How will savvy brands use mobile marketing to take advantage of the FIFA World Cup?
Submitted by Editors Desk on 24 June, 2009 - 13:39.
Update July 10: Thanks to all who contributed. Please see: The Starting 11 – the essential mobile-marketing guide for the 2010 FIFA World Cup
Did any brand miss IBM’s PR coup with the augmented reality (AR) guide to Wimbledon 2009? With IBM’s name splashed across both mainstream and technical media worldwide, brand managers will be keen to hear how mobile can help them score at the FIFA World Cup in South Africa next year.
Now is the time for the mobile marketing business to put forward its best ideas to convince brands to use mobile marketing to score at the World Cup. Of course the same principles can be applied at any sporting event, but - no offence to golf, baseball etc - the next really big opportunity is football/soccer’s showpiece, the FIFA World Cup.
Please submit your ideas on how brands can use mobile to capitalize on sporting events, supported where possible with examples of how it has been done previously to help mobiThinking compile mobile marketing’s starting 11 for the World Cup.
Sean Pashley of South African mobile agency Starfish Mobile kicks us off in our brand-new guide to South Africa, where he says:
“The opportunities are mammoth: everything from World Cup SIM cards pre-loaded with content to advergames, instant messaging applications, tourism services (location-based services and translation services), entertainment services (what’s on, where) and branded content (this World Cup update brought to you by XYZ) and so on.”
With AR being such a hot topic, and with brands as diverse as WWF, Ford, Nike, Fanta, as well as IBM/Wimbledon, showing the world what’s possible, mobiThinking expects AR campaigns to make the starting 11. For more on the mobile-marketing potential of AR, see last week’s blog, which was featured on Carnival of the Mobilists (see below), and our brand new guide to AR from The Hyperfactory:
Many brands have already cottoned on to the mobile-marketing potential of calendar/religious events, such as Valentine’s Day and Christmas, where the principles translate well for sporting events. See this white paper for more information:
Please submit your ideas for mobile marketing’s starting 11, by commenting below or emailing editor (at) mobiThinking.com.
As mentioned above mobiThinking’s blog on AR was featured in Carnival of the Mobilists. For the uninitiated, the Carnival of the Mobilists is a weekly roundup of the best in mobile and wireless blogs, so we consider it a bit of an honor. Each week the Carnival is hosted on a different site. It has been running for 179 weeks – which is a pretty long time in mobile. If you are interested in mobile, it’s an essential bookmark.
Previously, mobiThinking’s blog on essential places to register your mobile site to help drive traffic was also picked up by Carnival of the Mobilists.
Further reading:
Rating for this article:
(Coca Cola:) The Mobile Soccer Manager Game! A loyalityprogram game with the the use of QR codes on the bottles. QR codes means: Money!....Money means the chance to buy better players. So when you drink more Cola you get more money! The consumer is a manager of a team play against other participants. We from One Shoe Mobile from the Netherlands are developing this for the world!
FIFA and Brand X - Target a UK - commuting audience.
Reach over 25 million devices a month via the Mobile.
Call to action (is integrated as part of pay per successful download model) on the transvision screens at major Uk transport termini.
Provide relevant quality content around the event, Fixture list unique how to get there guide etc programme, games, applications, Top player skills tips etc etc. (Send music, video, applications easily and speedily.)
Reach tech savvy sports fans while they are waiting for train, on train, in bus, etc.
Average dwell time in our network for instance at Victoria is 25 minutes.
Cover UK Rail, Bus, Gatwick airport routes.
We already had success with Major sport brand - Adidas first ever bluetooth game. massive response and user experience was awesome.
Ensure the Following is met.
Clear Call To action ( we provide this outdoor media Free of charge by the way)
Target High footfall Dwell areas (Trains, terminal, buses etc- We have that covered)
Great Content - (Which is downloaded quickly and FREE to consumer)
Get this right and the results are outstanding.
Hope this helps
Tim Jones
blismobile Media.
I think advergaming is the big opportunity. Anything around the FIFA tournament suggests plenty of gaming opportunities to allow fans to engage, including fantasy leagues, guess-the-scores, virtual gaming with user-generated avatars, etc. All tourists who arrive to SA will have a mobile phone, most an advanced (often 3G) phone. The services can be quite advanced. SA's own penetration rate is very high and essentially any domestic SA fan who enters the stadium will also own a phone. Market opportunity enormous. Now use 2D barcodes, use-generated content, chat and blogs, and yes as much as possible, ad-sponsored advergaming, engagement marketing..
Tomi Ahonen
www.tomiahonen.com
Have the sponsors and sellers of branded kit put Q/R codes on their products taking people straight to their mobi site.
The mobile marketing opportunity around the 2010 World Cup is without a doubt going to be significant. The interest that a global event of this nature will attract is just massive. There will be a huge desire to feed on content and services linked to the event, whether football or location related. Mobile will one of the most accessible channels to the majority of fans before and during the tournament either within South Africa or outside.
Marketers need to take on board that there will be an array of different contexts of people interacting with mobile content and services associated to the event. I suggest that for many this should start with answering three basic questions ‘How’ are you going to reach the audience, ‘Why’ are you relevant and ‘What’ do you expect from the consumer? Once answered this may then help ensure that at least the channel is being used for a valid reason.
Secondly marketers need to understand the pitfalls that exist around the channel itself. For instance if looking to target an audience when they are attending the event a firm consideration to the associated data charges needs to be made. Currently South Africa falls into one of the most expensive regions for roaming data in the world. It will be important that content and services consumed in situ are optimised well to ensure that interacting with a brand does not leave sour taste in the consumers mouth once they have got home and seen the bill.
Using the innovative Brandsh MXit Content Management System, we would create Choose Your own Adventure (adaptive path) game, where the user can create his or her own outcome of the story using the narrative which is provided. The game would be relevant to the FIFA World Cup and any brand can be built into the story.
Thanks for all the comments and emails. The resulting piece will be published very soon.
cheers, mobiThinking.
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