Nike mentioned twice as often online as sponsor Adidas

Nike may not be a World Cup sponsor, but the athletic clothing and shoe giant is the top brand online for consumers tuned into the world’s biggest soccer tournament.

Almost one-third of the online buzz around the World Cup in the month running up to the soccer tournament was focused on Nike, twice as high as rival and official sponsor Adidas, according to a Nielsen Co study.

“Social media has made ambush marketing easier, simply because of the virality of it,” said Alex Burmaster, vice president of communications for Nielsen. “Some people call it an echo chamber.”

Nielsen studied English-language World Cup related messages on blogs, message boards, groups, videos and image sites, including Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. It studied 10 World Cup sponsors with global footprints, as well as 20 of their rivals that are not sponsors. Ambush marketing is when a company not affiliated with an event like the World Cup or the Olympics runs an ad campaign that links the advertiser to that event in the consumer’s mind without saying the company is a sponsor.

//Read more via Reuters

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jencorbett:

Nike have created a massive social ad - in which anyone can submit a picture and a headline through a social network and have it put on the face of one of Johannesburgs largest skyscrapers. 

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Our weekly challenge to everyone (from the industry expert down to the Facebook novice) to have their say on what social media is about and the changes it’s having on the world around them - make sure you check out the Want&Quiz for yourself.

If you wouldn’t know a Twanker if one hit you in the face (and believe it or not one essentially is hitting you in the face right now) then you’ve probably never seen Tommy’s Twankers UK site. A Twanker, for the uninformed, is someone who uses social media to talk about social media - just like us then. It’s lucky we don’t take ourselves too seriously or we might be offended by that.

Stepping, rather more seriously, into the other side of our Quiz arena this week is Robyn, a Visual Design Consultant based in Calgary, Canada. We’re not normally ones to make snap judgments but we know whose side our gut tells us to be on…

W&B: What does ‘social media’ mean to you?
T: Places on the web where people go to chat, share, have fun, communicate.
R: Two-way conversation, facilitating authentic interaction and taking the traditional media and turning it on it’s head.

W&B: How has it changed the way you do business?
T: I’ve worked with many companies who see it as a push marketing medium. They are clueless
R: Crowd-sourcing business ideas, increased communication between potential clients and demonstrating our culture. It has also helped us hire like-minded members to join our team.

W&B: Tell us about another brand you admire?
T: Pownum [Editor: Apparently ‘The name ‘pownum’ is derived from ‘power in numbers’. pownum enables the public to rate organisations and by so doing generate an overall number - the pownum rating - based on everyone’s opinion. The best organisations will be publicly commended and we think that’s a good thing.’]
R: PODIUM Participation Funds - who focus on local startup businesses with global potential.

W&B: How can social media tap into World Cup Fever?
T: Turn your mouse into a vuvuzela, so that you can blow along to your iTunes tracks.
R: I don’t care for football culture. It’s one of the reasons I moved away from the UK!

W&B: Are you a social media guru?
T: Bloody right I am.

You’ll have to make your own mind up about who the real guru is (if there’s such a thing as a social media expert at all) but big thanks to both Tony and Robyn for taking part, and for Robyn for passing it on to her blog followers.

We’re taking the Want&Quiz ourselves this week so look out for our responses soon… make sure you check it out for yourself.