What's the point? "It's not football that's rolling on the green, it's gold." From last year's Tokyo Olympics to this year's Winter Olympics, the hot search of the list has proved that sports events have become an important cultural consumption.
FIFA predicts that this World Cup is expected to attract 5 billion viewers around the world, and major brands naturally do not want to let go of such a huge gold mine.
Nowadays, advertising and signing stars are nothing new, and unusual marketing methods can attract audiences.
For example, this year, Meituan Takeaway actually sponsored a Ghanaian team that was not the favorite to win the championship, and at first glance it thought it was a P picture.
In this World Cup, the average age of Ghana's national team players is only 24.7 years old, which is the lowest average age of the team. In the era of short videos, the positioning of young and happy teams is more conducive to getting out of the circle. A video of Ghanaian team members sending blessings to Chinese netizens circulated on social platforms, which also triggered a boom in second creation.
Although the first battle lost to Portugal, it did not hinder Meituan's takeaway from rubbing this popularity at all, Meituan said on the official Weibo that just like every takeaway brother, not the hottest is worth paying attention to, ordinary people are also worthy of sponsorship.
Up to now, Douyin-related videos have exceeded 30 million views, and the Weibo topic #Ghana jersey bumper takeaway brother# has also received more than 100 million views, which can be said to have earned enough eyeballs.
After the opening of the World Cup, Argentina and Germany, the two traditional powerhouses lost one after another, fans have posted photos and short videos of smashing TVs on social media, and some home appliance manufacturers immediately launched the "watch the ball and smash TV 0 yuan for exchange" activity, for example, LeTV promised that during the event, if there are fans who smash the TV due to emotional fluctuations, regardless of brand, age, and degree of damage, as long as it is a TV, you can enjoy the trade-in service.
Off-court World Cup marketing battles are also taking place in gaming circles.
Many games strive to add World Cup elements to their gameplay. The most common is to create a quiz list, allowing players to guess the score and give benefits. There are also entire football stadiums for players to play a game.
Deep-pocketed game makers bought the portrait rights of well-known stars such as Neymar, Messi, Pogba, etc., and they joined the game as available characters, and also customized foot movements for them, such as "Call of Duty 19" and "PUBG".
After the group stage between Japan and Germany, a screenshot of Japan's early sports fan "Captain Tsubasa" frantically brushed the screen in the circle of friends, and the news that the mobile game of the same name "Captain Tsubasa: Ace Showdown" was about to be tested also spread.
It is a fact that football's global influence is declining, especially for young people. The president of Juventus once said: "At present, 40% of young people aged 15~24 are not interested in football. ”
But the World Cup is still the most commercially valuable sporting event and is still a must for brand marketing. However, it is still the old stars who are active in advertising endorsements, and Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi and Neymar still occupy the top three highest-paid football players in the world in 2022.
However, with the arrival of "Ragnarok", the appeal of the new generation of athletes is far less than that of their predecessors, and brand marketing needs to find another way.