With the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia underway, prominent networks in Latin America—including DirecTV, Globo, ESPN and Fox Sports—are using magic, humor, music and pride to position campaigns around the excitement soccer brings, and the networks’ capacity to offer fans the best content anytime, anyplace.

Here, Brief digs into ESPN South America’s marketing strategy for the World Cup.

ESPN’s campaign for South America focused on the concept of 360-degree, multi-platform communication around the national teams of Argentina, Colombia, Peru and Uruguay.

“Even though we don’t have the broadcast rights, it is the most important event for us,” says Víctor Andrés Pochat, programming director, ESPN South America. “We want to establish the concept that ESPN has all of the information and that, as a fan, you can get it at any time and place.”

The network broadcasts daily live coverage from Russia from 7 a.m. to midnight, and offers supplemental digital content such as streaming trainings, across the espn.com website and social media platforms. A total of 150 additional hours of specific weekly content on Russia are also showcased as special editions.

“We incorporated this multiplatform content offer in ‘ESPN 360,’ a concept intended to convey that wherever you are, ESPN will be there with the information fans are looking for. Therefore, ‘ESPN 360’ is understood as an intention to deliver content on all devices,” says Pochat.

The creative spots use humor to illustrate the idea of this delivery.

For example, the spot below showcases Diego Monroy, ESPN Argentina’s star reporter known for his small stature, standing inside a vending machine as he provides a fan highlights of the matches.

Other pieces position brand celebrities as delivery people and waiters. In one spot, rather than delivering a pizza, Ornella Palumbo of SportsCenter Peru knocks on the door and announces the best plays and top scorers so far. In another, SportsCenter’s Pablo Stecco is a waiter who hands dinner guests customized iPad with the best saves of the day rather than offering them a menu.

“These funny capsules help us convey the concept to viewers: whatever it is you are looking for, we’ll have it and we’ll deliver it to you. It is also a good way of promoting our talent,” says Pochat.

The campaign’s tagline has become “ESPN, we’ll bring you all the information, always and everywhere” (ESPN, te acercamos toda la información, siempre y en todas partes).

“It goes hand in hand with ESPN’s mission, which is to serve the sports fan anytime and anywhere. We are very pleased with what we have created because it meets our goals from all aspects,” says Pochat.

Version español: La Campaña ESPN 360 promueve la Copa Mundial de fútbol en todo momento y en cualquier lugar

Tags: espn fifa world cup 2018


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