Most of this year’s online World Cup conversations won’t occur on Facebook or Twitter, but channels like WhatsApp and pasted links into office emails that brands can’t measure easily. Craig Tuck, UK MD of RhythmOne looks at how brands can score at Russia 2018 via ‘dark social’ channels.
Football engages fans around the globe. It is the world’s ultimate common denominator and thus, an incredibly powerful marketing vehicle for brands. The World Cup is the pinnacle event in the football calendar and unlocks a global stage for marketers to connect with consumers.
Appetite for football content is vast. The World Cup 2014 app was downloaded 18 million times , making it the biggest sports event app ever. But billions of people consume football around the competition and won’t all download a new app. So where will they source and share football content and how can brands better connect with their audience throughout the tournament?
Getting the timing right
The stereotype of sport spectators has long been groups of friends gathering around the TV set. While football fans will be watching TV, streaming on their mobile and other digital devices is a key way they’ll be finding and consuming content. RhythmOne’s World Cup data shows that 70 per cent of people in the UK view football content from a mobile device.
The emphasis on mobile is heightened by the time zone in Russia. Approximately 40 per cent of the world’s population will be asleep when the matches are being played. This means that fans will organise and watch games, as well as look for relevant information beyond the scheduled times. They’ll be looking for news on team line-ups, replays and more. Brands need to plan carefully when they’ll be communicating with fans (and where) to ensure their ad message lands.
Tackling dark social
Understanding consumers’ behaviour is critical to cutting through noisy events such as the World Cup. However, our data shows that 86 per cent of football related content is shared via dark social – this means over email, WhatsApp and Instant Messaging platforms – platforms that brands are generally not monitoring. For context, just 11 per cent of consumers share content via social giants including Facebook and Twitter collectively.
Tracking page views or public social interactions to monitor intent to purchase isn’t going to give marketers the insight they need. Sharing is the biggest signal of intent and the majority of it happens in the dark. Without this knowledge, brands are opting for a “spray and pay” approach and thus often apportion large amounts of budget to popular websites and search engines to cover off a mass audience.
People seek validation when it comes to content. Consumers are more likely to read an article that their peer or friend has alerted them to, as they’ve endorsed it’s of interest. Our research shows that 88 per cent of those people who shared content via dark social channels were likely to click on to the link that was shared with them. But as the majority of brands don’t have sight of dark social channels, this remains as an untapped opportunity for marketers.
By harnessing dark social this World Cup and taking stock of the nuances of consumer behaviour around the game, brands can better understand levels of intent, in turn helping make brands more meaningful, and crucially, relevant.
By Craig Tuck
UK MD
RhythmOne