Budweiser Is Ready to ‘Light Up the FIFA World Cup’ on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

Budweiser and parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev have a few initiatives on tap on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia, which kicks off Thursday. Voting for the Man of the Match Award for each match in the tournament returns to Twitter after what the social network called a “successful partnership” during 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil. As soon as the first half of each World Cup match concludes, fans can access the voting portal via @FIFAWorldCup, where they can vote for their Man of the Match. Those votes can be changed through the final whistle. Voting is available in five languages: English, Spanish, French, German and Portuguese. Once a Twitter user casts his or her vote, an auto-populated tweet is generated with the player’s name, match hashtag and #ManOfTheMatch. When voting concludes, @FIFAWorldCup will announce the winner via a tweet featuring a video of action from the match, as well as an interview with the winner. Those winners will also appear on Facebook and Instagram “within minutes,” as Budweiser will team up with SocialCode to create video ads and 3D images of the players. Targeting for this content will be determined in real-time, based on where the player is from and countries likely to be most interested in the news. Facebook detailed the three targeting options it developed for 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia, all of which are anonymized and presented in bundles: Match Maniacs (103 million worldwide): Football isn’t just an interest for these young men, it’s a lifestyle. These highly-engaged fans have the free time to follow teams, matches and players closely. They are 2.7 times more likely than other football fans to mention words related to a match on Facebook. Homeland Heroes (160 million worldwide): For these fans, football is cultural. They’re older than Match Maniacs and are more evenly split between men and women. As moderately engaged fans, they don't keep up with every match, but they'll tune into the ones that matter. Social Supporters (307 million worldwide): This group doesn’t follow football year-round, but as friends of other fans, they get swept up in the excitement around the World Cup. They are mostly women, and they are more likely than other fans to post about food and drink on Facebook and Instagram. There will also be a Budweiser Messenger bot in the U.K., enabling fans there to buy or enter to win tickets, take quizzes and buy beer. On-site in Moscow, AB InBev will host state-of-the-art studio space Bud Studios, offering creators tools, WiFi access and an Instagram Gravity booth, where they can experiment and take photos to share via Instagram and Facebook. Back to the U.K., Stonegate Pub is teaming up with Budweiser to help drive foot traffic to 80 different bars by running branded content carousel ads on the social network, showcasing each location and information on how to find it, as well as Budweiser. Budweiser will also run direct-response ads on Facebook to drive awareness and sales of its Red Light Cup, which lights up in response to noises such as fans cheering, as well as to drive sales of the beer itself in U.K. grocery chains such as Tesco and via its exclusive partnership in the country with Amazon.