UEFA Euro 2020 was always going to be a huge marketing opportunity for brands, not least for the six official sponsors of this year’s long-awaited tournament: Coca Cola, Heineken, Qatar Airways, Just Eat, TikTok and Vivo.
But Coca Cola and Heineken have received perhaps more exposure than they’d anticipated, after two of football’s biggest superstars removed the sponsors’ bottles from their press conference tables.
The attention on these brands exploded as social media came alight with memes and comments, a clear reminder of the increasing attention and power garnered by international athletes in their own right.
For brands, tracking the evolution of public and media discourse around such events is critical to adapting communications plans and reacting quickly and deftly to fast-changing situations and sentiment.
To further explore this, we analysed the presence and engagement of the Euro 2020 sponsors on social media during the period 13-22 June 2021.
In the report we uncover:
- What did the sponsors achieve through social media through supporting this tournament?
- What was the social media impact of the players removing the bottles from photo opps?
- How did this social media storm affect consumers’ actions?