Brands benefitting online from World Cup search
The World Cup is not only dominating the TV viewing schedules at the moment. It’s also inspiring many of our internet searches.
According to new figures from Experian Hitwise, one in every 144 UK internet searches is currently related to the World Cup.
Experian Hitwise’s World Cup Brands Index found that in the week ending June 12, South African Airways was the most searched for World Cup-related term. It showed a 129.2% rise in the number of searches in that week, compared to the previous week. Its index score rose to 250, compared to 109 the previous week.
Other high scorers were Heineken in second place, with searches up by 75% last week, followed by Carlsberg and Corona in joint third place, each with searches boosted by 50%. Budweiser came with, with searches up by 33.3%.
“The massive spike in searches for South African Airways illustrates the appetite for last minute travel to watch the World Cup. There has also been an 85% increase in searches for flights to South Africa over the last couple of weeks,” said Robin Goad, director of research at Experian Hitwise.
He said food and drink searches had risen by 8% last week. Travel searches were up by 7.4% and technology and telecoms by 4.8%.
And he added: “What the Experian Hitwise Brand Index highlights is that a weekend of football has given the food and drinks brands a real boost – particularly with England playing their first match on a Saturday night. The timing of these opening matches has been reflected in their advertising and marketing campaigns with great offers and promotions that are relevant, humorous and authentic.
“It also highlights the rewards that integrated marketing campaigns can deliver. With the exception of the Dutch team, all the teams the top five brands sponsor had played at the time our Index was compiled.”
The World Cup has also spurred other online activity with 1 in every 144 searches last week related to the event. Among them was a 12-fold increase in searches for Robert Green, the England goalkeeper pictured repeatedly this weekend fluffing a save to concede a draw with the US.
2 Comments »
If there was one place to go with all the match times, fixtures, scores and links to channels and websites that are showing live video, then I wouldn’t search so much!
If FIFA did a better job of ‘engaging’ online, they could have seen more searches dedicated to their brand. The company I work for, Tamar, did some research that shows how organisers of the biggest global sporting event pay penalty for failure to deepen loyalty online. In a nutshell, FIFA is failing to deepen brand loyalty online through search and social media. http://www.tamar.com/thinking/white-papers
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