A new report has found that China will benefit from an additional $US$835 million in ad spend bought on by next week’s FIFA World Cup and that’s despite the nation not even competing.
According to the report by Zenith, China will see the biggest boost in ad spend of any country, ahead of another nation who didn’t make it either, the US, which will spend an additional $US400 million.
Host nation Russia will receive an additional $US64 million in ad spends.
Commenting on the report, a Zenith spokesperson said: “There are few established brand relationships with the World Cup in China, and this year advertisers have been aggressively bidding to establish their association with football.”
Soccer is still a burgeoning sport in China and despite the nation coming last in its qualifying group for 2018’s tournament the country’s president, Xi Jinping, has said he wants China to win the tournament and has plans to bid for the 2030 event.
The report found that, globally, the media industry can expect advertisers to spend an additional $US2.4 billion on the back of the tournament. Its expected the month-long tournament will play to a global audience of 3.5 billion people.
“As well as producing large audiences – in some countries, the largest of the year – the World Cup disproportionately attracts people who are hard to reach on television: young, upmarket and mobile consumers who are more likely to spend their time outside the home and adopt the latest media technologies,” the report noted.
“The World Cup provides a reliable boost to the global ad market every four years, and will be responsible for 10 per cent of all the growth in ad dollars this year,” said Jonathan Barnard, Zenith’s head of forecasting and director of global intelligence.
“This year’s tournament will showcase the brand-building powers of both traditional television and social media.”
