Moments That Matter: winning the biggest sporting events of the year

Speaker A: Welcome to the IAB UK podcast.

Speaker B: Hello.

Speaker C: James Chandler here and welcome to the IAB UK podcast. This is episode two in our summer Sports two parter, where we're exploring how brands can win the moments that matter during one of the biggest cultural events in the world. Joining me today to, um, unpack what it takes to stand out in what could be the noisiest World cup yet is Andy Baker, head of strategy, ah. At Football Co, JT Tesmoferian, content sales lead at YouTube, and PubMatic's chief revenue officer, Emma Newman. Let's get into it. Big World cup, expanded World cup, lots and lots of teams, new round of 32. We've waited four years for it. I mean, it does feel like this massive, massive sort of cultural moment. What is it about the kind of the magic of the World cup that is so attractive for brands?

Speaker B: I think there's a lot. One of the things is, you know, just how culturally significant the tournament is. Lots of people kind of map their life by World Cups, right? Everyone's got their first World cup and they've got, you know, they know where they were at, various iconic work at moments. It brings people together with their, uh, friends and family and it sort of brings countries together in a sort of special way. Right. And so that kind of heightened sense of community, uh, on multiple levels is what brands are trying to tap into. Right. So there's that sense of, you know, this is not just programming that gets a lot of eyeballs or, you know, formats that get a lot of views. It's more than that in terms of what it means to people. Right. You know, and the excitement, whether that's about supporting your own team or just enjoying the sort of the new stories of the, you know, the players and the teams you didn't know before, it's, it's, it's unique, right. And especially in today's world of where everything's so fragmented, it's not often that everyone's talking about the same thing, watching the same thing, enjoying the same thing at the same time. And so it's unique.

Speaker C: For that reason, you've been rather enjoying it.

Speaker A: I have actually. And I was a skeptic, right. I love football and, you know, the World cup is, ah, a huge thing in my cultural calendar, I think not even my sporting calendar. I think that's a really good point.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker A: This is a cultural event. It brings everybody to together. We're all rushing home, you know, to watch the match. And we haven't said that since Luke won the darts, right? When everyone says Remember him? You know, so for me, and I think that's the difference between something like the World cup versus a one off football match and this becomes a cultural event and people are talking and I saw a stat 47 of intent of viewers keep watching after their team is eliminated. Which just signifies that this is more than just about football. Yeah. And I think that those brands that understand that and then lean into that with the relevance of their advertising and their messaging, they're the ones that sort of, I guess, take advantage sometimes unknowingly, most times knowingly.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I think that point you made about multi screening, so you're sort of sitting there, you're watching the footy, but then you're also texting with your mate going, God, did you see that? And you know, and I think that's something that this is really starting to highlight. And even like the timing because I think we all complained about the timing to begin with, but timing superb. I quite like. I mean, at one point I was confused as to what I was watching because there were just so many going on. Anyway, one time, I mean, the 2:00am is a bit tricky. But you know, the timing does mean that you are multi screening and you are waking up in the morning and looking at things and the adjacency as well, the content that people are building, the, you know, the adjacent piece we talked about, the rest is football on Netflix. They're not showing the football, but they're doing a fantastic job of bringing it to life to an audience that, uh, perhaps aren't watching the matches or don't really understand the cultural relevancy.

Speaker C: We're on the morning of the England game, we should say the first England game versus Croatia in Texas tonight to set some context. But you've been enjoying things so far, despite England waiting so long for England.

Speaker D: Yeah, I've been loving it. I think it's been an amazing World cup so far. The fact that it's so many teams, so many new stories, it's been incredible on YouTube. You know, the, the World cup has just come alive. Like you can't help but discover content on the platform, whether that is highlights. So even on the way in today. So up on all of the highlights, you need to do that before you then go into the kind of like huge library of content. If you want to enjoy the podcast, you need to know what happened in the game to be about that kind of conversation. So we are all waking up in the morning learning about not just Messi scoring a hat trick last night, but, um, you Know, you should have potentially got a red card and different opinions

Speaker A: and different kind of should have been a penalty. The French should have had a penalty last night, you know.

Speaker C: Exactly.

Speaker D: So it's going beyond just, I think historically, you know, the days of the kind of broadcasters owning the content for these moments, you had one destination to go to to kind of consume that content and one set of opinions. Whereas now, you know, I'm biased on YouTube. But you have like a slew of creators providing their own point of view and their own audience that uh, are kind of like attracted to that kind of content. So yeah, it's been a brilliant start to the World Cup. Come with England tonight.

Speaker C: Tell me a bit more about creators because that is a definite shift and I remember thinking about my first World cup and World Cups that you kind of watched since then. It was very much, it was around the game, it was around the, maybe the build up in the 90 minutes. It's everything that's around that now. And I think creators are sort of driving that.

Speaker D: Yeah, 100% they are. They provide the additional angles we Talk about on YouTube. The fact that we offer every angle of every kind of cultural moments and no more than, than the World cup, like being able to, to have live watch alongs, particularly you know, considering some of the times of the games. You know, just watching the Norway game last night, it's not that many of my mates that are awake watching that game. Whereas you know, you can be co viewing the game with Mark Goldbridge on, on uh, his. That's football channel. Yeah, yeah. And all of a sudden you're via his live chat, a part of a, you know, hundred thousand plus community of people that are all kind of watching the same moment at the same time around the world. It's a pretty unique kind of experience too.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point because there's a lot of talk at the moment, you know, about bringing people together for live events. You know, they're going to live concerts, they want to go to live sporting events, then they want to share it, they want to be part of the, the bigger conversation and that opens the phenomenon up to brands in a way that when you've just got, you know, one match on one channel live that they haven't been able to do in the past and it's about, you know, how, how are they reacting to that moment and I think that's really important. In the days of past you would plan your budget to win an end of its degree. 90 will be on, um, for this. At this particular moment, this particular time. And then when something really interesting happens, you can't respond. Yeah. And you can't react. And that sort of takes you. That makes you less relevant as a brand. So being able to make sure that you can, yes, plan, but also then keep something back for those cultural moments that you weren't expecting so that you can respond and react in a way that's relevant to the audience and to the conversation that's happening. Yeah, I think that's what's also changing and I think that's incredibly important.

Speaker B: The creators themselves are so sort of dynamic by nature as well.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: That they will follow the stories, whether that's, you know, the fan stories of the Scotland fans in Boston or whether it's, you know, the backpack stories from the pitch etc, and, and like, so I show speed. For example, he's an official FIFA creator partner. Right. And. But he, you know, he doesn't know right now exactly what match he's going to. You know, he's sort of selling his live streams, but, you know, doesn't know if we can to this quarterfinal, that quarterfinal, etc. Because he'll be following the big stories and the big teams. It's so much more dynamic and in a good way in the sense of, you know, it's driven by the authenticity of the creators, knowing where the big stories are and what their audiences want, which is obviously ultimately going to get the brands that work with them closer to the things that really matter to the. To the fans.

Speaker A: And I think that's really important because the big stories aren't necessarily happening where you think they're going to happen. Right. You know, nobody. Nobody batted an eyelid when Germany won 7 1. That was just kind of expected. That wasn't a big story. Nobody stopped talking about Cape Verde parking the bus for Spain. And no one expected that to be the big story. Right. We all thought that was going to be a walkover. And so it's being able to have that flexibility. And I think that's what's really exciting about this World Cup.

Speaker C: Tell me a bit more about brands. You know, there's tiers and there's kind of layers. There's the official FIFA partnerships that we kind of, you know, we could name those brands. On one hand, there's kind of people that align themselves with national teams, I think about some M and S around home nation, Scotland and England, and then it kind of splinters out and there's brands that are aligning with kind of different things. Are there kind of rules or A playbook to uh, brands that can get involved and can't get involved. Or is that kind of all out the window now?

Speaker B: I think anyone can get involved if they, if they have the right sort of strategy.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: We did some research that showed that actually younger audiences put much more weight on creative partnerships than they did on an official FIFA partnership. But I think the brands that have official FIFA partnerships can still really leverage that to their advantage if they plan well and, and kind of use their kind of soul and exclusive, whether that's, you know, player of the match or power rankings or whatever they might have, is that if they use that in a way to offer something of value to audiences ultimately then you know, it can still be really powerful. But you know, any brand, through talent, partnership, creative partnership, or just smart media buyers can, can still show up at the right time in the right place and kind of make it work for them. And, and crucially I think kind of pass the sniff test from fans who uh, you know, are uh, not necessarily actively on the lookout for those sort of bandwagon jumping brands that get it wrong, but they certainly, you know, if they see it, they know it. Right. So you do have to sort of, you know, give careful consideration to where

Speaker C: you show up and there's that authenticity I think, when it comes to creators as well. To Andy's point, I think you can kind of tell if it's, they're sort of covering something that is just very brand that they haven't before. But that sort of realness is really important.

Speaker D: Yeah, you run the risk of selling out to your audience by chasing the kind of money. So your creators can be quite selective in terms of the brands that they, they kind of work with because the, the brand recognizes the appeal and the attention that that creator's audience are willing to kind of like lean into. So uh, being able to ensure that the brand that a creator is kind of partnering with is genuinely kind of authentic to the content they create and the audience that they're attracting, I think just makes it super kind of compelling. But to the point, in terms of it's not just FIFA official brands that are kind of showing up on YouTube and other platforms because of the fact we have this huge ecosystem of content contributors. It's, you know, we talk about creators, but it's also the teams, you know, England, they have a partnership with ee. Lions Den is an incredible unique access to the players throughout the whole of the World Cup. EE's kind of present through that is an extension of their partnership with England on YouTube. But then you have like, Erling Haaland had an incredible game yesterday. He's also a YouTuber as much as he is a, uh, player. He has a partnership with Revolut and that's being shown up on his content as well. So you have. These brands are not officially kind of associated with FIFA, but have associations with craters or some of these players and teams that have a right to, to kind of play and, and show up during.

Speaker B: The key thing about what you said, there is not just the sponsorship, but the way they're activating it, uh, in content at the right time, on the right channels that fans want.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker B: So, you know, they can. There's loads of people that have, you know, a shirt sleeve patch, but that doesn't mean anything if you don't create the right content off the back of it.

Speaker A: I think that's where this World Cup. There's been a shift change in this World Cup. Yes, there's a, there's more games, but there's actually, to your, your guys point, there's a lot more adjacent creative, um, that's being developed. The sniff test I think is critically important and everyone's quite cynical about the hydration break. Right. I've heard lots of cynicism around that and I don't know why anybody didn't think that was just an ad break. But anyway, whatever.

Speaker C: Missed opportunity.

Speaker A: Hugely, hugely missed opportunity. But I think that the point is that brands need to be able to maintain a degree of flexibility so that they can react in the moment. So I'm going to challenge a little bit your point about, you know, as long as they plan. Well. I think part of the joy of this World cup is that, yes, you obviously, you need planning is table stakes, like, get the bases covered. We know some of the things you're going to have to do if you're a brand, but withhold some of that budget so that you can react in the moment, so that it does feel authentic, so that you are tapping into the conversations that are going on. And I think sort of CTV and multi screening is critical for this. And also obviously I work at Pubmatic, so this is where Programmatic comes into play. If you can hold back that budget and react in the moment, then Programmatic is going to enable you to do that, you know, in a way that actually opens this up to way more brands than would have officially, you know, officially been partners of FIFA, because it doesn't require, uh, you know, an upfront commitment of tens of millions of dollars. You know, you can react in the moment. At uh, much smaller budgets. It's much, I feel like it's democratizing the access to the content that perhaps we haven't seen in the past.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think very broadcaster led. It was kind of tied up in these big things. When you're talking to, uh, partners, you're talking to agencies. There is a bit of a mindset sit there. I mean, people like to have this thing planned up, you know, a year, a year beforehand.

Speaker A: I mean, come on. Like most, most media owners would also like them to be planning a year in of. Yes.

Speaker C: So I can't give you any visibility on this, but I have got some money. I'm not sure where I'm going.

Speaker A: I just don't know where I'm going to, you know, and I know that that's slightly anxiety inducing for everybody involved, quite frankly, because, you know, we've been brought up as planners. But, you know, you are seeing that shift, right? You're seeing things like TV upfronts are becoming perhaps less of a big deal than they were in the past. You are, you are seeing people learning to embrace the slight uncertainty of being of, you know, reacting in the moment. Um, but yes, it does, it does cause anxiety. When you're looking at your forecasting going, where's the money?

Speaker C: Is there. We talk about the sliding scale of, you know, big, big brands. FIFA, uh, partnered brands all the way down to creators. Is there a sort of a difference in. If you're a brand working with some of those creators, you are seeding a bit more control there. Uh, you are placing more trust in creators. I guess it's very regimented, very sort of strict at that top level. What are the sort of, the brands that are doing this best? What's the kind of characteristics of how they're sort of placing a lot of trust in these creators?

Speaker D: Exactly that point. I think first of all, identifying creators that are a good fit for you as a brand, but then relinquishing that kind of creative control, trusting the creator through the kind of briefing process, exactly what you're looking to achieve through the kind of partnership and then empowering the creator to kind of do what they do. You know, the reason why you've kind of partnered with them in the first place is and kind of benefit from that, I think where it's, it's not seen so, so kind of effective is when it's clearly, uh, a kind of badging exercise and you're kind of force feeding a message that overtakes the kind of authentic content that the creator naturally develops for that kind of audience. So I think that is super kind of critical. Audiences kind of see between you know, the lines. They can, they can see when it's something that is replacing the expected content versus kind of enhancing the content that they're used to on the platform.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's where I think again businesses like football coach, you can have a role to play in terms of we're not a sort of single creator, we're a content business, a publisher if you like, in old terms. But we obviously work a lot with creators and talent but we've got that slightly more robust ecosystem of content. We're very multi market as well. So it means that we're working with some of the official partners like Coca Cola, Kia, uh, Aramco, and they are um, obviously global brands that want global activations and that we can kind of coordinate the same approach, uh, in terms of the territory where they're showing up and the IP that they're leveraging, etc. But work with local creators and localized executions to bring it to life. And we're, we're leveraging tools like AI to enable us to do sort of, you know, daily production which to the point of needing to be reactive means that broadly speaking the budget is allocated but the actual execution, you know, where you're showing up, what's being talked about, you know, even to an extent, the type of format that's being created and the platforms that it's being executed on is all very flexible throughout the tournament to make sure that you're kind of following the attention, if you like, following where the fans attention actually is and tapping into that with your sort of branded messaging.

Speaker A: And that will change, you know, as the competition progresses, won't it? So and I think that's the other thing when, when you approach this as a brand or even as a creator, this isn't a one off opportunity. This is a multi week, you know, multi platform M opportunity. And so that is for me that's where this is really starting to change. How brands think, how creators think, how we plan, how we buy, where we're prepared, what are we measuring. And I think that's the bit that sometimes also gets sort of lost in the noise, you know, what is the return of the investment that a brand is making, um, and how are they thinking about that and how are they measuring and are they measuring it in the moment and then are they flexing what they're doing, you know, as the competition progresses? And I think that that's the bit also that having, I guess so much Access and so many different opportunities and so many different platforms enables brands to also test in the moment as. And I think that's really important.

Speaker D: Yeah, I think it's a combination of the kind of creative that you have more important than ever. Like that creative toolkit becomes critical. Like if you're showing up across all these different platforms, combination of longer term planning. What's uh, our kind of hero creative and how does that show up reactively during the moment? You know, how do you scale back potentially on a team that isn't doing as well or reacting to kind of like new heroes that you weren't expecting is critical. But then the second part of that is then how you amplify that content. So on YouTube we have the unique kind of proposition of longer form content as well as short form content. And actually, you know, I think it's 68% of people consume and enjoy. The fact that YouTube offers both short and long form is a kind of attractive kind of element of it. We have AI powered solutions whether it's driving reach, engagement or to, to your point, you know, depending on the kind of objective. If it's further down the funnel, you know, Deliveroo, for example, looking to drive action, app downloads or kind of orders. Yeah, there's a solution to be able to combine the unique kind of creative toolkit and select the right creative within there and amplify that across the different solutions that we have.

Speaker C: Yeah. Emma was saying how much she's enjoying some of the kickoff times. A football cover and something quite neat about the fact that we've got kind of later times and there's, there's kind of something going on culturally. There's maybe some, some new opportunities. What do these later kickoff times for us certainly mean?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think there's both challenges and opportunities and lots of it ties into what we've already talked about. In terms of those, the broadcast spikes won't be as big. Right. With some exceptions around England games and the home nation games and um, other home nations are available, we should say, and some later. But you know, the sort of classic kind of passive broadcast experience of, you know, the game's on in the office or I'm watching it whilst working from home, et cetera, that isn't there. I've personally been struggling to stay awake for those 11 o' clock kickoffs. So what that means as we were talking about is that this sort of catch up moment in the morning is super important and there's so many layers to that. Right. In terms of whether it is straight highlights or it's your creator hot takes, or it's a daily podcast or it's whatever. Right. And that is, I think, a, uh, real opportunity for brands, right, in that there is a kind of more of a proliferation of where that kind of iconic moment will be. Lots of people will have, you know, found out what about Messi's hat trick, you know, seven o' clock this morning, not when it happened. Right. So those moments are still there, but it's like they've shifted and they've spread in terms of how people consume them. And obviously there's the kind of, you know, WhatsApp conversations and Snapchat messages, etc. Alongside all of the curated media. So I think you just think it's really interesting and just again, back to how World Cups feel to fans and the moments they remember, etc. That'll be slightly different. There's still going to be those collective, in real life moments around certain things, but also the broader consumption of the tournament will be slightly more spread out. And also because there's more teams, more matches, the whole thing is pretty, yeah, spread out. Right.

Speaker A: And I think it kind of almost throws the whole concept of day parting on its head, you know, because you're developing an ad campaign, for example, that you think is going to run at 11pm or 2am in the morning. I mean, you're not thinking about. Well, actually the vast majority of the match is going to be watched really, while I'm commuting on the train via some catch up device or via a creator, whatever it may be. How do you make that advertising message relevant for 2:00am or 8:00am or what, you know, whatever it may be. So I think that's also something, it's a headache for people, but it's also, it's a huge opportunity for people to, you know, to really tap into. I, I'm quite big into like testing and learning. So I think that this is a really good opportunity for lots of brands and creators actually to think about, okay, what's working at what time and yeah, but obviously you need real time data to be able to.

Speaker C: Of course. And I wonder if the sort of the late kickoffs allow a, uh, better reaction to Messi's goal. Yes, you can do the in, kind of the in the moment thing, but actually what you're afforded here is kind of an overnight to think about. Well, how do we then shut the next day? The analysis on the podcast is better,

Speaker D: whatever it might be, the morning after, the night before, kind of to your point is, is like a Quite unique and special opportunity for brands to, to kind of show up in the morning with, to your point, day parting. Usually it was all around the game and also in the evening.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: Whereas actually now as people are commuting into work and want to be a part of the conversation in the office, you need to have watched the content and had some sort of kind of update from your favorite podcasters or, you know, whoever the creator may be. It's definitely, uh, a kind of nuanced but uh, really kind of creatively exciting kind of opportunity for brands.

Speaker C: I was on the train this morning at half past seven. I looked, I saw four other people watching the Norway highlights on YouTube as well. I should say other platforms are available of course, but they were watching YouTube.

Speaker B: It was incredible.

Speaker C: We've talked about this incredible democratization. Everyone can have a little bit of the World Cup. There's probably more brands than ever involved. The sort of the shadow to that, I guess it becomes harder to stand out than ever before. What uh, are sort of top tips in terms of how do you stand out from the crowd in this? When there's more brands, there's more themes, there's more of everything.

Speaker D: Yeah, I think clean, culturally relevant is really important. So it's not just a matter of going. Here is a huge cultural moment. We have a creative, we're just going to turn up with that. Like it's thinking about who the audience you're looking to kind of connect with. What are they kind of interested in at the time. So clearly it's going to be World cup related. We have kind um, of creative ABCD at YouTube that we talk to creative agencies and brand about. So A is all about attract. How can you kind of ensure you're capturing the attention of the user as quickly as the ad is being served? B is branding historically, you know, TV ads would leave the branding until the end. But in this kind of notion of competing for attention and the ability to kind of skip ads, you need to ensure that the branding is a lot earlier than before. C is then the kind of connection, like, what is the story you're telling and how are you telling that? You know, if you, if you look at kind of Nike and Adidas's ads, for example, one is more on the nostalgia side of things, whereas the other is more kind of entertainment and humor. Both are kind of connecting with audiences on a, on a kind of like emotional level. And then D is like, what is the kind of thing you want people to do? What's the direction you're sending people to afterwards. And then that coupled with what I was saying earlier in terms of that creative toolkit, making sure you're ready to have a version of the story you want to tell depending on if they're watching content vertically, short form content they're enjoying longer form content on the platform, what is that version of the kind of creative that you want to tell. And then finally with creators becoming more at the forefront, we're seeing this kind of combination of brand ads being married with creator partnerships. So the combination of a brand showing up on YouTube and other platforms with their own kind of creative, but then this kind of relinquishing creative control and telling a version of that story via creators.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'd add another letter to that if you like, which is V for virality. Oh, so I know. God.

Speaker C: Yeah. You know what they've done with the abcd. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: I've just gone straight to that.

Speaker C: I could think of that.

Speaker A: But you can take that back. It's yours for free.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, and I think that you know something where to your point, James, if you want cut through, you're going to want. People need to want to share that experience. So you talked about the Nike and the Adidas. You know, I wouldn't have discovered them frankly by myself. It's only because my son has sent me a link going watch this. And so I think that also people are, are thinking about that. Some people go, well it's a bit cynical, I don't think. I think it's just making your media work harder. I would also think, you know, brands that can tap into the. And it has to be A, B, C, D. It has to tap all of those things as well. But you also think about, you know, how viral can this be? How are people going to share this? Yeah, and I think that's something that I've seen more brands think about moving forward.

Speaker B: I think the. That can either be quite mass like Timothy Chalamet. Right. That, that uh, is going to help you to cut through to a uh, very excitable audience. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker A: Having the best time.

Speaker B: He is apparently a massive football fan. Right. So is it. There's an element of authenticity.

Speaker C: Big basketball guy just a week before, I mean, you know, he's

Speaker A: multi life mate.

Speaker B: Yeah. Or it can be. But that kind of sense of um, you know, how you cut through beyond just a media buy can be much more niche.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: So you know, if you look at cultural intersectionality into other kind of touch points like food or music or fashion etc. It can be much more Targeted. And actually Nike obviously did an interesting thing away from the hero ad where they did the partnerships with local fashion houses around all their team launches. Right. So the England one with Palace. Yes. French one with. I can't pronounce it and four or five others. And so what that does, it makes it relevant to kind of the streetwear community in the UK in a way that if they just saw it, you know, as a, a national team kit launch at the same time as doing other ones, it doesn't, you know, stand out and resonate as authentically. Worked with a charity partner and made it kind of matter more in a localized way. In that case, we're kind of fashion skew.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: And lots of brands are doing interesting things with music crossover and food and other things, etc, and I think that ability to find a kind of story that matters can really help it stand out. And again, like you say, be shareable and go like we've done some stuff that is kind of more, I guess, more traditional in the sense of stories that matter in the sense of worked with Kia, uh, who uh, have the official match ball carriers, the kids that carry the ball out on the pitch, et cetera, which is just, you know, that's a Kia branded T shirt on the kind of live broadcast moment. But we've been telling the stories of all the kids that are doing it from around the world, how they got there, what soccer means to them in their local community, et cetera, brought them together with kind of World cup legends to kind of add that surprise and delight moment, et cetera. And that kind of, of, you know, again has those shareable moments because of the kind of human interest nature that people are then passing it on because, you know, it's, it's, you know, a cute kid having this kind of emotional reaction to, uh, going to the World Cup.

Speaker C: Such a missed opportunity not to have the mini Kia car bring on.

Speaker B: I know people, people are lamenting the fact that the ball car's not.

Speaker C: We have that. We had that. Another, uh, tournament. Let me ask you about. It's a really neat point. Let me ask you about sort of hardcore fans. I mean, I grew up supporting England as a pretty hardcore football fan. Very, very kind of tribal. What you're describing there with fashion and food is, you know, this, this isn't a World cup for hardcore football fans. And actually, you know, talk about football, you almost lose half the room. Um, uh, uh, some other means of kind of bringing in people that might ordinarily be kind of switching off this time of year. Because it's too much. Is it through those different kind of partnerships that you do that?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think there's, there's a lot, again, loads of different ways in, aren't there? And again, I've been enjoying some of the kind of very organic content of Americans just getting excited about the travelers in their city. Right. Again, Scotland fans in Boston being the obvious example that the kind of sheer kind of, um, positive disbelief that the locals have had about the way they've been behaving. And I think that is a good illustration of how, and we all know it is sort of classic kind of big event of fans in the uk, et cetera, that jump on board because they just get swept up in the kind of emotion and the energy and the relentlessness of it all. And if that still holds true. But you can also really, really make kind of your campaign matter if you tap into something much more niche and kind of specific than that by tapping into a specific community. Like working with a food creator. In a way, again, this can be challenging to make it not feel like bandwagon dumping. Right. But if you get it right, work with the right creator and kind of keep it fairly light touch. And I think that's where music, fashion, food, lots of other things can be really, really in powerful ways in to be a part of the broader conversation.

Speaker D: Those two trends for the World cup currently is around food and fashion. So this whole notion of kind of get ready with me, there's creators that uh, are going to games or going to fan parks in the US and Mexico and Canada, and they are just extending this kind of like common trend of get ready with me, but doing it specifically for kind of World Cup. And then you have football creators that have gone to the World cup because they are traveling around, they've extended their usual content with food.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker D: Reviews, you know, like which city has the best burgers, which stadium has the best kind of hot dogs, etc, so it just brings this new kind of angle to this kind of moment. So if you're not a hardcore fan, there's still a version of the kind of moment that comes to life which then becomes really attractive for brands. Right. Like if you're travel brand or a, uh, kind of food brand, you know, all of a sudden, or a fashion brand, you've got a kind of angle into kind of being a part of the moment.

Speaker C: I've been very much joined the England Pod Daily England podcast. Three guys, all they've ever talked about is football. They are now sampling lots of the barbecue in Kansas. They're going to go and do Tex Mexico. But it's working. It doesn't feel that forced. It doesn't feel like there's this big strategic play they're doing. Yeah, it just kind of works and everyone's getting swept up in it.

Speaker A: But I think also it's a bit like. I think that's a really good point, right, which is people get swept up in the moment and there is nothing better on a sunny day in London.

Speaker C: Got plenty of them coming up.

Speaker A: Thank, Please. When England is doing well in a tournament, right, everyone is happy. Like, genuinely everyone is happy. So it's good for society, it's good for business. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's just, it's just good. And you don't have to be a hardcore football fan to appreciate that.

Speaker C: Uh, Rachel Reeves will be willing, I'm sure, England and Scotland, of course, to do well, obviously.

Speaker A: And Scotland, I'm sure when Scotland's doing well, it's great north of the border, too.

Speaker C: Scotland are my dark horse in this. I could. I could see them pinching something against Brazil and then the bagpipes really start to.

Speaker A: You know what?

Speaker B: I did that out right after they lose today.

Speaker A: As I was catching up this morning, I saw this brilliant clip of fans going up the escalator, doing the Norwegian row, and I just thought, that is an accident waiting to happen. But how much fun is it for me to watch that until the accident?

Speaker C: Precisely. There is loads more going on in the world, of course. There is lots more going on on YouTube at the moment. There is still space for brands to be doing other things, of course. You know, people who might not be so intensely into the World cup, hardcore or light. There's still lots of other things for going on. Brands shouldn't think, oh, the only thing I can go in on is the World Cup. Lots of space for others.

Speaker D: Yeah, of course. I think, you know, we were talking about kind of niche trends within the World cup, these niche passion points on YouTube, because of the fact we have over two and a half billion people coming to the platform every single month. They are kind of mainstream, niche, kind of passion points. For me personally. You know, I use YouTube as a. It's my personal trainer. I do kind of workout content on the platform. I'm learning to play the drums, you know, so I can go there and watch drummers do their thing or play along to it. There's whatever the kind of passion point you have or the, the reason you are looking for content, it will continue to develop a platform and we have kind of audience signals to be able to identify someone who is not a football fan. You know, it's, you know, if you're a retailer looking to target a food audience, you know, we can specifically identify who those people are and ensure you're reaching them. Yeah. Whether they're watching World cup content or whatever else they're watching on the platform as well.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's a really valid point because obviously, we've obviously been talking about the brands that are tapping into the World cup, but there is still, unbelievably, I appreciate that there's this whole sector of society that haven't, you know, are not quite as obsessed as obviously the four of us are. And there are brands that want to reach that audience. And so, again, it goes back to that point where it's like, don't plan everything to the nth degree. Give yourself an opportunity to realize that the magic or the opportunity that all of this focus on this particular moment in time, what does that leave open to everybody else and how are you going to take advantage of that?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And in our industry, the microcosm is of course, Cannes, which at the time of recording is next week. Lots of people are going to can. Lots of people aren't. And I'd see some of the very interesting things are sort of activations for people that kind of aren't there or can't do stuff. So I think wherever there's something big, there's always a little bit of white space somewhere. Uh, else I was just going to

Speaker D: add in terms of the kind of scale. So even shorts content on YouTube, we've got 45 million people in the UK consuming shorts content. They're not all going to be watching World cup content. You know, even on our kind of shorter form, vertical content, there's going to be routes to be able to kind of connect with audiences, and 35% of those people aren't on TikTok and Reels as well. So it's a kind of unique incremental opportunity as well as just the kind of volume of people you can be connecting with, whether it's World cup or anything else.

Speaker C: Yeah, fun predictions to finish as a Mugs game, but we have to do it because we're talking about the World Cup. You're not allowed to say England, England's red rough, so you're going to win it if by some awful thing, we don't break 50, 60 years of her. Whatever. Who are the sort of dark horses who's going to win it for Emma Newman.

Speaker A: Well, I've got Mexico in the office sweepstakes, so I'm going to go with Mexico.

Speaker C: Okay, Mexico's good.

Speaker B: Portugal.

Speaker C: Yeah, nice.

Speaker B: Despite Cristiano rather than because of him, but I think controversial. Their midfield is incredible. Yeah, it's very good.

Speaker D: So I have England in sweepstate, uh, putting them to one side. I have a soft spot for Japan, so after drawing against Netherlands, I don't know, I've got a funny feeling they're

Speaker C: going to do well beating them in the warm ups. I think I've been on a massive run my sweepstake team as well. So come on, Japan, have. Ah, you fantastic. You never know. Things happen. Thank you all so much. I mean, we could be talking forever, but thank you very much. Very exciting World Cup. We are really only at the start of it.

Speaker B: Thank you for your views.

Speaker C: I appreciate it.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker D: Thank you.

Speaker C: And that's it for this episode of the IAB UK podcast and the second in our summer sports bonanza. Thank you very much indeed to Andy, JT and Emma for their red hot takes and analysis on this year's World Cup. Across these two episodes, we've explored how major sporting events are evolving far beyond the game itself, from fandom and community to culture, creators and really the most moments that matter most for brands. If you've enjoyed these episodes, you can find lots more like them wherever you get your podcasts from. Thank you very much indeed for listening. We'll see you later in the year where we return for season 20 of the IAB UK podcast. Thanks for listening.

Speaker A: IAB UK Building a Better future for digital advertising for the benefit of everyone.