World Cup Sponsors Are Out of Focus
For the week ending June 18th, Nike’s “Write the Future” campaign received over 3.1M views. Pepsi’s “Oh Africa” campaign surpassed 1.6M views in the same time frame.
Companies have spent tens of millions of dollars to become World Cup sponsors. The top 6 FIFA Partners pay between $24 and $44 million dollars per year for the most exclusive rights to World Cup events and opportunities. That cost Adidas, for example, over $100 million dollars — but they’re lagging behind Nike in terms of online views.
Coke has done particularly poorly as an official World Cup sponsor, with their “Rocket Car” campaign, only generating 750,922 views for the week of June 18th.
Although World Cup sponsors might get additional and significant value from their sponsorships through television spots, merchandise, and additional exposure, it’s clear that smart, aggressive companies have found ways to leverage the Web for gaining big time, meaningful exposure. They’re able to hijack the World Cup theme and get people sharing their content online like never before.
