South Africa promotes World Cup through Facebook
The 2010 World Cup is one of the most anticipated global events in recent times, with Africa in the spotlight on a global football stage for the first time.
Charged with promoting the event to a global audience, South Africa Tourism got in contact with Sports New Media regarding the Fan Pages on facebook, and have gone on to take advantage of these opportunities with multiple promotions.
Ashley Brender, Senior Planner & Account Manager at Sports New Media, took charge of dealings with SA Tourism in January and is delighted to see both parties happy with the results to-date.
We’ve been working with their global and UK offices, and our work is being spoken about to other ‘satellite’ offices around the world about future work that we can be involved in
“We have done a few things for them, and continue to receive great feedback from everything we do. The ‘Diski Dance’ was the first campaign that came our way, and we were the main driver of traffic to that specific web page.
“That particular campaign was a huge success, although different to what we’re doing now because it was UK specific. However, we know we’ve got a huge global base and so they were happy to sign off bigger deals that target wider audiences.”
This ‘Diski Dance’ was an undoubted success for both parties, and ha paved the way for a major multiple-deal sign-off in the run-up to the World Cup. Putting these great results down on paper is a slightly harder task though, as Brender explains.
“We have our own tracking and can count all impressions, but these campaigns are judged for us at Sports New Media by the response and feedback from South Africa Tourism.
“We don’t really get a response in terms of results in number form, which is a shame because we know this would be great. They continue to give great feedback and continue to report great success, so it is obviously working. They wouldn’t have signed off major deals if it wasn’t.”
These major deals have fitted the facebook bill perfectly for Sports New Media, providing relevant prizes and applications that will have a positive impact on the growing PFA Fan Pages. This is crucial to the continuing development of each individual page, and something that must be respected irrespective of money.
It’s a fact not lost on Brender who, along with the marketing team at Sports New Media, have to judge every possible client on their individual merits.
“South Africa Tourism had specific aims for their campaigns, and all were something we could run with between February and June.
Additionally, an introduction was made to the global head of Pepsi through our successful work with SA Tourism. There are other clients in the pipeline too, all of whom have heard about us through this specific work
“Their ‘products’, as it were, include winning tickets to South Africa for the World Cup party, downloading an i-phone application that counts down to the start of the tournament whilst promoting parts of the country and finally an application on facebook that encourages fans to change their profile picture to a traditional African mask.
“All these involve us driving traffic to various SA Tourism online pages, and I think it’s great that we’re promoting a number of different things that are all generally based around the World Cup.”
A potential problem for any future deals with South Africa Tourism arises in the niche value of the ‘products’ being promoted. At various points before and during the tournament, the three types of advertorial will come to an end.
Although this provides an obvious negative for Sports New Media, the positive results and relationship with this particular client means that future work with a number of tourism boards is more than a possibility. Brender explains.
“I have been dealing with the head of South Africa Tourism, and they found out about our global reach through word of mouth.
“We’ve been working with their global and UK offices, and our work is being spoken about to other ‘satellite’ offices around the world about future work that we can be involved in.
“There is potential for us to become involved in other applications that aren’t specifically related to football, such as wine and safari, but these are things for the future that we are looking to get involved in.”
“Additionally, an introduction was made to the global head of Pepsi through our successful work with SA Tourism. There are other clients in the pipeline too, all of whom have heard about us through this specific work.”
