Moments That Matter: winning the biggest sporting events of the year

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

Welcome to The IAB UK Podcast.

James Chandler (0:07)

Hello, James Chandler here, and welcome to The IAB UK Podcast. This is episode two in our Summer Sports Two-Parter, where we're exploring how brands can win the moments that matter during one of the biggest cultural events in the world. Joining me today to unpack what it takes to stand out in what could be the noisiest World Cup yet is Andy Baker, Head of Strategy at Footballco, JT Tesfamariam, Content Sales Lead at YouTube, and PubMatic's Chief Revenue Officer, Emma Newman. Let's get into it.

Big World Cup, expanded World Cup, lots and lots of teams, new round of 32 We've waited four years for it. I mean, it does feel like this massive, massive sort of cultural moment. What is it about the magic of the World Cup that is so attractive for brands?

Andy Baker (0:52)

I think there's a lot. One of the things is just how culturally significant the tournament is. Sometimes people kind of map their life by World Cups, right? Everyone's got their first World Cup and they've got, you know, they know where they were at various iconic World Cup moments. It brings people together with their friends and family and it sort of brings countries together in a sort of special way, right? And so that kind of heightened sense of community on multiple levels is what brands are trying to tap into, right? So there's that sense of, you know, this is not just programming that gets a lot of eyeballs or, you know, formats that get a lot of views. It's more than that in terms of what it means to people, right? You know, and the excitement, whether that's about supporting your own team or just enjoying the sort of the new stories of the, you know, the players and the teams you didn't know before.

It's unique, right? And especially in today's world of where everything's so fragmented, it's not often that everyone's talking about the same thing, watching the same thing, enjoying the same thing at the same time. And so it's unique for that reason.

James Chandler (1:49)

You've been rather enjoying it.

Emma Newman (1:51)

I have actually, and I was a sceptic, right? I love football and, you know, the World Cup is a huge thing in my cultural calendar, I think, not even my sporting calendar. I think that's a really good point, right? This is a cultural event. It brings everybody together. We're all rushing home, you know, to watch the match. And we haven't said that since Luke, the one, the darts, right? When everyone says, look at him. You know, so for me, I think that's the difference between something like the World Cup versus a one-off football match. And this becomes a cultural event and people are talking. And I saw a stat, 47% of intent of viewers keep watching after their team is eliminated, which just signifies that this is more than just about football. And I think that those brands that understand that, and then lean into that with the relevance of their advertising and their messaging, they're the ones that sort of, I guess, take advantage, sometimes unknowingly, most times knowingly. And I think that point you made about multi-screening. So you're sort of sitting there, you're watching the footy, but then you're also texting with your mate going, did you see that?

And I think that's something that this is really starting to highlight. And even like the timing, because I think we all complained about the timing to begin with.

James Chandler (3:00)

The timing's superb.

Emma Newman (3:02)

I quite like having the, I mean, at one point I was confused as to what I was watching, because there were just so many going on at any one time. I mean, the 2am is a bit tricky, but the timing does mean that you are multi-screening and you are waking up in the morning and looking at things and the adjacency as well, the content that people are building, the adjacent piece. We talked about the rest is football on Netflix. They are not showing the football, but they are doing a fantastic job of bringing it to life, to an audience that perhaps aren't watching the matches or don't really understand the cultural relevancy.

James Chandler (3:30)

We are on the morning of the England game, we should say, the first England game versus Croatia in Texas tonight to set some context. But you have been enjoying things so far, despite England waiting so long for you to play?

JT Tesfamariam (3:39)

Yeah, I have been loving it. I think it has been an amazing World Cup so far. The fact that it is so many teams, so many new stories, it has been incredible on YouTube.