Commentary
2014 World Cup Stands As Biggest Video Event Ever
- by Mallory Russell , July 17, 2014
During the last World Cup in 2010, branded video was still an emerging medium with brands just starting to generate significant consumer engagement through targeted campaigns. Four years later – after brands experienced key lessons from the Olympics and the Super Bowl in the U.S. – they were ready to make a big splash with evocative video campaigns that leveraged compelling storytelling and celebrity athletes.
At more than 670 million views, World Cup viewership is equivalent to 8% of the total branded video views in 2013. Tournament-focused campaigns also generated 30% more views than campaigns associated with the 2014 Super Bowl (516.2 million views), which until recently had been the most viewed video event.
Here’s a look at which video campaigns received the most views, and the brands that dominated mindshare during this major sporting event:
- Total Campaigns: 97 Nike is responsible for eight of the 97 World Cup video campaigns -- and it is also the most viewed brand of the tournament. Two of its campaigns, “Risk Everything” and “The Last Game,” were the most popular campaigns of the World Cup, respectively. “Risk Everything” is the sixteenth campaign to surpass 100 million views while “The Last Game” will likely become the seventeenth by next month. Overall, World Cup campaigns generated an average of 6.9 million views per campaign, which is far greater than the 2013 branded video average of about 2 million views per campaign.
- Top Five World Cup Video Brands
-- Nike: 240,684,123 views
-- Samsung: 124,374,254 views
-- Adidas: 90,314,729 views
-- Kia: 27,481,720 views
-- Beats by Dr. Dre: 24,501,341 views
- Top Five World Cup Campaigns
These five campaigns were the most viewed (ranked by total views of each video campaign)
-- Nike’s “Risk Everything”: 122,255,733 views
-- Nike’s “The Last Game”: 97,148,747 views
-- Samsung’s “Galaxy 11: The Training,” 74,573,179 views
-- Adidas’ “The Dream”: 45,959,914 views
-- Samsung’s “Galaxy 11”: 38,306,205 views
Why did these World Cup campaigns perform so well? Obviously, the World Cup has the advantage of having a huge global viewership, unlike U.S.-centric sporting events, since soccer is the most popular sport worldwide.
The other reason why these campaigns performed well is because brands upped their game by creating more engaging video content with compelling stories playing out in long form, which hooked viewers immediately. The average length of the top-ten most viewed tournament campaigns is 3:15; six of the top 10 World Cup campaigns had videos that were more than three minutes in length, which is a minute-and-half longer than the average Super Bowl spot.
Emotional content that celebrated the spirit of competition and national pride moved consumers, such as Banco de Chile’s ad featuring the Chilean miners. Viewers are more likely to talk about and share emotionally charged videos.
Higher engagement scores are also due to the use of celebrities like popular soccer players Lionel Messi and Wayne Rooney, who have built-in fan bases that drive social media conversations and sharing.
Doesn't this prove again no one watches Branded video? The two Nike ones were not commercials. They were VERY HIGH $$ entertainment spots. Mini-movies. My guess is they cost more to make than if they just paid to reach 100 million people with normal ads.
680 million views means that 1 in 5 people interested in the world cup watched 1 video in the 4 weeks of the event. Which isn't very impressive. I myself watched 1 Nike spot. No others.
And guess what. Nike shoes are still crappy shoes that fall apart much faster than others I have bought over the years so while I LOVED the Last Game spot I will never be a Nike customer again.
I am not saying don't make the content. Go for it. You have such a big ad budget why not. But lets have perspective please.