As the 2014 FIFA World Cup builds its tempo, a report released by Repucom shows Nike and Adidas at the centre of a heated battle to maximize the advertising and sponsorship potential of Football’s greatest occasion. Player endorsements and team kit manufacturers have traditionally been where the rivals face off every four years, and that competition continues unabated. This year, adidas can boast stars like Argentina’s Lionel Messi, Germany’s Mesut Ozil and Robin Van Persie of the Netherlands, while Nike’s list includes Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar Jr. of Brazil and England’s Wayne Rooney. In 2010, adidas kitted out 25% more of the teams than Nike, but Nike predominates in Brazil, outfitting 10 of the 32 teams, one more than adidas. Since 2010, social media has begun to redefine the competition with users of Twitter, Facebook and other platforms soaring from four years ago. In overall fan and followers, currently Nike has the edge with over 36 million Facebook page ‘likes’ and 1.8 million Twitter followers- twice as many engaged fans across these platforms as adidas. Facebook is where both brands find more traction. In early June of this year, Nike had approximately 18 million more Facebook page ‘likes’ than adidas. Back in February the gap was under 5 million. In the developed markets of the US and the UK, the two brands’ Facebook fan bases have grown by no more than 10 per cent during 2014. But among the top 10 ‘most engaged’ countries for their Facebook sites are the likes of India, Mexico and Colombia. And it is in these emerging markets that Nike has enjoyed the greatest success in growing its online fan base. The current page likes on the adidas Football Facebook page are 18.6 million while that on the Nike Football page are 37.3 million. But this gap between the two brands in terms of online followers is likely to decrease as the World Cup approaches the Finals. Nike may well have taken the first steps on this battleground but with their official FIFA partnership status, adidas commercial strategy will certainly be a strong force throughout the FIFA World Cup months. Ambush Marketing Most football properties already undertake extensive policing of their brand and environment through compliance monitoring or commercial auditing across media platforms and around the venue. The key remains how the policing is enforced if any breaches are found. The best principle to follow is that prevention is better than cure. Ambush campaigns tend to be national in nature and so their reach is usually quie limited compared to the potential global reach of an official partnership. More genrally, the best defence is a properly executed and sufficiently leveraged official campaign. Given its primacy of position and credibility of authorization, official activity should always overshadow more loosely connected and less universal ambush activation. When buying an official partnership, a brand is tapping into legacy, tradition and history, three crucial aspects of how football fans view the game. An ambush campaign can, at best, stimulate a current association, but we have yet to see a credible campaign that links a non-sponsor with the past. One of the most important keys to a successful marketing campaign is an integrated activation. Multiple platforms and vehicles should transmit a common theme. Official partnerships enjoy a much richer palette of opportunities than outside brands. This is a potentially powerful head start. Nike’s Risk Everything campaign certainly got people sharing and engaging, their social media fan base growth illustrates this well. In two weeks, the campaign had 52 million You Tube views, 98000 Tweets and 504,000 Facebook interactions. In terms of companies who are not official FIFA World Cup partners or sponsors, Nike’s activation has proved fruitful. In contrast however, Samsung has not fared so well. It is the official FIFA World Cup partner adidas who has performed the best, showing themselves to be a company which is doing well to protect against ambush marketing. Their share of voice online could well increase further during and following the 2014 FIFA World Cup as their exposure increases.
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Panasonic Corporation has a global partnership with Futbol Club Barcelona (FC Barcelona), which will continue for 3 years from April 2013 to March 2016. Through this partnership, Panasonic collaborates with FC Barcelona on marketing activities and brings the passion of football to people all around the world. Since April 2013, Panasonic has been carrying out promotional activities in the global promotion of Viera as the “FC Barcelona Official TV”, including the display of 3D match footage in stores, shop front displays, goods campaigns and the use of the brand and image of FC Barcelona on the company’s websites and Facebook pages. Panasonic Viera, the Official ‘FC Barcelona TV,’ is carrying out a global promotion including the release of the Star Generator, a smartphone camera app, and the Barca Clock Screen Saver, which turns your PC desktops into Camp Nou, FC Barcelona’s home stadium. Star Generator, the Smartphone Camera App Now, you can see yourself either on the headlines of a newspaper or TV lined up together with FC Barcelona stars like Neymar Jr. and Messi. You can also share the images you create on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media, and send them to friends via e-mail. Barca Clock, the PC Screen Saver This PC screen saver allows you to enjoy photos of FC Barcelona star players in action or in rare images of practice scenes together with some great tunes. You’ll also be in for a surprise at certain times of the day!
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LIV Sports and Blogmint today crowned Nekib Ahmed as the winner of the first LIV Sports Bloggers World Cup at an event in Gurgaon. The Bloggers world cup was a unique Influencer Marketing initiative from LIV Sports and Blogmint that allowed bloggers to blog about their favorite team and compete on a real time basis. The LIV Sports Bloggers World Cup was hosted on the Blogmint platform, a leading Bloggers Marketplace, managed by Tangerine Digital. The LIV Sports Bloggers World Cup was launched to kindle the football passion in social media savvy youth of India received over 10,000 entries from football bloggers across the Indian sub-continent. Top 32 bloggers were selected to participate based on their social influence, Sports relevancy and passion for innovative Digital Marketing. They followed the similar format as the 2014 FIFA World Cup, from the qualifying rounds, to knockout stages. The top two bloggers from each group were further shortlisted to the quarterfinals on the basis their Blog Score – a measure of their influence. The awards were given by Mr. Nitesh Kripalani, Executive Vice-President – New Media, Business Development and Digital/Syndication at Sony Entertainment Network. Launched in June this year, LIV Sports is the Official Mobile and Internet Broadcaster for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. LIV Sports offers both LIVE and Video-on-demand match content, with rich and informative statistics and analysis. The innovative Influencer Marketing initiative received a phenomenal response on the digital platforms with an organic reach of 3 Mn on Social media based on the 151 blogs written by the contestants. Commenting on behalf of Blogmint, Kesavan Kanchi Kandadai, Chief Executive Officer, Tangerine Digital stated, “We are delighted with the response and interest that the LIV Sports Bloggers World Cup has received on the digital platform. We would like to congratulate the winners and assure that similar properties, across Sports will be launched in the near future.”
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The Kingfisher Premium Great Indian Octoberfest (TGIOF) in its 10th year gears up for a Tech-tonic dose of fun. Beer and music are the staples of the TGIOF but hi-tech is another arena where visitors to the festival will be completely wowed. For the first time Drones will be doling out beer. That’s right –beer cans dropping from the sky! In specially designated areas of the festival, remotely controlled flying devices will hover in the air and drop cans of beer at the command of the Beer Control Centre. So when you tell your friends that it was raining beer, it would be totally true and not just the beer talking. For the first time ever Octoberfest will witness the much talked about Oculus Rift in action at KFBeerCoaster. Visitors get to sit on motion chairs in a virtual reality booth. The visitors are taken for a roller coaster ride in a virtual reality environment. As the visitors go through the thrilling experience, pulse meters capping their fingers keep track of their pulse rate. This pulse meter sends a signal to a beer dispenser attached to the motion chairs. The Headbang Arena, a big hit from last year, is back! This time it is only bigger and better. It is now in a competitive 2-player face-off format. Two visitors, competing against each other, are strapped with the sensors which record their headbanging. The count is displayed LIVE on screens as the audience cheers. A bulb representing the competitor with the highest score lights up and the beer dispenser will dole out beer. The old-time fairground photo booth just got a makeover. It is now a ‘dynamic moving images booth’. These booths are installed across the venue and visitors can capture their static photographs which will then be converted into dynamic moving images. Once they have captured their photographs at the booth, it will automatically be uploaded on social media and tagged. So don’t waste time taking selfies, Kingfisher will do it for you. Kingfisher’s team have been working tirelessly to ensure that fans are able to experience the festival in every form – and share their experiences in real time. A crew of photographers will take photographs required for Instagram in specific formats. At the end of the festival, the photos are stitchedtogether to make an Instagram film. Tapping into the popularity of shorter format of videos, Kingfisher has tied up with a film production crew that will be capturing 6 second capsules of The Great Indian OctoberFest and will be uploading it as Vine Videos for online audiences over the three days of the festival. The 2014 TKGIOF recap movie will be released on social platforms showcasing the mood of the Octoberfest.
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A steaming cup of chai, a warm hug, woolen sweaters & oversized mufflers are some of the items that readily come to mind when one thinks of winters in North India. But for numerous underprivileged, the very same season spells struggle. To fight the merciless cold winters, CashKaro.com, a cashback & coupons site, has launched #EkCashKaroEkChai campaign in an attempt to bring a smile on the face of the cold weather-beaten people of Delhi NCR. CashKaro has pledged to serve chai across Delhi NCR when anybody shops via them from 14th -18th January, 2015 The hashtag #EkCashKaroEkChai will be promoted on the brand’s digital platforms and people will be encouraged to shop more and share their special gesture, thereby celebrating and promoting the campaign in the digital space. The initiative by the brand does not call for any donation nor has any applied terms & conditions. One has to simply shop online via CashKaro platform between 14th -18th January 2015 on any of CashKaro’s partner sites like Jabong, Snapdeal, Paytm, Amazon.in, Dominos and a cup of garam chai will be contributed in their name to the needy. Students from various colleges like IIT (Delhi), St. Stephen’s, Hindu, Hans Raj, Gargi and many more have volunteered to participate in this initiative. These CashKaro student volunteers will be serving chai to the destitute across key areas like Delhi University (North & South Campus), Connaught Place, I.T.O., Gurgaon IFFCO Chowk and more on all five days. On this social initiative Rohan Bhargava, Co-Founder, CashKaro.com said, “CashKaro.com is always committed to the welfare of the society. People have being hard struck by the ruthless cold winds across northern India. These winter-related hardships incepted the idea of #EkCashKaroEkChai campaign wherein we will be serving garam chai across Delhi NCR to the needy. A simple cup of chai in this cold weather definitely puts a smile on our face and helps to withstand the cold. We encourage are users to participate in this cause and to share the joy with us.” ‘’Through this small act, we also want to inculcate a sense of social responsibility among organizations and institutions aiming at the welfare of the society.” He adds. As part of CSR, CashKaro.com has partnered with more than 30 NGOs and charities like CRY, Milaap, Joy of Giving Foundation, CARE, The Mind Foundation, and Akshay Patra where CashKaro members have the option to donate some or all of their Cashback to a charity of their choice. Some of India’s leading charities are part of this initiative and CashKaro.com is helping in generating awareness about their cause and raise funds for the same. To read more about this initiative, click here: http://cashkaro.com/charities To see more details, click here: http://cashkaro.com/page/ekcashkaroekchai
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Nike Training Club is a global fitness community of girls driven by self-expression in movement and training. It embodies Nike’s commitment to inspire and enable female athletes through its services and experiences. The N+TC App is the digital heartbeat of the club, uniting its members no matter where they train. The full-body training app caters to every level of fitness. Athletes can choose four-week programs or one-off workouts in order to chase their goals of getting lean, toned or strong. The latest update for the Nike+ Training Club App packs in a bundle of new features and introduces an all-new athlete-led workout to help female athletes around the world connect with their fitness community and reach new personal bests in 2015. “The Nike+ Training Club App is connecting our community of athletes like never before,” said Kerri Hoytpack, Vp of Brand Marketing, Nike Women. “Women will now be able to communicate with each other through the Nike Sport Feed, from organizing local group workouts to sending encouragement around the world”, she added. January’s updates were driven by insights from Nike’s relationship with a digital community of more than 65 million women. One key insight was about connecting with the community — the more Nike+ friends an athlete has, the more active she is. With this in mind, the Nike+ Training Club App now features new, easier and more fun ways for her to connect with friends to encourage them and share her own successes and goals. The all-new Nike Sport Feed will help her stay engaged with her friends as well as the broader N+TC App community. For example, after a user shares her completed workout in the app’s sport feed, her friends will be able to both “cheer” and click into the workout to try it themselves. The Nike Sport Feed will also house workouts of the week and user-generated photos that can be personalized with data about the workout. The updated N+TC App will also include a profile feature and improved navigation. The profile will track a user’s NikeFuel tally, as well as update her on her friends, workout minutes and program progress. The improved home screen layout makes it easier for her to jump into her favorite workout or discover new workouts. Athletes’ insights revealed that N+TC App users who share their workouts more than once in their first month using the app do 80 percent more workouts in that same month. To encourage more motivation, the team enhanced the sharing features within the app to make it even easier and more fun to share. The updated N+TC App introduces photo sharing on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Athletes can snap a picture before, during or after their workout and choose from a variety of fun stamps and overlays to share with their community. Her photo will also populate the Nike Sport Feeds of her Nike+ friends’ N+TC Apps. Launching with the app update is the new NTC Tabata Toned Workout, featuring six of the world’s best female athletes showing how they tackle the most intense workouts for top results.
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The Vacation Deprivation Survey, which acted as the inspiration for the #VacationOnMyMind Twitter Campaign suggested that workaholic Indians are mostly deprived for holidays, placing India as the fourth most vacation deprived nation globally with 67% of Indians saying they feel very or somewhat vacation deprived. The survey also reveals that 64% of Indians who feel vacation deprived say their vacation deprivation stems from not getting enough vacation days, while 36% say their deprivation stems from not taking all of their vacation days. Indians are increasingly choosing to take multiple short vacations, than a longer one and disconnect with work. To help Indians take a break and relax, Expedia came out with its #VacationOnMyMind. The objective was to help them utilize the Christmas – New Year long weekends in December. The campaign prompted the Indians to ’Take A Break’ by winning a free hotel stay from Expedia. Multiple approaches were employed to engage with the fans including asking questions through pictures and placards than just text, challenging them for their love of travel, quizzing them on their knowledge of famous and not-so-common tourist destinations in India. To make it interesting, models were asked to hold placards with questions, where their attire served as clues in the pictures. Twitter as a platform was used to host the contest as its audience is more evolved than other social media platform. Keywords related to travel and people who had showed interest in travel were exposed to the contest tweets. Apart from that, people with a large number of followers acted as influencers in their circle were also targeted through the promoted accounts. The participants were asked to tweet their answers using #VacationOnMyMind. Maximum participation was observed through mobile-users, followed by desktop users. The popular users of the contest hashtag (besides the brand) are the participants who are also the selected winners of the contest. The campaign helped in generating a massive interest, engagement and traffic on Expedia Twitter page. We received over 834 replies, 439 re-tweets and 260 favorites. The hashtag #VacationOnMyMind received maximum reach and was tweeted 2,648 times during and after the contest. It witnessed participation from over 770 authors and generated 55,681 impressions organically in a span of 20 days reaching out to 1,496,849 Twitter profiles in the duration. The promoted account campaign got impressions of more than 2 lacs with a follower’s rate 1.21% while close to 2900 new followers were added. The parameters used to identify the target were people who were interested in travel and people who act as influencers in their network and have large following. Expedia tied up with various hospitality partners like The Lalit, Radisson etc. and gave Indians a chance to stay free of cost across various properties in cities like Goa, Kerala by participating in the contest. The idea gave 10 contest winners an opportunity to take a vacation while they saved money.
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Why go to a fortune teller or scan the papers for your daily predictions when Kingfisher’s very own numerology expert can reveal your futurein just a click through its newest campaign-‘Beerology’. Over the last few years, beerheads in the country have bid adieu to the year that was with Brewdolph by their side. Brewdolph, the Good Times mascot of the festive season, has answered pleas for beer, been privy to several confessions (some nice, most naughty) on WhatsApp and has been present – in spirit – at several editions of #KFBeerUp.This year, the ‘King of Good Times’has infused the magical elixir of Kingfisher beer into the age old practice of numerology; convincing consumers to read their smart phones rather than palms by bringing to life Beerology. Brewdolph now has an accomplice in the inimitable Cyrus Broacha – a master in the art of Beerology and in spreading beerfulness to all beerheads. Nothing escapes his eye, he see’s all , knows all; whether you partied hard or angered the beer Gods, Cyrusknows your past and can see your future. He is your modern day fortune teller, numerologist and the funky jester to the King of Good Times! How does he know the past? By gazing at his crystal ball of social media! The millions of fans on Kingfisher’s Facebookpage visited the magical microsite of Beerology, where Cyrus interacted with them; analysing statuses,profile pictures,friends list to determine whether theylive lifedownsized or the Kingfisher way – “King sized”.The experience ends with a humorous segment, where the user’s date of birth is added up to a single number which is associated with certain personality traits; each trait given a beery spin! Kingfisher’s Beerology campaign has had consumers laughing at the supposed divination of their Facebook posts, photos and tweets, asCyrus Broacha dispensed the philosophies of Good times to celebrate each day King sized. Visit the webpage http://kingfisherworld.com/beerology/ to find your lucky Beerology number.
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