It’s Friday afternoon, blazing hot, and most people will have half a mind on their first cold pint/wine/cider of the weekend, so I’ll be quick(ish).
As often happens, when a big event comes up – whether it’s one that’s been in the offing for a while or a sudden occurrence – companies attach their marketing to it.
This marketing could be in the form of pre-planned poster/TV/press/radio campaigns (set out long before an event takes place), off-the-cuff content during the event, or reactionary traditional media campaigns.
However, there is a only a small window of opportunity – just before the event and at the very start of it, or just as the hype around it dies down – where any related marketing has an effect. After that point it just becomes a me-too campaign / me-too content.
(I did write a blog post, earlier this week, that mentioned Rik Mayall, but made sure that his death wasn’t the main focus of it and his mention was minimal)
The most obvious event to mention at the moment is, of course, the World Cup.
There’s been a slew of campaigns out, for various brands, across traditional media platforms, all of which would’ve been planned months in advance.
There’s also been an endless stream of content put out there, from various companies; large, medium, and small.
However, the window of opportunity for putting more World Cup-based content out there is closing.
#WorldCup is constantly in the top trends on Twitter, and will be for the next month.
The daily newspapers, back and front, are covered in ‘World Cup this….World Cup that’.
People will soon be saturated with articles, blog posts, Tweets in relation to the World Cup. In fact, I’ve already become immune to anything in social media feeds that references ‘World Cup’ or ‘#WorldCup’ – I’m naturally filtering that stuff out now, to read other things.
If your company is still putting out content in respect of the World Cup, I give it two more days before what you’re saying just gets lost in a sea of generic World Cup stuff (unless you’re a sports/betting/energy drink brand).
If you’re a company whose product/service has little to do with football e.g a firm of accountants or an opticians, continuing to post things in reference to the World Cup will start to appear a little tenuous and – dare I say it – desperate.
In fact, despite my interest in football, I’m currently looking for anything but World Cup articles/content, as a refreshing change.
I wonder how many other people are looking at things in the same way as me?