Advertisers bid 23 times more to appear alongside Socceroo’s content during the world cup, according to GumGum, a global artificial intelligence and digital advertising platform.
GumGum’s Mindset Graph tracked page-level content and real-time ad market bidding activity across Australia from mid-April through to the Socceroos’ exit.
Over this period it covered official sponsors, Socceroos players, coaching staff and fan hashtags, tracking where advertisers were actively putting their money.
GumGum measured ‘bid density’, which shows how hard advertisers competed for ad space relative to how much relevant content existed.
According to the data, once the tournament kicked off, advertisers bid 23.5 times more aggressively to appear alongside content about Socceroos’ head coach Tony Popovic and 7.2 times more for pages focusing on the players, compared with pre-tournament levels.
The space next to fan hashtag and buzz content saw competition roughly 2.6 times higher.
“The pattern makes sense once you look at what bid density actually measures,” said Nic Nasrallah, account director at GumGum.
“World Cup sponsor content was already everywhere before a ball was kicked, and with such an abundant supply competition for any single page naturally eases.
“But given the frenzied interest in the Socceroos, we observed that content around breakout players and, interestingly, the coaching staff in particular, was highly sought after, and the ad market paid a real premium to get in front of it, often before publishers had caught up with demand.
“The coaches and players were the real winners here as they became the sporting ambassadors that brands actually wanted to be seen next to.”
Jacob Italiano, a Socceroo, went from around four mentions a week before the tournament to 142 a week by the Socceroos’ final complete week - an increase of more than 3,200%.
Cristian Volpato, another Socceroo, went from roughly nine mentions a week to 122, up more than 1,300%.
“Cultural moments like the World Cup only roll around every four years, creating a narrow but highly enticing window for advertisers,” said Nasrallah.
“Bid density is one of the clearest signals of where the highest value or most sought after opportunities lie.
“And when marketers have access to the right insights in real time, they can flight their campaigns with confidence.”
The data also pointed to a broader opportunity for brands outside the official sponsor list.
Sponsor-related content clustered almost entirely around automotive coverage, consistent with Hyundai and Kia’s ongoing marketing activity in that category.
Content about players, the coaching staff and fan buzz, by contrast, showed up in pop culture, entertainment, video gaming and business and finance categories.
“These are genuinely different audiences to those a brand would reach by simply buying against the word ‘soccer’,” said Nasrallah.
“And that’s the whole idea behind reaching people in the right mindset, not just the right category, because audiences don’t sit in one content lane during spectacles like this, and neither should media plans.”
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