Cautious advertisers may be missing an opportunity to get behind Irish women’s World Cup campaign

On July 20th, when the Irish team plays its first match in the Women’s World Cup, expect the hashtag #COGIG to trend on Twitter and any number of instant experts with views on manager Vera Pauw’s strategy to emerge.

The Fifa Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand is set to be the biggest stand-alone women’s sporting event in the world this year, with 64 matches and a viewership expected to greatly exceed the 1.12 billion people who tuned into the 2019 games in France.

And so while there will be that national reflex to get behind the green jersey, advertisers have shown they have yet to be fully convinced of the pulling power of the women’s game.

In its survey earlier this year, sports sponsorship consultancy Onside found that just 26 per cent of Irish sponsors had a “strong belief” that the Women’s World Cup was an opportunity to engage with consumers in Ireland this year.

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By comparison, 51 per cent of businesses felt the same about the opportunity that the men’s Rugby World Cup in France provides.

Sky – as title sponsor – and Cadbury are the two main brands that have stepped up to back the team, both signing up with the FAI in 2021 and both putting considerable advertising and communication strategies behind their (figures not released) investments.

It says much about where we are in the evolution of the women’s game in Ireland that in both cases a focus has been on encouraging grassroots development and an “if you see it, you can be it” messaging aimed at encouraging young girls to play and also support the national team.

A spokesman for Sky says that momentum behind the Irish women’s game is building. Its research in March found a 20 per cent increase in respondents saying they were supporters of the team when compared with research conducted 14 months before. That’s quite the jump and it – and the record-breaking attendance in Tallaght Stadium (7,633 spectators) for the friendly against France last week – is the sort of hard information that more cautious brands will need before they are prepared to back the team.

John Trainor, founder and chief executive of Onside, noted: “Despite early interest among brands this year in the platform, to date a small number of sponsors have stepped up to the opportunity around the Women’s World Cup. There may be a missed opportunity for brands still needing the necessary intelligence to build the proven business case [for sponsorship].”

Trainor’s consultancy commissioned awareness research in June and it found that two in three adults identified brands that they admired as sponsors of women’s soccer in Ireland. However, Ladies’ Gaelic football sponsor Lidl was most frequently identified by 15 per cent of adults – incorrectly – as “admired sponsors” while Sky came a close second at 13 per cent.

However, brand awareness will almost certainly have changed since last week when both Cadbury and Sky launched their beautifully shot, inspirational and big-budget campaigns anchored by TV ads and supported by VOD, outdoor, digital and social.

Sky’s “Outbelieve” campaign, developed by Core Creative, is inspired, according to Sky Ireland’s chief executive JD Buckley, by the national team’s “unique connection with young fans”.

While for Cadbury, the Public House agency’s “Become a Supporter & a Half” campaign is described as “a rallying call from Cadbury to not just passively support women’s football but to go the extra mile in getting behind them, in all areas, at all levels”. Cadbury last week announced the latest round of its Grounds for Change campaign which helps clubs around the country improve facilities for the players.

Later this week it will announce that it is the sponsor of RTÉ's coverage of the tournament on TV, on the station’s dedicated podcast and in the RTÉ Guide. When the broadcaster brought the deal to market in April, the suggested price for the sponsorship was €160,000.

All 64 games will be shown on TV or on the broadcaster’s much-improved Player but, with just days to the start of the month-long tournament, advertising slots are still available.

[ Meet the Girls in Green: Mary Hannigan’s player-by-player guide to Ireland’s Women’s World Cup squad ]

And so while there appears to be a nervousness in committing advertising budgets to the Irish women’s game, the hunger to support the tournament in the US is reflective of the strength of the sport there.

Soccer is much more developed across the Atlantic as a women’s and girls’ sport – at school, amateur and professional level – and the US women’s national team is going for its third straight World Cup win. And if there is one thing big business likes, it’s a winner.

[ From washing men’s underwear to playing at sold-out Sydney stadiums: Ireland’s winding road to the Women’s World Cup ]

By early June, Fox Sports, which has the US broadcast rights, had sold 90 per cent of its advertising space – noting that Fifa’s expansion of the tournament from 24 to 32 teams means more ad inventory. Premium brands rushing to buy in ranged from car makers to financial services; Google will sponsor the “bridge” show between games.

Fox Sports told Ad Age that ad revenue is up 50 per cent since the 2019 World Cup, while Kantar, to get a handle on what that might mean, estimated that the last tournament generated more than $85 million (€78 million).

This, after all, is the first time the Irish national team has qualified and 2023 may, says Trainor, “just be one World Cup too early” for brands to really get behind the team and “for the type of belief we saw at the start of the year materialising to a scale where one in four sponsors see the Republic of Ireland women’s team, or related women’s sports assets, as an area to activate fully around”.