World Cup 2014: New Data Reveals a Compelling Marketing Demographic

The consumer habits of American football fans are already well documented, with the Superbowl being the penultimate opportunity for advertisers to spend big and target consumer dollars.

But Soccer?

ITV’s coverage of the opening ceremonies of World Cup 2014 peaked at 12.6 million viewers. The spectacle included a variety of weirdness and kitsch, as well as a a performance from Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull, which ticked both boxes.

Actually Americans’ interest in soccer and the World Cup has been on the increase since World Cup 2006. For World Cup 2010, TV viewership reached record levels with average tune-in for live games on ESPN at 3.2million, a 40-percent increase from 2006. According to Nielsen, an estimated 111.6 million U.S. viewers watched at least 6 minutes games — considerable – and now soccer and its fans are well within the sightlines of Madison Avenue.

New data released from Experian Marketing Services reveals that what’s most interesting is how these fans are watching: U.S. World Cup fans are 31-percent more likely than average to watch online video across multiple devices, with 64-percent of adult fans watching online video during a typical week.

It should be noted, however, that 65-percent of those Americans are of Hispanic descent, which further underscores why brands across all markets are investing more in targeting Hispanics — the fast growing demographic in the United States.

FIFA’s dedicated app gave fans a way to keep track of games and up-to-the minute news on their favorite players and teams. Experian reports that soccer fans are using multiple devices to stay in touch with the event.

“This is a digitally and technologically savvy audience,” says Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Experian. “They don’t care how they watch their favorite programs, just as long as they are able to watch them. Expect to see the 2014 World Cup broadcasted everywhere the fans are this year, whether that’s at their desk computer or during their commute.”

Of the 25,000 U.S. adults surveyed in the Experian study, 60-percent used live-stream video on a work computer, 37-percent used a digital tablet, and a 60-percent used a sports app on their phone.

The most compelling data in this study, though, is that this customer is shopping while they watch, and not where you might think they’d shop.

Of the 25,000 surveyed adults, 60-percent will live-stream games on their computer at work. Since 2006, soccer and the World Cup has shown an exponential increase in interest in the U.S.

“The average household incomes and spending on discretionary products and services among World Cup fans are higher than average confirming that there is greater ability to afford luxury products,” says John Fetto at Experian Marketing Services.

“For instance, World Cup fans are 2.7 times more likely than average to shop at Neiman Marcus, 2.5 times more likely to shop at Lord & Taylor, 2.1 times more likely to shop at Nordstrom and 2.0 times more likely to shop at Saks Fifth Avenue. Likewise, top indexing auto brands include Infinity, Mercedes Benz, BMW, Subaru and Lexus.”

So can these insights potentially influence advertisers and marketers? Experian has launched an exclusive trends dashboard to bring instantly updated data on fans social media and interactive behavior – valuable insight for their target market strategy.

Until only recently, U.S. brands showed only a mild interest in advertising during World Cup Games, however that’s changing and Experian Marketing Services believes the 2014 games could make marketers take a second look. 

“The three online dashboards that we’ve set up will track the most searched for players, the top sites for soccer-related news and the search keywords driving traffic to FIFA.com,” says Fetto. “This will provide marketers with information that they need to identify potential celebrities for product endorsement, for instance. We already know that World Cup fans are more likely than average to buy products used by celebrities, so knowing which players are hot is key. Knowing where fans are getting their news will also help in media planning in order to get their message in front of fans on highly trafficked sites.”

So will American brands increase their ad revenues for future World Cups? It’s still too early to tell. Certainly Budweiser and McDonalds have spent big on this year’s games, but overall, middle Americans still view soccer the same way they do cricket and yachting: foreign.

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