How to Maximize World Cup 2022 Advertising

As anyone who’s been within even a mile vicinity of a World Cup match screening before knows, the 2022 World Cup will turn anyone into a patriotic superfan. As many advertisers know, too, it’s essential to connect with these superfans.

Once every four years, people who previously couldn’t name a football player besides Beckham contemplate getting a tattoo of their country’s flag. Overnight football tactics experts are born. They might not know the offside rule but are certain the referee is working with the opposing team.

And that’s just the non-fans. Actual football fans who have spent the last four years with this event firmly planted in their consciousness display almost unhealthy levels of engagement in their millions.

The World Cup should be a highlight in every brand’s calendar. But is such a famous event worth advertising for, given the high-profile competition? It absolutely is – here’s how to make a FIFA World Cup 2022 advertising strategy stand out.

FIFA HAS A GLOBAL AUDIENCE

Advertising’s bread and butter is impressions – eyes on the ads. That makes the amount of eyes on the World Cup, from an advertiser’s perspective, absolutely mind-blowing.

A record 3.572 billion people watched the 2018 World Cup, and that’s expected to rise for 2022.

That’s billions of engaged viewers who could be engaged with your brand message. It means that however prolific World Cup advertising may be among the largest brands, there’s always still a truly massive market to tap into for the month-long period.

Expect that figure to rise, too. With the rise of streaming and digital channels, more people who don’t like the idea of, or don’t have access to, linear TV will be able to tune in. In the UK, 19% of viewers are planning to tune in to games via streaming, up from 12% in 2018. In the US, only 56% of viewers are planning to watch via traditional, linear TV. Advertisers who are worried that prime linear TV spots have been snapped up should remember that streaming offers up many more opportunities for reaching that audience.

FOOTBALL FANS USE MULTIPLE SCREENS AT ONCE

Football matches lend to second-screen usage. The World Cup in particular is often experienced on multiple screens simultaneously. While watching the match on a big screen, many viewers are on their phone at the same time for match commentary, articles, and more. It’s not just the football itself, either – Nielsen has reported that a majority of football fans do activities like ordering food or checking their emails on the side while watching a match.

That means that you don’t necessarily reach football fans where they’re watching – you can catch them while they’re watching, but on a different screen.

Football, and especially the World Cup, is a social event, so consider the widespread usage of Connected TVs – big screens that are perfect for a group of friends to gather around, and perfect for targeted video advertising given their connection to the internet.

CTV, as opposed to linear TV, which is limited to untargeted blanket advertising, offers opportunities for targeting viewers with engaging formats on bigger screens.

Why the focus on CTV? Well, the numbers speak for themselves:

• The average attention rate for CTV is 82%, as opposed to 42% for social video
• Viewers have an average attention length of 12.2 seconds for CTV
• 71% of the average viewer’s time is spent in the “engagement zone” for CTV ad breaks

Those statistics are just a few of many taken from our in-depth scientific study with COG Research – get the full study for free below.

FOOTBALL FANS ARE BIG CONSUMERS – ESPECIALLY THIS YEAR

This year’s World Cup has a particularly exciting, unprecedented factor: Due to the climate in Qatar, the hosting country, the FIFA World Cup is being held between October and November. That’s right around massive spending holidays, such as Christmas and Black Friday.

Football fans are big spenders as it is – in the football-crazy country of England, over a fifth of football fans spend more on merchandise than they do their water bills. With these important calendar dates around the corner, expect those spending habits to broaden widely.

The best way to appeal to football fans to make non-football related purchases is to speak to football fan interests, and the best way to do that is by showing some football.

ShowHeroes video library has thousands of premium sports clips for your disposal, and that includes high-quality football footage.

You can improve that even more by showing your ads in instream format – engage your audiencei with relevant football footage, facts, or figures before seamlessly delivering your ad to maximise attention and interest.

GET IN TOUCH

Lets talk about upping your advertising game for the football season and beyond!

Contact us at advertisers@showheroes.com