With the 2015 Women’s World Cup just around the corner, FIFA continues to shore up its global promotion of the event. Coming off the heels of a widely successful men’s World Cup last summer, the organization is looking to take its lessons from the tournament and leverage that to propel this Summer’s matches to new highs.
Cynopsis Sports spoke with Thierry Weil, FIFA Director of Marketing, to discuss the growth of soccer in the US, how FIFA World Cup and FIFA Women’s World Cup marketing programs play in fostering interest in the game and what we can expect stateside.
Weil on the 2014 World Cup: The World Cup in Brazil was a great success from a marketing perspective for us. It was not the easiest World Cup to conduct and to set up and it was definitely something which came together late, but in a good way. It is also our goal to keep sponsors to stay long-term with us, and to deliver them a terrific World Cup every time. I think we succeeded.
On lessons learned: All of our commercial partners have seen the change of what social media is doing. It is clear that basic sponsorship is still working to deliver the message, but what you need to have now is the fan engagement. You want the sponsors to share those initiatives because our fans want to share their activity with their friends. Today, what the fans are requesting to be able to share their experiences with their friends and that happens to also be what the commercial parties want. We at FIFA are in a situation where we can sit around a table and analyze together because there is this kind of grey area or uncertainty of what’s coming next. They have their huge divisions and a lot of analysts and research but it is pretty clear what is there today, but we don’t know what to expect in six months or two years. So all you can do today is share dialogue with those world companies like Coca-Cola and Visa to see what their key findings are, what our research is saying and what we can do to be proactive.
On fans in the US: Our approach to fans in the States compared to other parts of the world is essentially a different dialogue. The mentality in Japan is different than the mentality in New York, so you need to adapt a little bit and that’s where our partners are of extreme importance because they already have a connection with different parts of the world. We decided to change our sponsorship model so it is more regional, that way we can have more insights in the regions by having more contacts who are already strong within a region and work with us to figure out different ways to approach a fan, what to say and to have a good result.
On the Women’s World Cup: In 2011, in Germany, the Women’s World Cup became a different event which is now the second biggest event for FIFA after the men’s World Cup. Tickets sales for the US team are already sold out. In general, it is a great art and this is a great next step to demonstrate how women’s football is developing and show its acceptance around the world. You cannot predict who will win any longer, there are a lot of teams who can win it. When something stops being predictable, it starts being far more attractive for people around the world. The players have done a lot of work, and in some countries they aren’t even recognized or supported by their federations, it is not an easy job what they have accomplished.
On new ideas: One thing I think will be interesting for the US market is that, based on the success we have seen with public viewing here in the US, FIFA has decided to conduct Fan Fests here in the states. When we talk about fan engagement, it is a live event, even if the game is not live there and it will give fans a place to go to celebrate and bring the World Cup to the US. It will be a special tool that has been well received around the world and I think that the US deserves it. We will now sit together with a couple of professional agencies in US and see how we can set it up and where we will do it.
