By Mike Wellman
If not, maybe he or she should. For the uninitiated, World Cup fever is here once again, and superfans around the world are getting up at the crack of dawn to watch their favorite teams compete on an international stage. Even in the United States, where Major League Soccer is only 17 years old, conversations around Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, and Robert Green at the water cooler have become ubiquitous. With all of this passion and chatter in the workplace when one’s team scores a goal, it’s worthwhile for CEOs—and their Comms teams—to ask themselves, “How can we ignite that same sort of support for the company’s goals?”
CEC research shows that when we do gain this active support from employees, our companies win in a big way. As an advertising junkie and soccer fan, I have taken great pains today (much like Jonathan Grieb in the past) to catch portions of the World Cup and the accompanying corporate advertising for, of course, strictly professional reasons. The attempts (both successful and not) to connect with the emotion and thrill of the World Cup can serve as a great teaching tool, and I believe that the practices of our peers in advertising who have focused on building that emotional connection can show us how we as corporate communicators can and should activate our own stakeholders around the company’s objectives. I’ve highlighted three principles and examples from this year’s games below:
Principle 1: Understand more than just how your stakeholders view your product or even how the product fits into their daily lives. To build an emotional connection, you need to better understand what drives the person you’re trying to reach.
World Cup Ad Example:
Coca-Cola – “History of Celebration”
Both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola do a good job of understanding and connecting emotionally with soccer fans in these spots. They each tell a compelling story, are fun to watch, and seek to build that emotional connection between the sport, the brand, and the consumer. These videos work because they showcase a holistic understanding of consumers and emotional moments they identify with (the joy of celebration for Coca-Cola and the thrill of the challenge with PepsiCo). On a side note, I would pick Coca-Cola’s spot as the winner of the two because its inclusion of historical footage feels more authentic to soccer fans and includes a participatory campaign where they can show off their own celebrations. We know that the more conversations we spark, the more likely it will be that action favorable to our organizations will occur.
Principle 2: Provide a range of ways that stakeholders can discover a personal meaning in your message.
World Cup Ad Example:
Clearly, NIKE’s spot is the most successful 2010 World Cup viral video to date with 15 million views on YouTube and a good portion of the buzz; they’ve stolen the show from official sponsor Adidas with this spot by bringing high production value, personality, and a unique vision that resonates with all stakeholders. The spot is broad and narrow at the same time, with elements that resonate with the mature (a Cirque du Soleil-like show), the young (Simpsons), soccer fans (storyline that includes well-known nuances to the personalities of argumentative Wayne Rooney and preening Ronaldo) and non-soccer fans (with the inclusion of Roger Federer and Kobe Bryant). By contrast, the Adidas Star Wars spot with similar production values and diversity of appeal has failed to inflect similar conversation because it underemphasizes the emotion of the game and connection to the sport itself.
Principle 3: Make it easy and enjoyable for people to share your message.
World Cup Ad Example:
If your passionate supporters aren’t spreading your message, you’re losing. Worth noting in Visa’s campaign is the emphasis on empowering stakeholders. The spot speaks directly to you and asks you to support your team and “show your true colors” and evokes both the competitive and united nature of the World Cup. Like Coca-Cola, Visa is also hoping to capitalize on fans’ emotions by encouraging interaction. While the commercial would score behind the others mentioned in this post, it benefits from a stronger follow-up campaign and uses emotional motivators to stir action. In the phrase “join the global cheer,” it’s implied that everyone (not just people like you but the whole globe!) is participating—creating a type of “social proof” that motivates others to act as well. CEC members, you can find examples of how Intuit taps into those motivators to drive word of mouth here.
Will there be shouts of “Gooaaaaaaaaal” around your office when you hit your next milestone? Are there any tactics you’ve recently brought from your Advertising group to your internal communications or PR efforts that you’d be willing to share?
on 21 June 2010
Respond
Great insights, Mike, thanks.
Our company, Deloitte, made a decision to connect with people – family, friends, clients, colleagues, during this World Cup soccer match.
We decided – why fight the bleary-eyed but happy soccer ‘tragics’ who stayed up until all hours when the live matches are televised in Australia (starting at midnight, 4.30am etc) and around the rest of the world – let’s join ‘em!
So we partnered with Fantasy Football and invested in setting up a League, where participants pick their best players to be in their team and the real life scores are reflected in your game. We advertised to our employees ” There’s only one thing more precious than gold: office bragging rights – Let’s play” and “Deloitte Fantasy Football: the only place Ronaldo will ever pass to Messi – Let’s play”.
To our clients, we asked “Is your business in need of a new game plan?” and “Football? Futbol? Fussball? Winning is the same in any language – Let’s play”.
We featured advertisements in our Fantasy Football site (http://deloitte.fantasyleague.com/), and we sent out direct emails to clients to invite them to join us. Around the world, different offices, sent out the challenge via posters, postcards, building signs and street flags. We set up a facebook site and organised a twitter handle.
While the campaign is not finished yet, we have upwards of 30,000 registered players, and positive results are still coming in. Watch this space!
on 28 June 2010
Respond
Janet,
Thanks for sharing! It sounds like you’ve managed to bring stakeholders both internally and externally into a fun and challenging program. I probably would have appreciated a similar program here, though I wouldn’t have ranked well: my money would have been on Italy and France at least making it to the round of 16!
I’m curious – with that sort of campaign, what metrics are you looking at? I would imagine clickthroughs on advertisements might be one route, but I’d be really interested to learn more.
Cheers,
Mike