How Branded Video Won the World Cup Ad Battle

In this regular column, Mallory Russell, executive editor for video advertising and analytics specialist Visible Measures, which has tracked over 17,000 campaigns and studied consumer behavior from three-trillion (yes, trillion) video views, looks at how the World Cup has been the tipping point for branded videos.

The World Cup is the biggest media event on the planet. It reaches an incredible three billion excited fans across the globe. For these fans, the World Cup is about their favorite players, it’s about national pride.

But for brands, the tournament is a rare opportunity to grab consumer attention and turn football fans into fans of their brands. And there are making of the most of this opportunity with branded video.

While branded video was just coming into its own during the last World Cup, big brands are putting years of learning from events like the Olympics and the Super Bowl in the US, to make a big splash with video during this tournament.

With less than a week to go before the final game of the tournament is played, the 2014 World Cup is already the most viewed video event of all time. Viewership of World Cup video campaigns surpassed that of 2014 Super Bowl, which had been the most viewed event, in the past week. World Cup campaigns have garnered more than 607.8 million views across 85 campaigns, which is 90 million more views than the 2014 Super Bowl.

So what are brands doing right during this World Cup that they can take into other events?

Brands Are Using Celebrities With Direct Ties to the Event

More than half of World Cup campaigns that we’ve measured have used celebrities, and football players at that. Nike's Risk Everything campaign accounts for more than 120 million views, showing how important the endorsement of World Cup athletes - and more than one if possible - are to marketing around the tournament. These players bring with them built in fan bases, they drive conversations, and social sharing, which spurs earned media.

Brands Are Taking the Time to Build A Story

The average length of the top 10 most viewed tournament campaigns is nearly four minutes, nearly two minutes more than the average top Super Bowl campaign. Beat’s The Game Before the Game, for example, is more than five minutes long. Despite the videos being longer, World Cup campaigns have extremely high engagement rates. This is likely the result of the narrative-focused nature of World Cup campaigns, which gives brands more time to build a compelling story.

Unaffiliated Brands Are Putting Their Own Spin on the Event

While Nike and adidas are responsible for nearly a third of all World Cup campaign views, its not just sports apparel brands or beverage companies that are getting in on the World Cup action.

Other, non-traditional brands, are finding a way to tell a World Cup story. Samsung is the second most viewed campaign of the tournament, with 112 million views thanks to the Galaxy 11 series [above, top]. And Castrol had a hit with Footkhana [above], which pits gymkhana drivers against Neymar Jr. and garnered nearly 21 million views.