soccer stars | WhaleTales Blog by Chris von Ulmenstein

The World Cup was an unprecedented success, in terms of its organisation and the tremendous goodwill it caused amongst locals as well as international soccer fans. In addition, and having a longer lasting effect, is that the above-the-line media as well as social media impact of the World Cup set new records for this event, not just for South Africa, but for the soccer body FIFA too.

* 3,2 million soccer fans attended the 32 matches around the country, and about one third of the tickets were bought by about 350000 international visitors – the word-of-mouth feedback to their friends and family is the most credible marketing South Africa could wish for, and is free-of-charge!

* Highest TV coverage ever was achieved, and reached an unprecedented 700 million viewers for the Final alone

* The online coverage was the most dramatic, because much of it was a new way of communicating to soccer fans and about the World Cup, reports the Weekend Argus:

+ BBC News online ran 120 stories, and the Washington Post 48 stories during the World Cup, both being influential online newspaper services

+ The FIFA.com website had 150 million unique visitors during the World Cup, three times as many as in 2006.

+ South Africa’s unique identity, personality and character was woven into the soccer reporting by the international online media, and so the country’s ability to manage the tournament, and our unique vuvuzela and makarapa became world terms on blog posts, Twitter, comments to blog posts and online articles, and on Facebook.

+ The value of the online coverage was just short of R30 million, based on 148 million persons communicating about South Africa in the context of the World Cup online, calculated by BrandsEye, a local online agency. This value was created by soccer fans and the media for free, and did not cost South African Tourism a cent in coverage!

+ Just more than half of the mentions (58%) about the country came from the USA, a surprisingly small 10% from the UK, and only 8% from South Africa.

+ The mentions were analysed in terms of degree of positivity, and 55% were “strongly positive”, 40% were factual or neutral in terms of content, and 5% were negative.

+ Twitter played an important role in spreading the word about South Africa, not only via celebrity (e.g. Paris Hilton has more than 2 million followers) and soccer star Tweets, but also Twitter accounts with huge numbers of followers (e.g. Sports Illustrated, with close to 285000 followers).

In June traffic to the Whale Cottage website almost trebled to 129000 unique visitors, due to the World Cup, but also due to the engagement of Prince Albert and Charlene Wittstock, as the blog contains a post about the couple attending a New Year’s party in Fresnaye 18 months ago.

It has also been reported that the great World Cup coverage for South Africa has raised the bar for the marketing of Brazil. The 2014 World Cup host country has started its marketing already, by launching an international marketing campaign four years ahead of its tournament, a first in the history of the FIFA World Cup, says Dr Niklaus Eberl, an internal branding consultant for the German and South African World Cups (no doubt for Brazil to come too!).

In Business Day Dr Eberl was reported as saying the the Brazilian tourism agency Ambratur has launched an ambitious marketing strategy, which plans to double the number of tourists to Brazil (to 10 million per year, the same target as that of South Africa) and treble the value of tourism in the next ten years. The “Brazil is calling you” campaign aims to reach 400 million consumers in 100 countries, with a budget of $30 million this year alone. Brazil’s President Lula da Silva said: “The success of our African brothers represents a tremendous challenge to the Brazilian people. We are learning from them to ensure that we will present a World Cup as beautiful as 2010”. The Brazilian marketing budget is said to make that of South Africa look like “small change”! Brazil is planning to spend five times the R30 billion of South Africa on its infrastructure. The country also wants to equal or better South Africa’s 90 % score from FIFA for its handling of the World Cup.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

About 18 300 volunteers, out of close to 68 000 applicants, have been appointed in key strategic areas, to assist in the running of the 2010 World Cup at the ten stadiums around the country. About 70 % of the volunteers are resident in South Africa, while the rest of the volunteers come from the other 31 qualifying nations.

The training of the 2 500 volunteers selected for Cape Town took place ten days ago, and ran smoothly, given the size of the group. Volunteers were told that they are the face of South Africa for the event, and will act as important tourism ambassadors.

Functional areas in which the selected volunteers will provide support are accreditation, administration, IT and telecommunications, environmental services, language support, logistic services, marketing, media, protocol services, transportation, volunteer management, welcome and information services, rights protection programme, spectator services, ticketing, and hospitality services. Most Cape Town volunteers will start working from early June, and will be mainly based at the Volunteer Centre at the Cape Town Stadium.

Volunteers were told: “Hosting the World Cup in South Africa is a once in a lifetime opportunity for many people, the story of which will be told for decades. Not only will you be involved in a world class event and making history, you will meet people from all nationalities, learn new skills and have the opportunity to work with cutting edge technology and experts in the fields of event and sports management”.

In Cape Town the volunteers saw many videos, to help explain aspects of the World Cup, and to communicate key tourism facts about South Africa, as well as about their Host City Cape Town. So, for example, volunteers learnt that South Africa has eight UNESCO World Heritage sites: Richtersveld, Greater St Lucia, Sterkfontein Caves, Robben Island, Vredefort Dome, Cape floral kingdom, Drakensberg Park, and Mapungubwe National Park. They learnt that Cape Town has five of the six most visited tourism attractions: Robben Island, Table Mountain, the Winelands, Cape Point and the V & A Waterfront. Sadly, the Southern Right whales were not included in the training programme.

The volunteers were also introduced to the Cape Town Stadium, which will be a 68 000 seater stadium for the World Cup, and then reduced to 55 000 seats. The stadium was built in three years by 2 500 workers, the roof weighs 4 700 tons, the stadium has 500 toilets, 16 lifts, and 115 entry turnstiles. Volunteers were given a ticket each to attend the two soccer matches on Saturday a week ago, so that they could experience the stadium first hand. The Cape Town Stadium has been praised by FIFA Secretary-General Jerome Valcke as the best World Cup stadium of all. Cape Town will host the largest hospitality villages of all the stadiums in South Africa during the World Cup.

The legacy of the World Cup for Cape Town was explained, with a R 4,5 million stadium and green park area surrounding it, the Athlone and Philippi stadium upgrades, the Cape Town station upgrade, the Grand Parade upgrade, the Cape Town International upgrade, the Hospital Bend traffic upgrade, and the R3,2 billion Bus Rapid Transport system.

The vision was declared to be to host a memorable event, which will enhance the image of South Africa and Africa, and to build new partnerships, leading the country to “be significant global players in all fields of human endeavour”. The mission was defined as “mobilising South Africans to organise an African FIFA World Cup with precision, innovation and flair”, to “extend an unforgettable South African welcome to the world”, and to “collaborate with all stakeholders in a dynamic partnership based on integrity and excellence”.

Volunteers were advised to not defend South Africa if they were challenged about negative aspects, and to promote the good about the country, to smile, and to display national pride.

On the last day of the three-day training program the volunteers met in their functional areas, and this is when they really got excited about the role they will play, and the opportunities they have to possibly see or even meet their soccer star heroes, given their functional responsibility. In May the volunteers meet at the Cape Town Stadium in their functional groups, for detailed orientation at the stadium, and for training in their functional area of responsibility. Let the games begin!

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com