Italy beat France in a penalty-shoot out, lifting the trophy for the fourth time and becoming the second most successful team in the history of the FIFA World Cup, after Brazil.
24 million Italians tuned in to the match on Rai 1, with an audience share of 84%
Read the report from Initiative Milan on the viewing statistics for the Italy vs France match
Viewing figures in parts of Asia are as much as 80 per cent down on 2002, thanks to unfavourable kick-off times and the somewhat disappointing display from the Asian teams in the tournament. A far cry from Japan and South Korea 2002, when both host nations won their group.
Despite this, however, one Asian market has managed to buck this trend completely: India. Ratings in India are lower than other Asian markets, but viewing figures are growing. The average live program audience in India is more than 50 per cent higher than in was for World Cup 2002. This is an even faster rate of growth than in many of the major football markets around the world, such as the UK, France, Germany, Brazil and Argentina.
To outsiders, this may seem surprising. India has never qualified for the World Cup and lie a lowly 118th in the FIFA World Rankings, nestled between Hong Kong and New Zealand. Yet soccer is popular in the country: it is played regularly by young people, league soccer was played in India long before it was in Europe and in Calcutta's East Bengal and Mohan Bagan, India boasts one of the fiercest domestic soccer rivalries in the world. Crowds of 130,000 for this match are not unheard of.
In this context, the popularity of World Cup 2006 seems a little less surprising. The most popular game of the first 26 matches in India was the opening match between Germany and Costa Rica on ESPN, which enjoyed an average programme audience of 2 million individuals according to figures released by TAM.
Viewing figures for the evening games are lower due to time differences: they kick-off at 00:30 in India. This also partly explains the reason for viewing figures for these matches dropping significantly in the second half of games. On average, average audiences are 25% lower in the second half than the first. This is unusual given viewing figures tend to rise for the second half of matches when the final result gets decided.
However, certain sectors of the population are burning the midnight oil and staying up to watch the entire matches. More than 50% of the audiences watching the late night matches are 16-34 years old. The late-night match with the highest viewing figures was Brazil vs. Croatia out of the first 26 matches of the tournament.
Perhaps the only people who are less than pleased with the ‘World Cup Effect’ are the other TV channels in India. The popularity of the tournament is highlighted by the decline in ratings of other non-soccer programming in the country. Even the most popular general entertainment programmes and Hindi movies have seen ratings fall.
This is not just an issue in India. Global audiences for Formula One, the World’s most watched annual sporting event, have dropped during the World Cup. This year’s Canadian Grand Prix fell on the same day as the England vs. Ecuador and Portugal vs. Holland Second Round matches. With many viewers choosing to watch the football, the global average audience for the Canadian Grand Prix fell by 20 per cent compared with the same race in 2005.
Italy knocked out tournament hosts Germany in an absorbing match to reach the World Cup 2006 final. 24 million Italians tuned in to see their team's victory live on Rai 1.
Read the report from Initiative Milan on the viewing statistics for the Germany vs Italy match
Portugal is currently enjoying its moment of glory in the World Cup, reaching the tournament semi-finals, something we only accomplished back in 1966!
In pure advertising terms the environment is far from favourable. Both the economy and advertising spend have stagnated so within this context the World Cup potential is limited. On top of that, for the sponsors such as Fuji, Mastercard, Hyundai, Yahoo etc, Portugal is not a relevant market and investment from them in the country is minimal.
However local sponsors of our national team are making a good noise around the tournament, with brands using football and the awareness/values of the World Cup as a trigger for their positioning and market strength. Nevertheless, times are tough and in real investment terms, May was below last year's level and June is likely to follow. Things were different back in Euro 2004: as Portugal was the tournament host, the investment trigger effect was far higher, helping to raise the ad market by 12% against the previous year.
This World Cup, in global terms, acts more as a "content" for brand communication and activation. A good example was provided by Bes, a local bank institution and national team sponsor, that invested heavily in pushing football values, promoting events like the biggest and 'most beautiful' human national flag, all made by women, in an all-day event with music, DJs, etc. This really helped to capture women's involvement in the tournament.
Looking forward to Berlin :-)
Mario Mateus, Initiative Lisbon
Italy set up a mouth watering semi-final against Germany with a convincing 3-0 victory against Ukraine in Dortmund on Friday, 30 June 2006. 21m fans tuned in to watch the Monday afternoon match, giving Rai 1 a 75% share.
Read the report from Initiative Milan on the viewing statistics for the Italy vs Ukraine match
For those of you unfamiliar with the London office it is located next door to the National Passport Office, conveniently placed opposite our fourth meeting room – a.k.a The George Tavern.
Last night, myself and some colleagues were in the above mentioned meeting room discussing the finer points of the England teams’ tactics when we were joined by a good looking young man.
He was wasting some time whilst waiting for his new passport to be issued. Aged 23, ‘Dave’ is from the East End of London, supports West Ham and is a Financial Advisor. He was naturally very excited because the reason he was getting his passport renewed was because he is off to Germany to see the World Cup!
Unfortunately he had to pay a premium for his passport because it came with something that most passports don’t have – a hooligan chip! Yes, our new best friend ‘Dave’ is a convicted England hooligan.
So, if when you’re watching the football on television, you spot a respectable looking, well groomed young man with a pint of lager in his hand – give him a wave – it could be Dave.
Steph Black, Nicky Williams and Jody Louie, Initiative London
Italian TV station Rai 1 once again enjoyed record ratings for the Italian second round World Cup match against Australia. A last minute penalty from Francesco Totti saw off the Aussie challengers and 17.3m million Italians tuned in, representing an 80% share for Rai 1. Once again Initiative Milano employees watched the game together in their offices. Italy now face Ukraine in the quarter finals
Read the report from Initiative Milan on the viewing statistics for the Italy vs Australia match
Using Initiative online survey tool eSpy, Initiative Hamburg has conducted a survey designed to see how the people of the Germany are enjoying the World Cup and how they are using different media to consume it.
The excitement of being the host nation prompted 82% of respondents to admit to being gripped by World Cup fever. In terms of favourites to win, Brazil are still very much the front runner, despite many pundits’ beliefs that they have not been at their very best so far this tournament. 35% tip Ronaldinho, Kaka et al to take the cup back to South America, while only 19% backing Germany to maintain their current good form long enough to take the trophy.
Additionally, only 20% of respondents named Germany as their favourite team, although they were still the most popular of all participating countries. The surprise second favourite team was Trinidad & Tobago, whose antics against Sweden and England persuaded 15% of respondents to name them as their favourite team.
The survey also revealed some of the ways in which Germans are using different media to keep up with the World Cup. Much has been made of the likely upsurge the tournament will provoke in the sales of High Definition TV sets in Germany and of those questioned in the survey, 11% had bought new TV sets for the tournament. Almost half of these were HD ready. TV was also named as the most important source for World Cup news and information. Perhaps most surprisingly, newspapers were the second most popular source, ahead of even the Internet. Perhaps this goes to show that, even in an era mass digital development and change, the power of the humble printed word has not completely diminished.
Canada has finally fallen in love with the World Cup. The 2006 FIFA World Cup is one of the most diverse cultural events, which holds the entire global public under its spell. That’s especially true in Canada, where viewership numbers have shown surprising strength. In fact, viewership for the first fourteen matches in Canada has increased an astonishing 150% versus the 2002 World Cup, and 125% higher than in 1998. In fact, Canadian audiences have provided the third largest audience increase to date for the event.
The increase in viewership goes beyond the broadcaster and improved timeslot. Even though we don’t have a team that qualified, Canadians have rallied around the World Cup as a way of expressing national and international pride. The Cup is also great entertainment. There are a number of countries that are competing for the first time which is drawing even more viewers to the matches. This bodes really well for the FIFA U-20 World Cup next year, which Canada is hosting.
In Toronto, where the Initiative office is located, you don’t actually need to watch the match to see who won. Within minutes, everyone is in their cars, up and down the downtown streets with flags spilling out the back. Up until that point, who knew there were that many Swedes in Toronto? Or if you don’t have a car, you just hang out at the appropriate corner store, delicatessen, or restaurant like the Turks last cup, and wave your flag at the passing honking cars.
Canada loves a Cinderella story – we still tell stories about beating Russia in hockey in 1972. And since our own team didn’t make it to the cup – we’re ranked 83rd, behind Oman – you can root for any team at all. In the Initiative office? We had our hopes on Paraguay!
Chris Herlihey, VP Research Director, IPG Media, Canada
Italian TV station Rai 1 continues to enjoy the fruits of its World Cup coverage. Viewing figures released for the final Italy group game against the Czech Republic showed that Rai 1 enjoyed a 78.2% share of viewing. This was even higher than the 71% share it enjoyed in the previous Italy group game against the USA. In total, 15.8m people tuned in to the match, even though it was broadcast live in Italy at 4pm, while many Italians were still at work.
Goals from Materazi and Inzaghi gave Italy a 2-0 win, and as the knock-out phase commences the Italian soccer bandwagon shows no signs of slowing down. Employees at Initiative Milano also got into the spirit of things by watching the game together in the staff room. As these pictures show, it was a rollercoaster ride of emotions, but in the end everyone went home happy!
