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Experian Hitwise identifies the brands topping the World Cup sponsorship league
Drinks brands Corona and Heineken have broken back into the top five performers of the Experian Hitwise World Cup Brand Search Index after three weeks outside of the fastest-movers' list.
In the final week of the competition, both brands had a strong finish, claiming the top two spots on the best performing brands list. Corona jumped 44 Index points, increasing its searches from last week by 50%. Meanwhile Heineken was the second most improved brand with a 25% increase in searches between the week ending July 3rd and the week ending July 10th.
Lufthansa, which also featured in last week’s top five, took the third spot this week with a 24.2% increase in search traffic. Automotive brand Chevrolet was featured in the top five for the first time since the tournament began, and sports brand Westfield rounded off the top five.
It’s perhaps no surprise that three of the top five brands to improve this week were sponsors of the teams which remained in the competition until the final weekend. Heineken (Netherlands) and Chevrolet (Spain) were both represented in the final, whilst Lufthansa (Germany) was represented in the 3rd place play-off.
Despite the impressive improvements of Corona and Heineken, the Food & Drink category was the worst performing sector in the Index. Food & Drink as a sector was down 4.7% from last week as a result of search traffic decreases for Carlsberg, Coca-Cola, Tesco and McDonald’s.
Experian Hitwise Director of Research, Robin Goad commented: “In the last week of the World Cup the beer brands stormed back to prominence as they did in the opening week of the competition. With the Netherlands reaching the final, Dutch brewers Heineken have clearly capitalised on the success of their sponsored team. Interestingly, in our analysis of top Spanish beer brands, including San Miguel, Damm and Mahou, none of these brands received additional traffic as a result of Spain reaching the final, perhaps indicating a missed marketing opportunity on behalf of those brands”.
The only category to report an overall improvement in searches was Automotive with an increase of 2.7%. Chevrolet, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz and Peugeot all contributed positively to the performance of the category; only Fiat and Kia saw dips in traffic in the sector.
Over the course of the World Cup, Travel was the most successful category in the Experian Hitwise World Cup Brand Search Index. The travel brands had the highest average Index score, and the two highest scoring brands in the Index over the five weeks both came from the Travel sector.
Tagged as: world cup | brands | advertising | experian.hitwise
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