The Pharaohs of Egypt has the African continent’s best football talent pool when it comes to national teams. In 1934, Egypt became the first African team to play in the World Cup finals, since then, Egypt has qualified for the finals on one occasion in Italy 1990.
In case you missed it, the Olympics is pretty much the most epic sports event ever, but for Egyptians (sorry Olympics) the World Cup comes first… and marketers know it!
The curious case of Egypt’s National football team:
Egypt is the most successful nation in the African football history, winning the tournament a record of seven times (including when Egypt was known as the United Arab Republic between 1958 and 1961).
Although the massive success and the Egyptian leadership for Africa Cup of Nations records and statistics, Egypt has qualified for the FIFA world cup finals on two occasions, in 1934 and 1990.
Today, Egypt’s Pharaohs tops Fifa’s Africa rankings by holding the 25th position worldwide and hoping to make their first World Cup appearance since 1990.
Héctor Cúper, head coach of the National team, has called on Egyptian football fans to come in big numbers and boost the team as Egypt in a must-win situation to regain top spot in the group.
We at Think Marketing decided to highlight three marketing campaigns that won audience’s attention by focusing on genuine Egyptian market insights.
Vodafone: Urges Egyptians to stop “prognostication”
When it comes to creating top-notch commercials, Vodafone Egypt gets the biggest stars. And although they are the main sponsors for the Al Ahly football team, Vodafone has chosen a famous El-Zamalek icon (Hazem Emam) to lead the launch of Vodafone Red Family.
Also Read ➤ Hazem Emam goes red with Vodafone
For the World Cup qualifier campaign, Vodafone Egypt started with a very insightful campaign based on genuine Egyptian cultural facts and traditions. The campaign idea hit on how Egyptians usually try to foretell and forecast the National team’s road to FIFA World Cup.
The campaign focused on a very emotional side of the Egyptian culture that considers foretelling or prophesying future events as a sign of bad luck!
It’s not the first time to see Captain Magdy Abdel El Ghany in a Vodafone ad. He has also led a Vodafone campaign back in 2013 during World Cup 2014 qualifications tournament.
This year, Vodafone Egypt tries to maximize the campaign and turn it more into a movement. A new dedicated website (www.mat2ate3sh.com) was launched for crowd-sourcing to increase the impact of the campaign; kudos for the social media tie-in with hashtag [#ماتقاطعش].
To give alternative options and more topics to talk about, Vodafone offered to multiply charged amounts via pre-paid cards to 10 of your friends. Also, each one of your 10 friends can add more 10 to multiply the charged amount. You can subscribe to the offer by dialing *10# from any Vodafone number.
Pepsi Egypt: Getting Rid of Bad Luck?
Pepsi, the official sponsor of the Egyptian Football team, launched a campaign claiming that the team is jinxed and it’s time to reverse the bad luck!
Pepsi recently launched a massive campaign to support the national team during the CAF African Cup of Nations, and the current campaign [#يلا_نفك_النحس] seems to be a warm up for a more aggressive escalation, specially if the Egyptian team will successfully make it to Russia 2018 World Cup finals.
Also Read ➤ Pepsi and Coke become “Frenemies” to support The Egyptian National Team
Bringing the famous sports commentator Shalabouka (AKA) Medhat Shalaby on board for a quick and funny 15 seconds teaser ad made us imagine a final copy of [#فكينا_النحس] in the last phase of the campaign.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcjY0SDb0zg
The campaign offers the audience a reason why Egypt didn’t qualify to World Cup finals since 1990, while giving the national team players a motive and inspire them to rise above their jinxed predecessors!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=30&v=GdCI_8nu6wA
Pepsi’s [#يلا_نفك_النحس] marketing campaign could move and inspire the brand’s target audience as the concept is totally new to Pepsi. This newly used approach is meant to resonate deeply with the Egyptian culture, especially as it is tailor made for the Egyptian market and not just a localized copy of global activation.
Birell: 90’s Born Generation Stamina!
Based on unique consumer insights, the developed campaign by Kairo Creative Communication Agency reflects the efforts paid in conducting a research and digging into the expected lifestyle scenarios of the generations born on 1990.
Mixing creative ideas with the brand’s strategic key message and focusing on their specific market(s) resulted in this unique approach.
Another prime example of marketing that works driven by insights, Brill launched 3 appealing versions of an ad aiming at touching viewers’ emotions in an effort to build radical empathy with Egypt’s National football team during World Cup qualifier matches.
What if Egypt National Team Players were marketers?
Back in February, we created an imaginary scenario to show-case the Egyptian National team’s efforts projected on marketing and business functions. The video reflects the versatility of football and our National team players.
Conclusion:
The massive media focus and marketing campaigns should motivate the Pharaohs when they face Uganda in the 4th round of 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifier at Alexandria’s Borg El-Arab Stadium tonight.
We are very close to FIFA World Cup 2018 this time, and while we are writing this review, we are looking forward to making another series of articles to analyze more campaigns by more brands next June.
Why June? because the World Cup shall start on Thursday, June 14!