Sporting events like the World Cup can generate great emotions and incredible moments. When the tension increases, the audience gets excited, a goal is scored, fans cheer or cry, they can hardly stay in their seats – or on the couch. And for soccer fans, winning or losing a World Cup game can affect your mood for days or weeks. Advertisers expect that advertising during the World Cup will boost their brands with positive emotions. But so far, no one knows what the impact of being the fan of a winning versus losing team has on ad effectiveness.
The potential that the mood induced from winning or losing may influence ad effectiveness is a topic of keen interest to Ipsos and our clients. After testing hundreds of ads during the World Cup in many different markets, our data suggest that a positive or a negative mood have indeed an influence over the communication impact. Hence, as the mood swings with the prospects of victory or defeat, how can advertisers maximise this effect (the event ROI) and reduce potential risk?
What we did
Ipsos explored this question by measuring the emotional response of soccer fans in four countries (Germany, England, Mexico and Argentina) to four different ads that were aired in each market during the World Cup that included linkage to the World Cup or home nation in message or iconography. A baseline measure was taken with one sample of fans before the World Cup started. The day after the first qualifying round, we measured the same ads in the same markets with a different sample, to quantify the impact of either winning (positive mood) and or losing (negative mood) on emotional response to the same ads.
These ads were tested by means of electroencephalogram (EEG), a technique that monitors electrical activity in various locations in the brain. EEG detects the level of attention and emotional engagement, (the direction–positive vs. negative– and intensity of emotional reactions).
We focused on the following matches to gauge the impact of sweet victory and devastating defeat on effectiveness of brand ads that contained World Cup-related messages or iconogrpahy.
“Negative mood” (or defeat) markets:
Germany: Where Germany suffered a painfully embarrassing loss to South Korea, which resulted in early elimination
Argentina: When Argentina was defeated by France in round 16.
“Positive mood” (or victory) markets:
Mexico: We measured viewers in Mexico after the end of the first round when Mexicans were thrilled, having beaten Germany and qualified at the very last moment, thanks to South Korea (who had also beaten Germany).
England: We measured viewers in England after their first round qualification following an exciting and nervous battle against Colombia, winning the final penalty shootout.
Results showed rewards are much higher than possible punishments!
Indeed, the World Cup is unpredictable. While we were writing this article and running the experiment, both authors (a Brazilian and a Spaniard) were quite optimistic for their national teams. Similarly, marketers are optimistic and embrace the event with high hopes for returns. Our key message after running the experiment is… don’t play it safe, go all the way if you want to leverage this tournament for the highest returns!
Key findings
Emotional engagement captures the direction and intensity of emotional reactions and is our key metric for this experiment. Attention measures the degree with which the viewer is processing the information in the ad. By measuring the emotional engagement and attention of the ads prior to the competition (neutral mood) and right after the moments of victory and defeat, we were able to assess how the mood induced by victory and defeat can influence advertising effectiveness.
Results showed that the World Cup is more about opportunity than it is about risk. The good news, as shown in the figure below, is that emotional engagement in the ads increased after both victory and defeat. However, the increase experienced after victory was more than twice that in countries that were eliminated from the competition. The emotional response during the storyline was boosted almost three times more in markets in a positive mood relative to those that had just lost. The degree of attentional processing, however, decreased for the second wave of testing, perhaps because of some wear-out, but the decrease was almost twice as pronounced in the markets that lost and were eliminated from the competition.
When we look closer at the creative elements that trigger that impact of mood, we can better understand how to tailor the execution to maximise the impact of a victory mood or minimise the demoralisation of a defeat.
Creative elements that make reference to a nation or national symbol trigger memories of the competition and thus elicit different emotions based on its resolution. For countries that had been eliminated, we see a slight decrease in emotional engagement during scenes that include national symbolism relative to the baseline. In contrast, markets that had just experienced victory displayed a considerable increase in the positive emotional reaction to national symbols.
The World Cup victory best cases were the ones that fully leveraged World Cup symbols and values, including national and football-related creative elements.
On the other hand, World Cup defeat worst cases reveal a risk that can’t be ignored. When these ads bring high expectations, assuming that victory is the only possible outcome, defeat brings frustration and emotional engagement is severely affected.
In summary, even if your team has been eliminated, we all still like football. We definitely like it better when we are on the winning side. Markets that advanced, experienced an increase in emotional engagement during football-related creative elements that were more than twice the increase experienced in countries that had been eliminated. Defeated countries experienced a decrease in attentional processing that was four times that of the winning markets.
Implications for marketers’ strategy:
The results of this multi-country study show that while the outcome of the competition can represent a real boost for your campaign effectiveness, the risk of losing effectiveness due to an adverse outcome of your country’s team is rather minimal.
So what should advertisers do more of?
We believe that if an advertiser is in the game, they should play all-in. If it makes sense for their brands and is aligned with their values, they should leverage the World Cup symbols and image the best way possible. If their team wins, they get all the rewards.
What should advertisers avoid or do less of?
Being subtle or playing safe during this event will not leverage this mood-related “boosting” effect to full potential in case of victory. It will also not do much better in case of defeat. We also recommend advertisers to control risk by avoiding raising expectations through their communication strategy.
Some advertisers strategise this risk extremely well, leveraging World Cup symbols without being dependent on a winning outcome; and these are the real winners of the World Cup!
Our final advice for 2022: The 2022 World Cup might be as unpredictable as we have seen in 2018. And yet, the good news is: If you play well and smart, taking into consideration the influence of the fans’ mood, your brand communications can be sure to win!
