How to draw attention to the brand during a large-scale event
This June, the eyes of all football fans were on the main sporting event - the European Football Championship 2020
During the Euros, the Parimatch brand held a large-scale offline campaign for fans of the Ukrainian national team, attracting 15 thousand fans. With Euro 2020 as an example, CMO Parimatch Tech Ivan Liashenko shared recommendations on drawing attention to the brand during large-scale events.
What should brands do during important events: advice from CMO Parimatch Tech
CMO brands are often faced with the question, “Where best to invest more money: in a digital promotion or offline advertising?” In the case of the Euros, Ivan Liashenko advised applying the media mix. Events such as Euro 2020 are a great test of marketing efforts on the company's brand awareness throughout the year. Because the brand awareness at such events helps attract more and more customers, preparation for the event is not always enough to gain TOP of mind status with all customers.
Keep an event calendar
Quite often, brands leave things too late—mentioning an event a week before it happens gives you no time to prepare. That’s why it's so important to have a calendar of events planned at least six months ahead. The calendar is the basis of quality work in marketing and media. In the medium term, in your area of interest, you should always know what’s happening and when.
Analyze whether the event is important or appealing to your customers
Your goal is an important sporting event. For example, if your target audience is mothers with children under seven, it’s unlikely they’ll be interested in watching football. It is essential to understand whether the event has a specific value for your audience. You should not join the event if everyone does. When producing a particular marketing activity, it is first and foremost important that your audience considers it valuable.
Prepare a variety of creatives for the event
For example, in the field of betting and gambling, creatives burn out quite quickly—in gambling very quickly, in betting a little slower. So for this area, changing the creatives for the event is very important. However, for updates to be effective, you need "waves" of occasions. But you also need to analyze the waves: does the occasion have value for the event, or is it better to miss the event.
How did these tips work in the example of the Parimatch brand
Throughout the championship, the Parimatch brand took an active part in supporting the Euros, giving fans the opportunity to watch the matches of their favorite teams. However, to attract the attention of the brand's customers, it was no longer enough to use traditional promotion methods, such as online and offline communication on 360, or the current media split from the usual tools. That's why we were looking for more creative ways to engage the audience.
So Parimatch Ukraine gave all football fans the opportunity to watch the games on the big screen, creating a separate fan zone. The 4,000-square-meter LED screen is the largest in Europe. Occasions like these help our brand stay on the marquee and increase media and social networks mentions. During the event, we fixed a record number of bets: on the peak day of the Euros, the Ukraine-England match attracted 3.5 times more customers than on the peak days before the Euros, namely 25,000 customers.