Unless you’ve been traveling somewhere extremely remote where there’s no radio, television, newspapers, magazines, podcasts, or Internet, you’ve no doubt seen – or heard – part of a FIFA World Cup soccer game from South Africa over the past four weeks.
It all wrapped up in the finale on Sunday, July 11 with Spain defeating the Netherlands for not just the European bragging rights, but for the world’s title, too.
So what does all of this World Cup frenzy mean to your business as it relates to using translations properly from Avantpage?
As the world’s greatest sports tournament, watched by an estimated 500 million TV viewers, being a football fan can be great for your company’s business — if you think globally to leverage the World Cup audience to your advantage.
According to an Investopia article “World Cup: By The Numbers”:
- $1.2 billion is the estimated total amount spent by this year’s World Cup sponsors, according to Reuters.
- 6stadiums at this year’s World Cup had specially designated seats equipped with headphones through which commentators reported on the action for blind and visually impaired spectators, and most likely used them for translations.
- 86 million: Number of page views logged at Fox Soccer Channel’s website, over the first five days of the tournament, an increase of 28% compared to the 2006 World Cup.
- 6.5 million: Number of World Cup replica jerseys sold by Adidas, more than double the number sold in 2006. This year’s figures included sales of more than 1 million jerseys each for the German, Mexican, Argentinean and South African teams.
On a broader scale, let’s look at how companies are leveraging this gigantic global audience to drive more businesses and increase their bottom line.
Sponsors: Traditional World Cup advertisers such as Adidas AG, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s Corp., Hyundai, Kia, Sony, and Visa have historically benefitted from higher sales both during and following the tournament.
But for 2010, a few new relatively small enterprises launched their brands worldwide as sponsors. These included Yingli Green Energy Holding Company, a solar panel manufacturer that has a 7% share of the global solar energy market; Mahindra Satyam, an Indian IT services provider; and Seara, a Brazilian food supplier and the fourth largest meatpacking company worldwide.
Each of these newcomers was the first from their BRIC countries (Brazil-Russia-India-China) to sponsor the tournament and see a spike in awareness, which came after growth in their stock markets outpaced those of developed nations since the World Cup in 2006.
All of these advertisers could benefit from Avantpage’s services for Globalization, Internationalization Localization, Transcreation and Translation for their websites, ads, and marketing communications.
Musicians: Most radio and TV commercials for World Cup sponsors use music to pace the message and build their brand with mnemonic messages or jingles. These commercials are also more frequently being shown in movie theatres to different audiences. For songs, chants, and anthems downloaded by globally by soccer aficionados, the musicians could sell more singles and CDs via our Localization and Translation services.
Social Networkers: If you’re sending a Tweet through Twitter, writing on someone’s Facebook wall, or uploading a YouTube video, it’s important to speak their language so you can communicate most efficiently.
In terms of tweets, during this year’s World Cup, a record was set during a Japan-Cameroon match on June 14 when tweets were sent at a rate of 2,940 per second about 30 seconds after the Japanese team scored the only goal of a 1-0 victory. And in the US-Slovenia World Cup match that ended in a draw, CNN’s “South Africa 2010: Twitter Buzz” feature showed there were 174,078 tweets per minute near the end of the match, which translated to 2,901 tweets per second.
Both figures are nearly four times the average of Twitter’s 750 tweets per second, which proves how big a hit Twitter has become in Japan since introducing a mobile version in October 2009. The Associated Press estimates that over 16% of Japanese Internet users tweet vs. 9.8% in the USA. It also proves that Twitter’s traffic boost indicates how social media are driving the sports fan experience.
For social media, Avantpage can be the bridge advancing cross-cultural communication because of our ability to communicate in over 150 global languages. Our services for social media can include Globalization, Internationalization Localization, Transcreation, Translation and Transliteration.
If you are interested in talking with us and learning more about how we can help your company expand and connect with new markets, please contact [email protected], or call 530-750-2024.
Sources:
SF Gate: World Cup: By the Numbers
SF Gate: World Cup Investment Picks Offer One Sure Win
SF Gate: Sports Fans Set Twitter Records
