Our World Cup Runneth Over

Now that we have just about a month's distance from final match of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, it's worth acknowledging that the 32-team, nine-stadium world championship delivered not only thrilling moments of athleticism, but also winning stats in terms of viewership. The tournament held a huge and engaged audience for each great pass, corner kick, diving save and goal -- and it scored big across multiple media platforms, TV and interactive alike.Changing consumption patterns coupled with the passion that Hispanic-American audiences demonstrated for the World Cup via interactive media were both groundbreaking things to witness. As a multiplatform company, Univision expected growth across most key metrics. But even we were surprised by the sheer size of the consumer's appetite for all things World Cup.The famed international competition celebrated its 80th anniversary this year, but it was also a milestone for Univision.com -- our 10th year in business.Milestones are always a good time to look back and take stock of what you've learned, and we're no exception. The soccer extravaganza unfolding in South Africa afforded us a chance to look back over the decade and think about audience growth in the context of a changing media marketplace. There was a lot to consider and even more to learn from it. I'd like to share some of that here. It's more important than ever that we consider the lifestyle of today's consumers and serve them through the lens by which they live their lives. They're not only more active and consuming more media and services, but they're also consuming in different ways. New, enabling technologies, embraced responsibly, are allowing audiences to connect with -- and stay connected to -- the things that matter most to them, both inside and outside of their homes. This includes extending the reach and value of their favorite programming as well as the information and services they need and use the most.The World Cup provided us with an irreplaceable opportunity to test this wisdom. It allowed us to experiment and to discover the best ways to connect to media-savvy, futbol-hungry consumers over a four-week period. The results? Audiences consumed our live, free streaming of the matches for a total of more than 10 million hours, across 2.4 million total unique media players. That is more than four hours per unique media player, with an average 90 minutes per day. We also enjoyed 34.7 million visits across our online and mobile platforms during the tournament. Online and mobile audiences checked out scores, read up on team records and player bios, viewed photo galleries in addition to the live video, and more. That is why we strategically branded the interactive experience as Univision Fútbol rather than Copa Mundial (World Cup) 2010. While millions of fans watched some of the world's best field athleticism on display, we were simultaneously making some moves of our own, driving toward providing the audience with year-round coverage of the tournaments, league play, teams and players that they follow so avidly.The development that pleased us most was how the interactive World Cup audience complemented television viewing. Live streaming online peaked during the weekday work hours when many people were at work and did not have easy access to Univision television coverage in HD. Both television and interactive audiences were record-breaking. The picture this paints for advertisers is the ability to get the best of all worlds -- a large, expanded and engaged audience immersed in the live streaming for some dayparts and an even larger total audience in the periods when television was the main source for Cup action.Perhaps the most valuable lesson here is both the power of relevancy and the unique opportunity that the TV/online/mobile nexus represents as an organizing principle for engaging audiences more deeply. With it, we have a meaningful way to reach consumers, connect with them and stay connected to them during the course of any given day, anytime, anywhere. We have this with different media platforms (TV, online, mobile, VOD, iTV) and deliver real value to marketing and advertising partners across these different media platforms in a way that is additive and complementary. Of course, relevancy begins with being available.It's hard to be relevant if you're not available to the consumer in the ways he or she wants to consume media, information and services. As a respected industry leader once told me, the longest and deepest relationships with consumers result from the realization that it is better to be loved than needed.For those brands that have yet to grasp the spending power of the exploding Hispanic marketplace in this country, I should mention another big event that took place in 2010 -- one that affected far more than sports fans and one that required neither TV nor Web. It was the 2010 Census, and it will soon provide hard data that will reinforce my contention that our audience is huge, and continually growing. How best to reach this demo? Well, you could always wait four years until the next World Cup, but there's really no need for that. Just make sure that Hispanic-American consumers can find your brands on a variety of media platforms daily. Trust me, the love will follow.Based in New York, Kevin Conroy serves as the president of Univision Interactive Media.

Brand Marketing

Our World Cup Runneth Over

Kevin Conroy

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Kevin Conroy