System1: Women’s World Cup ads outperform men’s competition | WARC | The Feed
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System1: Women’s World Cup ads outperform men’s competition
The ads placed around the FIFA Women’s World Cup in three major ad markets are of higher creative quality, indicating greater potential for both long and short-term commercial effects, according to new analysis by the creative effectiveness platform System1.
Why World Cup ads matter
Major events present rich opportunities for brands to engage with a big, global, culturally resonant moment – and there are few events bigger and more captivating to a global audience than a football World Cup.
But engaging with an event doesn’t mean you’re taking full advantage. Across the ads studied by System1 in the UK, US, and Brazil, it appears that brands are designing for effectiveness around the Women’s World Cup in a way that fewer brands did for the men’s competition last winter.
This is partly out of greater sophistication in the elements of the advertising – melodic music, humour, distinctive assets – which are known to boost commercial effectiveness. But there’s also a bigger conversation around women’s sport that has yielded for some smart brands a singular opportunity.
The research
Based on System1’s Test Your Ad platform, the study is based on measuring viewers’ second-by-second emotional responses to creative, and to assigns ads a star rating from 1 to 5.9 based on their expected ability to drive market share growth.
- ITV (UK) – “The Pride has Arrived” – 4.4 Stars
- Claro (Brazil) – “Todas Marias” – 4.3 Stars
- Nike (Brazil) – “Debinha I Joga Forever” – 4.1 Stars
- Adidas (UK) – “Play Until They Can’t Look Away” – 3.8 Stars
- Frito Lay (US) – “Taste of Greatness” – 3.7 Stars
A similar study of 20 ads from the same markets that ran during the 2022 men’s World Cup, by comparison, yielded only one 4-star ad. Half of the ads studied in 2022 scored between 1 and 2 stars.
Though the women’s competition is yet to conclude, the advertising around the event is already scoring higher in terms of likely creative effectiveness.
The sport dividend
Sport advertising has an effect on all viewers, but among sports fans the advertising tends to see an uplift in effectiveness, or a “sport dividend”, as System1 and Omnicom sport agency Fuse found in a recent study.
For this World Cup, researchers looked at one of this year’s ads that has made a significant splash. Orange’s Les Bleues approaches the issue of gender equality from an interesting new angle. According to System1, the ad’s 3.1 star score among the general public would suggest a good effectiveness potential. But among sport fans, the ad scored 4.7 stars (strong effectiveness potential).
Key quote
“For the women’s tournament, many advertisers are leveraging famed athletes and celebrities, plus right-brained elements like melodic music, humour and distinctive assets that capture consumers’ broad-beam attention and drive long-term market share growth,” explained Jon Evans, chief customer officer at System1.
Sourced from System1, WARC, Orange. [Image: Orange/Marcel]
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