Nike Ambushes Official World Cup Sponsors

14 June 2010
Hong Kong

Nike is not an official World Cup Football sponsor but, thanks to some creative marketing, that doesn’t stop consumers across the globe from linking the company to the world’s largest soccer tournament. The Nielsen Company analysed online blogs, message boards and social networking sites and found that the sports shoe and apparel giant was more frequently linked to the World Cup than any of the tournament’s official partners and sponsors.

The study revealed that, in the past month, there were twice as many references to Nike in online English-language messages related to the World Cup than forits biggest competitor and official World Cup partner, Adidas – who had the highest levels of tournament mentions of any of the official brands.

Nine of the 32 teams participating will be wearing Nike kits, including Australia, compared to 12 for Adidas. However, much of Nike’s buzz activity was driven by its global “Write the Future” campaign which featured many of the biggest stars who will be on show in South Africa including Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo as well as other famous stars such as Kobe Bryant, Roger Federer and even Homer Simpson. The full-length video has enjoyed almost 14 million views on YouTube since the middle of May.

Not to be outdone, Adidas produced its own Star Wars-themed World Cup video featuring David Beckham, that’s drawn over two million viewers since its release just last week.

Nike wasn’t the only brand to successfully “ambush” a World Cup sponsor or partner. Carlsberg, albeit a sponsor of the England national team, had almost four times the level of mentions in English-language messages around the tournament than Budweiser, the official beer sponsor. This was partly due to Carlsberg’s star-studded ‘legends’ soccer ad, launched in Early May to promote its England association. Rock band Kasabian, adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Olympic rower Sir Steve Redgrave and athlete Dame Kelly Holmes combine to deliver "probably the best team talk in the world."

Following Nike, Carlsberg and Pepsi were the “ambush” brands most discussed around the tournament.

“If you’re a company with a large global footprint, it’s natural to want to associate yourself with a major worldwide event like the World Cup,” said Pete Blackshaw, Executive Vice President of digital strategy at The Nielsen Company. “This study shows that compelling, savvy marketing can establish this sort of connection in the eyes of consumers without having to write that expensive sponsorship check.”

For most of the sponsors,though, their official relationship has successfully resulted in higher levels of discussion around the tournament in South Africa than their competitors:

• FIFA partner Coca-Cola had five times the level of mentions around the World Cup than Pepsi – despite the latter’s ‘Oh Africa’ ad featuring soccer stars such as Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry and Kaká which has generated over a million views online
• Triggered by Twitter retweets in early June to its FIFA YouTube page and its campaign to create the longest “goal” shout, Visa had 15 times the tournament-related mentions than MasterCard
• Coinciding the launch of their 3D TV sets with the tournament’s opening day helped FIFA partner Sony drive seven times the world cup discussion levels than Panasonic and 10 times that of Philips

Nielsen’s study, conducted between 7 May and 6 June 2010, looked at English language World Cup-related messages on blogs,message boards, groups, video and image sites – including Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter – that mentioned at least one of the 10 official partners and sponsors with a global footprint or two of their top competitors (30 brands in all).

Chart 1: Highest share of online pre-world cup buzz (sponsors vs competitors)

About The Nielsen Company
The Nielsen Company is a global information and measurement company with leading market positions in marketing and consumer information, television and other media measurement, online intelligence, mobile measurement, trade shows and related assets. The privately held company is active in approximately 100 countries, with headquarters in New York, USA. For more information, please visit, www.nielsen.com.