BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK's Aaron Ricadela writes for adidas, the World Cup "has already been won, whatever the outcome of Sunday’s final in Rio de Janeiro." Finalists Argentina and Germany are both outfitted by adidas, while the two losing semifinalists -- Netherlands and Brazil -- are outfitted by Nike. The prestige of "outfitting the victor counts in a closely contested market that has the two adversaries seeking any edge" (BUSINESSWEEK.com, 7/10). Meanwhile, in Toronto, Morgan Campbell listed the winners and losers of the World Cup from a business perspective, with German apparel companies scoring as a winner and Nike a loser. Brazil's appearance in Saturday's third-place game "won't provide much comfort" to Nike (THESTAR.com, 7/9).
HOW SPONSORS, NON-SPONSORS FARED: DIGIDAY's Curtis Silver cited a study by brand analytics firm Mattr as showing that when it comes to pure engagement, FIFA's global and World Cup sponsors -- including adidas, Budweiser, Coke and Hyundai -- "clearly beat out their rivals" during the tournament. Only non-official sponsor Nike "was able to really sneak into FIFA’s reach," with 16% of its engagement coming from FIFA’s following. adidas "paid to get a chunk of those FIFA followers." Nike "did not but still grabbed more of them" than adidas. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for analytics group Brandwatch said of ambush marketing efforts around the competition, "Since the start of the World Cup on June 12, Snickers has been mentioned on Twitter in posts that talk about [Uruguay F Luis Suarez] or World Cup over 6,500 times." The "most interesting outsider" was Beats Electronics. Brandwatch said that between June 17-26, Beats "trumped Sony in overall impressions" despite Sony's status as a FIFA global partner (DIGIDAY.com, 7/9).
BECAUSE & EFFECT: FIFA global partner Hyundai yesterday announced that it currently has a 36% share of voice against other top branded hashtags for the World Cup, making it the top branded hashtag among World Cup conversations on Twitter. Its #BecauseFutbol has generated more than 17 million impressions on Twitter alone and the engagement rate of 9.98% has greatly surpassed Twitter’s auto benchmark of 1-2% (Hyundai).
