Budweiser has been a sponsor of The FIFA World Cup since 1986. In India, football becomes more important than cricket only once in 4 years.

As a brand it was important to embrace the World Cup in the context of India and integrate the narrative of the brand in a manner that would weave into the social fabric of the country. This needed to happen with people that would continue to be relevant for the country for the time to come, instead of working with football athletes that would be important only for a small period during the FIFA World Cup. We wanted to be inseparable from all the excitement and positive sentiment associated with the event.

Our campaign objective was to be the No. 1 brand in 'Share of Buzz' during the World Cup.

Budweiser believes that everyone has the capacity to be extraordinary. All they need to do, is seize the opportunity. The FIFA World Cup is where stories of greatness come alive and make their space in history. It’s the stage where ordinary people can become extraordinary. Budweiser decided to use key assets and activations throughout the World Cup to propagate this feeling of hope and encouragement. So, our creative platform idea, quite fittingly was “The World is Yours to Take”.

Targeting active football lovers was the obvious choice for us, as these would be our most engaged audiences. However, the FIFA World Cup gets other sports fans, casual sports lovers and sports-curious people interested as well. That’s why, the FIFA World Cup is a huge opportunity for Budweiser to create salience among a wider audience.

We used key activations to engage the hardcore football fans, and non-football influencers to create affinity among other audience cohorts. Fans love watching the game together and want to be a part of the action on the ground. To give fans a ‘stadium like’ experience and provide the atmosphere of the ground, Budweiser conducted match screenings across India.

To ensure a steadily growing interest as we approached the finals, we utilized our strategic partnerships and activations to consistently keep the buzz alive by creating relevant content from build-up to the Finals.

Budweiser executed a 3-part influencer execution:

• Music Video: Budweiser launched an anthem called “The world is yours to take” in collaboration with Lil Baby, featuring our Indian brand ambassador – Siddhant Chaturvedi along with 150 global brand ambassadors and icons.

• Side Tunnel Stories: We identified other Indian celebrities who were amateurs once and are now shining in their respective fields. We created a series “tunnel stories” featuring their stories on YouTube and Instagram.

• 100 days before FIFA, Budweiser staged a stunt “The Drop” with Messi, Neymar and Sterling, building anticipation around mystery prize boxes. This was promoted using 50 influencers on social media that caused pure chaos with football audiences.

Additionally, throughout the event, Budweiser kept up engagement on social media by asking people to vote for the outcomes they predicted before every match with the insight of banter.

1. LIVE Screenings were organized across 200 outlets spanning 6 cities.

2. Marquee finals were screened LIVE across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore

3. We achieved 52k footfall vs a target of 30k.

4. The experience received 220m impressions.

5. Reached new audiences and achieved 721k trials

6. The FIFA activation helped us exceed our yearly sales targets by 15%

7. Achieved 50% share of buzz among sponsors during FIFA, the 2nd biggest

sponsor was just at 15%

8. 1.3 pts Lift in Brand Awareness observed on FB with 1.4 pts lift from males and 1.1

pts lift from females.

9. 9% uplift in Creative Recall observed on Hotstar among males and 8% uplift from

females - 5% Lift in Brand Association & 2% Lift in Message Association

10. 2% Lift in Brand Awareness & 4% Lift in Online Ad Awareness on Hotstar