On The Ball - How Social Media Is Building The Rugby World Cup Buzz

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It hasn't been the easiest of tasks promoting a world class event such as the 2011 Rugby World Cup.  Shortly after New Zealand won the rights to stage it the world plunged into a deep financial recession which must have put a dent on ticket sale projections.

Then followed two significant earthquakes that affected Christchurch, one of the main venues for the Cup. The second one on February 22nd caused massive damage and loss of life.

Key Phrases over 6 months - Note February 22nd impact
Click on the chart to view larger version

Undaunted by this malevolent force of nature, the RWC organisers have soldiered on rearranging schedules and shifting venues to other cities.

Hand in hand with the extraordinary circumstances of this global sporting event has been the use of digital media and in particular social media, to build positive buzz about the tournament and entertainments.

As the research in the above presentation reveals online sentiment has largely remained unerringly positive over the past month.

Growth on social media networks is now starting to gain momentum with :

• 3,000 new twitter followers in the past four weeks
• 65,000 more Likes on Facebook over the same period

Network associated online with Rugby World Cup -  Note 'Bob Parker' is the Mayor of Christchurch.
Click on chart for the larger version

The main web site receives 159,443 unique users per month and 14, 625 page views per day.  As might be expected most interest in the website comes from rugby playing nations:

New Zealand 31.0%

South Africa 9.9%

United Kingdom 8.4%

Australia 6.6%

A key reason for the success of the event's digital strategy is the integration of various channels; for example the social media icons are clearly visible in the top third of the web page.

Web landing page

With the Rugby World Cup kicking off this September it will also be interesting to see how users of twitter and Facebook record their experience.

Related articles

• England will open Rugby World Cup in Dunedin (independent.co.uk)

Putting The Boot In - But Which Boot?

Image via Wikipedia

The world is buzzing about the World Football Cup being held in South Africa and mega events such as this present global opportunities for digital marketers.

Neilsen details how the shoe giant Nike has undertaken a very effective piece of ambush marketing, no doubt to the chagrin of the major event sponsors.

By monitoring the social media buzz they had noted that it was their brand that were most associated with the World Cup, even more than the official partners and sponsors.

Nike's "Write The Future" campaign neatly gazumped that of Adidas by capturing 30+% of the Buzz while the official sponsor has thus far only registered a little over 14%.

Carlsberg Beer have done something similar, bettering the official sponsor, Budweiser.

According to Alex Burmaster, vice president of communications for Nielsen. "Social media has made ambush marketing easier, simply because of the virality of it. Some people call it an echo chamber."

FIFA is not taking this lying down and at last count their lawyers have filed 2,519 cases globally against parties it accuses of ambush marketing.

Some social media platforms themselves are suffering as a result of the World Cup.  Twitter appearing to be feeling the strain.  Track activity by topic, players, or team using CNN's Twitter Buzz.  There are reportedly 150,000 tweets per hour per game;  no wonder Twitter is creaking.

Neilsen has also used Brand Association Mapping to identify the differing perspectives of the Cup between countries.  Note the UK example below.  The words "winning" and "championship" reveal high expectations of their team. Click on the chart to enlarge it.

Trendrr provides a good overview of social media activity associated with World Cup 2010

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• How Nike and Pepsi Hijacked the World Cup (adage.com)
• FIFA Battles 'Ambush Marketers' Targeting World Cup (Update1) (businessweek.com)
• Nike ad beats official World Cup sponsors for online buzz (guardian.co.uk)
• Ambush Marketers Tackle World Cup Organizers, Sponsors (time.com)