World Cup | Media Culpa

McDonald’s tweets to Luis Suarez: bite a Big Mac instead

Uruguay striker Luis Suarez is a controversial football player to say the least. His history of scandals on the pitch is lengthy and another chapter was added today during the FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil.

During the game against Italy, Suarez suddenly bit Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini in the shoulder. This was the third time he bit someone during a game as he had previously bit PSV Eindhoven’s Otman Bakkal and also Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic. Both times he got lengthy bans.

Suarez was immediately mocked on Twitter by football fans. And as often happens these days, brands also try to seize the moment and piggy back on trending events. McDonald’s Uruguay tweeted the following tweet tonight:

The tweet reads in English:

“Hi @luis16suarez, if you get hungry come and take a bite from a BigMac;) “

Reactions to the tweet were initially mixed but it quickly got thousands of retweets. What do you think? Genious or tacky?

Brilliant flipbook video of Robin van Persie’s flying header goal against Spain

Ever since Oreo tweeted that clever “You can still dunk in the dark” tweet during the Super Bowl power outage, brands have been looking at ways to capitalize on current news stories in social media. Most of them have failed, some miserably.

Real time marketing is apparently a tactic that includes a high level of risk.

Power out? No problem. pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) 4 februari 2013

Clever video from the 2014 World Cup by Stabilo
Sometimes though, organizations do manage link their brands to breaking stories in a positive way, like with this brilliant video from Schwan-STABILO, the German manufacturer of for example Stabilo Boss highlighter pens.

During the already classic 2014 FIFA World Cup game between reigning champions Spain and the Netherlands, Dutch forward Robin van Persie scored a wonderful diving header to level the score 1-1. The Netherlands turned the game around and beat Spain 5-1 in spectacular manner.

Stabilo immortalized the flying dutchman’s goal be recreating it in a flipbook video made with Stabilo pens. Very clever:

Via Firstpost.

World Cup 2010: support your team with a Twibbon

On June 11, the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa will kick off with the game between the host country and Mexico. This will be the first World Cup that will have a significant presence in social media as fans will discuss games and cheer on their teams through channels like Facebook and Twitter.

Here is a collection of “twibbons” that you can add to your Twitter avatar in order to show support for your team, one for each of the 32 participating teams.

Algeria:

Argentina:

Australia:

Brazil:

Cameroon:

Chile:

Denmark:

England:

France:

Germany:

Ghana:

Greece:

Honduras:

Italy:

Ivory Coast:

Japan:

Mexico:

Netherlands:

New Zealand:

Nigeria:

North Korea:

Paraguay:

Portugal:

Serbia:

Slovakia:

Slovenia:

Spain:

South Africa:

South Korea:

Switzerland:

Uruguay:

USA:

FIFA World Cup 2010:

Additional versions of Twibbons can be found at the site via AdHack and ITVfootball.

Ein zwei drei – crush Paraguay

No use in launching any PR activities when the media are full of stories like this. Yeah Freddie, we love you.

“5862709402” and other World Cup advertising stunts

The FIFA World Cup 2006 in Germany is no doubt big business and we can’t wait to see Sweden kick some serious bu.., I mean footballs. Until then, here are a few interesting stories and marketing stunts from around the globe.

– From Adidas: German keeper Oliver Kahn as a 65 meter long poster over a motorway bridge near Munich. Incredibly cool, if you disregard the fact that Kahn is only second goalie to Jens Lehmann.

– Below: ESPN commercial for its World Cup coverage. Bono says Ivory Coast qualification ends civil war.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qadP1rqLS3g

– What does “5862709402” mean? It’s a number made up of the last two digits the years that Brazil has won the World Cup. Nike sells t-shirts with that number. Read more about the Nike vs Adidas battle here. For the first time Nike sponsors more teams in the World Cup than its rival. See also Joga Bonito.

– Nike Joga3 football vending machine.

– “A voodoo doll with five pins and the national emblems of all your enemy teams. Toilet paper with World Cup trivia. Pork slices emblazoned with a soccer player dribbling down the field.” Germany has gone football mad.

– Business Week: “Officials expect 32 billion cumulative viewers to tune in”. Advertisers are drooling.

Hat tip: Adrants, Agenda Inc. Tags: world cup, Sweden, Paraguay, fotbolls-vm.

Zlatan and Henke won’t be blogging the World Cup

It looks like the Swedish football team will be subject to a no-blog policy during the World Cup 2006, just like the German team.

– I can’t imagine that there will be other rules than during the last European Championships, Lars Richt of the Swedish Football Association told Aftonbladet.

The Swedish FA implemented a new policy for the last WC in Japan and Korea 2002 that said players could not write columns in newspapers during the tournament. Richt says that blogging will be included in the policy.