In addition to supplying the organising committee with 140 official vehicles (including Sorentos, Sedonas and Quoris) throughout the tournament, 2015 Copa America platinum partner Kia is running no less than five different activation strands:
- #KiaPasion
- #MiKia
- #KiaMiCiudad
- #RespectLegends
- #JourneyToCopa America
Hubbed around a central microsite at http://www.kia.com/worldwide/COPA2015/ (which, along with its social media platforms, offers the most up-to-date tournament news and Kia’s sponsorship activities), each of these strands has both a central region-wide framework and then is being activated on a local country basis and they are led by an activation pillar based around fan passion.
As illustrated by this multi-market TV commercial which is running throughout the Copa America region and launched on 2 June.
The #KiaPasion (‘passion’’ in Spanish) sees the auto brand spread the spirit of Chile 2015 and the idea aims to see Kia explore and deliver excitement from each nation to fans wanting to go to the tournament, those at the games themselves and spectators in the social sphere too.
Central to this strand is the consumer-created #KiaPasion video contest (based at http://www.kiapasion2015.com #KiaPasion) – which aims to give supporters a chance to show which fans are the most passionate.
These vox-pop fan short films feature supporters showing their national passion whilst sat in Kia vehicles at tournament events and in car dealerships across central and south America.
These fan passion clips were captured on a dashboard camera and posted on Kia’s YouTube channels and Facebook pages in each of the participating countries.
The initiative produced hundreds and hundreds of cheer clips from every country – such as in host nation Chile,
Argentina,
Colombia,
Ecuador,
Paraguay,
and Peru.
Meanwhile, the #MiKia (My Kia) strand of the campaign, based on Facebook which offered another route for supporters to show their football spirit by uploading their photos of themselves cheering for their Copa America team in order to have a chance to win tickets to Chile 2015.
The #KiaMiCiudad (Kia My City) elements of the auto brand’s activation saw Kia showcase the most beautiful spots in the Copa America participating countries by showing how its Kia Sportage model fits in each country through branded Facebook and a country-by-country Flickr initiative including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Peru.
An additional international campaign thread was Kia’s #JourneyToCopaAmerica – a fan-led road trip style adventure (in a Kia Sportage).
While during the initial tournament stages, Kia activated around insights and experiences featuring legendary players from all the participating countries with a phase called #RespectLegends.
One element of this phase was a consumer game-led competition which challenged fans to ‘guess the name of the legends’ by picking up on the little Kia clues provided.
Fans cold join the thread through Kia’s individual country Facebook pages – such as Colombia and Chile.
Comment
Chile 2015 – which runs from 11 June to 4 July – marks the second consecutive tournament that Kia has been a competition partner.
It follows on from Kia’s role as a Gold Partner in 2011 in Argentina.
The car company’s campaign is certainly impressive in its breadth and depth – tapping into the age-old football theme of fan passion for its global theme and then activating market-by-market according to a centrally shared framework.
Kia is one of three platinum sponsors of the 2015 Copa América (along with MasterCard and Santander) currently trying to balance the activation of its expensively acquired tournament rights with potential backlash stemming from the FIFA scandal.
A tough challenge for any partnership marketer.
It will be interesting to see how the other partners address the challenge.
The tournament sponsors, who have been signed by WeMatch (the trade name of the joint enterprise between Traffic Sports, Full Play and Torneos y Competencias’ Datisa) consists of 10 partners split across five tiers.
In addition to the three top platinum partners (reported to have invested US$5m on rights), there is one gold partner in the form of telecoms sponsor Claro.
The next level sees DHL, Kellogg’s and Coca-Cola act as silver sponsors, while the official suppliers are LAN & TAM airlines and Canon and the local sponsor is AirBnB.
All sponsors are understandably weighing up the challenge of maximising their partnership investment with the issue of whether heavy activation spend at a time when football (including Latin American football associations, key figures and Traffic Sports itself) is mired in the FIFA scandal which could lead to damaging the brand of both the property and its sponsors.
Links
Kia Copa America Digital Hub:
http://www.kia.com/worldwide/COPA2015/
Kia Buzz YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/KiaBUZZ
Kia Website:
Copa America 2015 Website:
