood out with a funny video featuring Ivan Urgant and Fyodor Smolov's" all-Russian team hopes".
Geese, ducks and tankers
Now let's analyze the commercials. Here, by tradition, most companies rely on attracting famous people from the world of football. Glushakov advertises LG TVs and R. O. C. s toothpaste, Smolov poses for the same" Tinkoff " and further down the list. But not all advertisers fixate directly on football players. The main factor in choosing the face of a campaign is the recognition and Association with the world of sports in the minds of customers.
So, Zhatetsky Goose took off in the beer advertisement of the coach Guus Hiddink. The Dutchman became the hero of another video from a series of videos about "pan Gus" and fell quite to the court. First, advertisers played on the same names of the guest star and the main character. Second, for the Russian market, Hiddink, who led the national team to the semi-finals of Euro 2008, is a special person. And it is known to almost every Russian who ten years ago was at least a little conscious age.
TV commentator Vasily Utkin starred in a promo video for the Skittles campaign with the hard-to-pronounce name Skittlestryanka.
Head&Shoulders opted for blogger and sports journalist Yuri Dud who was sent to the stadium in the company of stylish friends. The football spirit is sustained, the recognition of the characters is evident. You can only find fault with the fact that both characters have recently been too often flashed in a variety of advertising. If your video promises to be for Duda tenth in the last couple of months – there is reason to think.
The choice to advertise a popular athlete is fraught with certain pitfalls. After all, we never know how he will perform on the field during the tournament and whether he will manage to get into trouble outside of it. Just remember Arshavin who advertised Lays chips during Euro 2012. After the historic "your expectations – your problems", the striker not only buried the reputation of the national team in the eyes of the Russians but also firmly stuck to himself the nickname "chipsoed".
There is an opinion that the most win – win option is the stars of the past, who are unlikely to throw any tricks (unless, of course, it is Maradona, who appears out of nowhere as the Director of Dynamo Brest). However, you can also stumble here. So, ahead of the 2018 World Cup Head&Shoulders has released a new video with the participation of the Italian national team goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon. Advertising appeared on the screens in the spring, when it was clear for a long time that the goalie would go to Russia as an expert, since the Italians failed miserably to qualify for the World Cup.
In early May, another advertising campaign featuring Buffon was released: this time it advertised the game World of Tanks. And at this point, Gigi also lost his chance of the Champions League Cup with Juventus and soon after the release of the advertisement for "tanks" and completely announced his departure from the Turin club, the gates of which he defended for almost two decades.
No doubts, Buffon remains and will remain a great football player, he is loved and respected all over the world. But it was in May 2018 that the slogan "to Stand up in the world of the brave is not an easy task" under the photo of an Italian is still more sad than cheerful.
About the Russian spirit, English and hospitality
In addition to using images of athletes in the run-up to the World Cup, advertisers often rely on the spirit-lifting motive of the national holiday and the unity of the nation. And for the Russian market, as we see, in anticipation of the home championship, the topic of hospitality is also becoming relevant.
On this way went to the brewing company Baltika. A series of videos focuses on the all-Russian scale of the upcoming football holiday. Celebrities representing different cities of the country became heroes (football player Alexander Kerzhakov invites fans to St. Petersburg, actor Alexander Petrov to Moscow, and rapper Vladi from "Caste"co – authored texts for an advertising campaign in Rostov-on-Don).
The "chips" of different cities of the country are mentioned ("the hotel will only get to the hotel in the morning because of the bridges", - reads Kerzh), which makes the ad personalized for residents of different parts of Russia. Key message of the video: "We are Russia, we will meet our guests beautifully!"
The message is clear. Recently, Russians have seen everything: calls for "let's take the world Cup from Russia, because there is corruption/ racist fans/occupation/nuclear weapons/killing stray dogs" (underline), scandals with diplomats and fans.
Apparently, the people of the country are tired of the image of sullen savages who walk home bears in the morning under a bottle of white, and remembered that in General they are a nation, albeit mysterious, but broad and hospitable soul. And despite the skepticism about the costs of the world Cup, people are happy to be the hosts of an event of this scale, and show themselves to the world from the best side. Therefore, "we will Meet our guests beautifully" is a very apt message.
The same motive can be seen in the Orbit advertising campaign. In TV commercials, advertisers play off the struggle of Russians between the language barrier and the desire to communicate with foreign fans. And the digital part of the campaign features karaoke to the tune of "Happiness suddenly in silence" with the text-alliteration of English words. Without earflaps and innovative features there were, but they played fervently.
If you still haven't managed to come up with anything grandiose for your brand for the championship, there is still time for special offers and small promotions because the sporting event will last a month. Although you are unlikely to have time to launch a large-scale advertising campaign.
Don't be enslaved. Neither in the choice of subjects for your advertising campaign, nor in the choice of platforms for its implementation (traditional media, social networks, special pages on the Internet). Play the color of a specific event and play on the feelings of the target audience. Get ready for news jacking. During the World Cup, a lot of interesting things will happen that can be quickly used in advertising. Don't be afraid to cooperate with celebrities but keep in mind its potential disadvantages. In other words, keep your finger on the pulse and do not forget about the reaction.
Source: 4D specifically for mediabitch.ru
