Nike Successfully Launched Covert Marketing

Dozens of Holland girls with beer marks on the dress were invited out of the arena, which became a big evidence of the rejection of "hidden marketing" in the world cup.

But outside the arena, creative marketing means have already made many brands achieve the goal of "riding" the world cup.

Nielsen Co has recently conducted an online word of mouth traffic analysis of blogs, Internet bulletin boards and social networking sites. The results show that sports brand Nike is judged by consumers to be associated with the world cup even higher than the official partners and sponsors of the world cup. Carlsberg and Pepsi Cola are second only to Nike, and are the two major brands of successful covert marketing.

Recognition exceeds official sponsorship brand

Does Nike sponsor the world cup? If you answer "yes", it proves the success of Nike's covert marketing.

In fact, Adidas is the official sponsorship brand of this world cup.

According to relevant information, the number of teams wearing Adidas uniforms reached 12 in the 32 teams participating in the World Cup finals.

And Adidas also produced Star Wars themed commercials and invited Beckham to participate in the show.

This advertising film has attracted more than 2 million hits a week.

Nelson's research shows that in all the official sponsorship brands of the world cup, Adidas has been identified by consumers as the highest level associated with the world cup.

However, enough to make Adidas executives surprise that Nelson's investigation also shows that in the past month, the amount of information connected to Nike and the world cup in various English websites has been two times that of Adidas. Analysis shows that although not the official sponsor of the world cup, there are 9 teams including the Australian team in the top 32, wearing the Nike brand uniforms, and the latest global advertising film "Write the Future" has attracted more attention from Nike.

Not only did Rooney and C Lo play the world cup super stars, but also basketball stars Kobe Bryant, tennis player Federer and animated star Simpson.

From mid May to now, the click rate of the commercials on You Tube has been up to 14 million times.

{page_break}

Official sponsorship brands still have opportunities

Second only to Nike, the successful marketing of the world cup includes Carlsberg and Pepsi Cola.

Although Carlsberg (Carlsberg) is only a sponsorship brand of the England national team, the number of users mentioned in the English network is almost four times that of Budweiser, the official sponsor of the world cup.

Part of the reason is Carlsberg's All-Star advertising launched in early May.

This advertisement, which is co produced by rock band Kasabian, explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Olympic rower Sir Steve Redgrave and sportsman Dame Kelly Holmes, conveys the message that "this is probably the most outstanding team dialogue in the world".

"If your company is spread all over the world, naturally it will want to connect itself with major global events such as the world cup."

Kris, chairman of Nielsen Co China, commented: "the results of this study show that competitive, smart and smart marketing tools can establish connections between brands and big events in the minds of consumers without having to spend huge sums of money on sponsorship."

Of course, official sponsors should not be too upset.

The findings also indicate that, for most sponsors, the official sponsorship relationship will successfully enhance consumer concerns and discussions on their brands during the world cup in South Africa.

For example, Coca-Cola's official partner, FIFA, has been discussing five times the number of Pepsi Cola on the Internet.

Recently, the advertising Oh Africa, which was featured by soccer stars such as Messi, Henry and Kaka, has exceeded 1 million hits. In early June, Visa launched the FIFA YouTube web page and longest goal shout promotion campaign through Twitter, and the amount of consumer talk about the brand was 15 times that of MasterCard (MasterCard); while SONY (Sony) released the stereoscopic TV set at the same time on the opening day of the world cup, so that consumers could discuss the brand to 7 times of Panasonic and 10 times of PHILPS.

Related links

The survey involved 30 internationally renowned brands.

Nelson's research was conducted between May 7th and June. It mainly studied the information related to the world cup in English blogs, Internet bulletin boards, communities, videos and photo websites. The criteria were selected for all websites referring to the ten global partners and sponsors of the world cup, or the information about the two major competitors of these brands. The total respondents were 30 internationally renowned brands.