Strategic digital media consultancy 25AM has been tracking global social media conversations during the World Cup, using ExactTarget Marketing Cloud software to analyse what the public is saying about the sponsors.
And the results are fascinating. Yingli, a solar panel company paid an estimated $17.5-million to be a World Cup sponsor. But they received just 2.782 mentions in social media; that’s $6.290 for every social media mention they received.
McDonalds, on the other hand, was mentioned 2 700 358 times by World Cup watchers – and that’s before the final that is bound to generate a Twitter storm. In cost-per-mention terms, it cost McDonald’s just $6.48 for every mention it received. But since that could buy you two Big Macs each time someone mentions the company name on social media, was it money well spent?
25AM’s aim was to test whether the World Cup and football players do drive talkability and conversational amplification around their brands to justify the expense in sponsorship and endorsement.
Gordon Geldenhuys, head of online reputation management at 25AM, says it’s difficult to measure the intangible value of linking your brand to the world’s most famous footballers, but that it is possible to gauge the value in practical terms using social media listening tools.
“Measuring the return on investment is a very real and contentious issue, as marketers are struggling to justify a solid return for the financial investment in social marketing, sponsorship and marketing in general,” he says. “The explosion of activity on Twitter during the matches has been phenomenal, so it’s natural for some of the world’s biggest brands to spend huge sums of money in sponsorship to capitalise on this hype. But how do we quantify the return that they are getting for this sponsorship?”
25AM analysed more than 26 million social media conversations and counted the specific mentions of each official sponsor, partner and some key players to test the value of their investments.
McDonald’s earned a tasty amount of talk and therefore the lowest cost per mention. “Every social mention cost the company the equivalent of two Big Macs,” Geldenhuys says. “How much more tangible can we get than relating the value per social mention directly back to each sponsor’s product offerings?”
Budweiser achieved a solid cost per mention of $91.71 equating to 11 beers per mention and Moy Park incurred a cost of $4 932.36 per social mention amounting to 3162 chickens per mention.
Yingli was the worst performer at more than $6 000 per mention.
As for the players, before the semi-finals Brazil’s Neymar da Silva Santos was the most talked about man on social platforms.
1468 25am WC Info Graphic [FA]
