World Cup U.S. National Team - H 2014
AP ImagesAdvertising from the 2014 World Cup is already outperforming that from this year’s Super Bowl before a soccer ball has even been touched.
Data released Thursday by marketing technology company Unruly indicate that the top 20 most shared World Cup commercials have already attracted almost a third more shares than the top 20 Super Bowl 2014 ads — months after the Seahawks beat the Broncos on Super Bowl Sunday.
The top 20 World Cup 2014 ads have so far attracted 6.9 million shares across social media — 31.4 percent more than the top 20 ads from Super Bowl 2014 (4.7 million).
The trio of top World Cup ads — Activia’s “La La La,” Nike’s “Winner Stays” and Castrol’s “Footkhana” — account for 59.6 percent of the total number of shares in the World Cup top 20.
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Unruly also notes that if the most shared 2014 World Cup soccer ad, Activia’s “La La La” is taken away, “It’s a lot more of a level playing field, with Super Bowl 2014 just ahead of the World Cup’s total of 4.6 million shares.”
But with the tournament in Brazil set to kick off with an opening ceremony and the event’s debut fixture between the hosts and Croatia, that situation is unlikely to last very long.
Unruly said the data is yet more evidence “that this year’s Super Bowl brands really failed to engage audiences online.”
Despite shares of branded videos rising 22 percent in the 12 months prior to Super Bowl Sunday, shares dropped by almost a quarter (24.2 percent) at the 2014 Super Bowl — the first time ever that online shares in Super Bowl ads have decreased.
Unruly said sharing figures were compiled on June 9 and the top 20 World Cup includes ads created by brands not affiliated with the World Cup. The Super Bowl ads were aired during the 2014 Super Bowl.
A separate report from the social media analytics firm said that there have been more than 3 million tweets about the World Cup in the past week.
Top hashtags include #worldcup (540,000-plus uses), #worldcup2014 (250,000-plus uses) and #brazil2014 (110,000-plus uses).
Other hashtags of note include #usmnt (19,000-plus uses) and #brazil with 68,000-plus entries.
