How to find operational and promotional strategies that can be combined in the World Cup?

The World Cup has begun, and it's time for fans to party and stay up late to watch the games. However, as a brand marketer , I have encountered a new confusion. I have read many marketing guides, but I don’t know where to start with the marketing promotion strategy for the World Cup?

Why do I still not know where to start after mastering so many population insights, industry analyses, and reading so many case studies?

Because you don’t know where this “connection point” is? In the era of sports marketing and entertainment marketing, where everyone is entertained, the key to brand marketing is to find the "clever points" between brand appeals and user needs. They must not only meet the public's emotions and psychological demands, but also be consistent with their own brand positioning. If you are a sanitary napkin manufacturer, I guess you don’t have to worry about how to do World Cup marketing at this time!

So, what is the clever part of World Cup brand marketing promotion ? Which brands are suitable for this? How should brands play?

Please see below:

Industry selection

Industries that are naturally related to sports, like the sanitary napkins mentioned above, are definitely not suitable for brand promotion at this time of year. After all, football matches are more of a man’s paradise. Of course, it is undeniable that there are many "fake" female fans like the editor (real female fans please block them here!).

According to Tencent KueE Research Institute's World Cup user big data survey:

Males account for 76.4% of World Cup users, most of whom are born in the 1990s and 1980s, and more than 40% have a bachelor's degree.

According to iResearch ’s survey:

Industries such as sports and fitness, 3C digital technology, food and beverages, home appliances, and cleaning products are naturally popular among male "fans". The audiences of these industries are most consistent with the fan groups, so it is wise for these industries to choose to connect with the world!

Sports and Fitness

As a sports brand, it should have the highest degree of compatibility with the World Cup! Therefore, it is estimated that all sports brands are now “sharpening their knives” and waiting to share in the hot marketing “soup” of the World Cup!

Strategy: Become a top event partner and gain full exposure rights. For example: Adidas , FIFA partner in 2018. (Adidas promotional video)

FIFA's current sponsorship system is divided into three levels: FIFA Partners, FIFA World Cup Sponsors, and Regional Supporters. "Regional sponsors" were originally limited to companies in the host country, but starting in 2018, the restrictions were broken and they were open to the world.

Tactics: Use the World Cup's popularity to improve consumers' favorability toward the brand, customize World Cup-related commemorative products, and boost brand product sales; mobilize fans to actively participate, and launch World Cup-related gift-giving activities/discount offers/cashback activities, etc. through activities.

3C Digital Technology

• Strategy : It is advisable to create momentum to attract consumers’ attention to the brand.
• Tactics: Betting on a football match? For example, Vatti’s bold “full refund” poster triggered a wave of heated discussions online. First-tier brands such as Hisense and vivo spent a lot of money on sponsorship. These high-profile marketing campaigns were not affordable; however, they played a good role in creating momentum.

Food & Beverage

• Strategy: Product topic planning combined with profit-sharing promotions to trigger a sales climax.
• Tactics: As essential products for football fans to watch football games, the World Cup is undoubtedly the "golden sales period" for food and beverage products. By creating an atmosphere for fans to watch football games, combining product planning with relevant football game topics, and then offering sales concessions on products, I believe it should be easy to create a wave of promotional frenzy.

Cleansing products

Strategy: Football fans ≠ stinky men. According to a survey report by iResearch Consulting, in addition to basic shampoo and shaving products, the demand for basic skin care products by male football fans will be close to 70%. More and more male consumers are aware of the importance of maintenance and health, so now is the best time to market men's skin care products!

Tactics:

1. According to the shopping characteristics of men, more combination sales are provided to avoid the difficulty of shopping choices;
2. Improve shopping convenience and collect important consumer information, complete the establishment of the brand's consumer database, and provide data support for subsequent repurchases;
3. More UGC topic planning in which men can participate can allow male consumers to participate in brand marketing.

After talking about the industry, let’s talk about the ways to take advantage of the situation.

How to leverage brand momentum

1. World Cup themed packaging of the product

If you are making an online product, it is normal to run themed activities based on festivals. The best way to attract users' attention is to change the UI to a World Cup theme, and then set up an activity page to host World Cup-related activities.

And if you are engaged in offline products, perhaps Coca-Cola 's nickname bottle is a good way and choice. Although the nickname bottle has been overused in recent years, the brand owners who have "tried and tested it" still make a lot of profits from it.

2. Interactive games

Interactive H5 mini-games can be said to be standard in mobile marketing. For offline promotion , the content planning of many H5 mini-games can also be applied to store marketing activities .

1. Shooting games: Users play penalty kicks or shooting games, and different discounts are given for different scores. Some team information and star information can also be added to the game content to increase the sense of immersion and topicality.
2. Viral games: Sponsors who have spent a lot of money to buy rights still hope to gain the most attention to their brands through this FIFA event. Therefore, viral games can not only increase user participation, but also provide the best supplement for brand exposure.
3. Test games: The screen-sweeping power of test games is unquestionable. For the World Cup, you can use various World Cup-themed questions and answers to test the most suitable star, the most suitable team temperament, the most suitable position in football, etc. You can also use this year's online question-and-answer products to do some popular science questions and answers about past World Cups and football star trivia, and give out different rewards based on the scores.

3. Topic leverage and poster dissemination

Whenever you go to a major hotspot, there will definitely be posters from brands taking advantage of the situation. During the 2014 World Cup, excellent posters that took advantage of the situation emerged in large numbers. The production of posters must not only conform to the brand characteristics, but also the personalities of the relevant characters in the World Cup and the progress of the game. Most brands usually express the theme of the World Cup through indirect methods. (Because most brands are not officially authorized)

Creating content posters tests brand marketers ’ ability to track hot topics . They need to conduct topic analysis and public opinion observation during the event. Most importantly, they need to act quickly, otherwise the hot topics will be fleeting. How to make the content popular and well-received really depends on the skills of the creative team.

As a domestic brand that has made a great contribution this year, it is reported that domestic brands ranked first in the world in terms of total sponsorship amount for FIFA in 2018. Therefore, how to leverage the momentum for secondary publicity is also a challenge faced by these financial sponsors. While paying huge sponsorship fees, we still hope to achieve some improvement in brand assets and sales.

BTW, no matter what, I hope this article can be of some enlightenment to all the market experts!

The author of this article is @品牌怪咖 and it is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services, advertising platform, Longyou Games