As a premier sporting event, the World Cup provides an opportunity for brands with deep enough pockets to become the event’s official sponsors, ensuring visibility and brand awareness in the eyes of millions—if not billions—of people around the world. Regardless of size, however, any brand can cash in on the World Cup by working closely with experienced Public Relations Agencies to organise a guerrilla marketing strategy.
The term is combative—and for good reason—as guerrilla marketing uses subversive techniques in order to get the brand’s message across. However, although this might give it a negative connotation, guerrilla marketing still remains the most effective method for increasing brand awareness, as a recent article in Marketing Magazine reveals:
“There’s irrefutable evidence to support the theory that non-affiliated brands tend to have stronger cut-through than official sponsors. In Sochi, Red Bull achieved the highest brand affiliation index (BAI), yet wasn’t an official Winter Olympics sponsor.”
Red Bull achieved this feat by consistently aligning itself with major human endeavours, such as Felix Baumgartner’s space dive, and extreme sports. This positioned it to seamlessly align with the values of the Winter Olympics.
The same principle has been applied to FIFA games in the past, as well. During the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, Paul the Psychic Octopus resonated with many soccer fans when the employees of Sea Life in Oberhausen, Germany revealed that he had a 100 per cent success rate at predicting match winners. Sea Life received a massive boost to its brand awareness as a result.
Another FIFA 2010 stunt was pulled by the Dutch brewer Bavaria. The company employed 36 women to attend a Netherlands game in orange clothing—that country’s team colour—emblazoned with discreet branding. The move prompted FIFA to eject the women from the stadium and pursue a high-profile case against the brewer, which created such a stir that Bavaria received more social mentions than all of the official sponsors combined.
Guerrilla marketing owes its high success rate to the absolute creative freedom it gives those who choose to use it. Unlike official sponsors, who are constrained by the marketing regulations and approval processes set in place by the event’s organisers, outsider brands can choose to market themselves in a manner that best suits the imagery surrounding them. If this imagery fits in with the nature of the sporting event, fans then naturally flock to it in droves.
With the World Cup just weeks away, the opportune time has once again arrived to cash in on the media frenzy surrounding the event, and a skilled PR Agency in Sydney, such as Polkadot PR, can help brands sporting for awareness to achieve this.
