FIFA

WePlay partners with FIFA to position the governing body as the number one digital destination for global football fans.

FIFA

WePlay partners with FIFA to position the governing body as the number one digital destination for global football fans.

We started our journey with FIFA in 2019, executing an ambitious YouTube strategy.

We expanded our relationship in 2020, and with the impact of the pandemic, alongside FIFA we conceived what would become the multi-award-winning #WorldCupAtHome campaign. This campaign would go on to become one of YouTube’s top 3 most successful campaigns of 2020 and achieve several industry awards.

In 2021, our relationship with FIFA expanded again, as we became their partner for all Digital Platform Services. This included:

  • Developing the content strategy for FIFA’s digital channels
  • Growing the size of the global audience and engagement
  • Driving commercial opportunities through direct and indirect revenue streams
  • Supporting media rights licensees (MRLs) with content and consultancy
  • Managing the relationship between FIFA and the platform partners (Facebook and YouTube)
  • Providing regular business intelligence and reports on content and channel performance.

We implemented a compelling digital strategy to meet content objectives, increase reach through owned, earned and media tactics, and helped FIFA build a closer relationship with its fans.

During the research phase, we uncovered actionable insights to guide creative processes and ensure content outputs met various goals.

Our define-and-refine strategy included activities such as:

  • a channel audit to comprehensively understand FIFA’s audience and content performance
  • setting clear KPIs and content measurement criteria to assess the performance

Audience insights identified key moments in fans’ lives, and across the football and cultural calendars, to boost content performance across platforms.

Meanwhile, we devised five-core workstreams that would position the governing body as the No1 social destination for global football fans:

  • social audience intelligence, to inform and improve content development and output
  • content strategy and planning, to maximise value and impact across FIFA content modes and moments
  • drive innovation and maximise content by working closer and smarter with platform partners
  • owned, earned and paid media tactics to increase reach
  • strengthening FIFA’s relationship with fans via a community management strategy

Each workstream was an integral component of our ‘surface strategy’, which shifted thinking away from platform-led objectives to align with how modern football fans consume content at a surface level.

We executed this across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitch and Spotify, and delivered content that engaged fans globally.

The partnership with FIFA and our innovative approach proved to be a resounding success.

FIFA’s digital channels achieved record-breaking results in reach, video views, watch-time and audience growth in 2021. We manage to surpass every record for performance in a non-World Cup year and our 2021 performance was the second-highest ever, behind only that of the 2018 World Cup.

14m

new fans on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube

4.4bn

global reach in 2021

1.4bn

video views – a new record for FIFA

Working with WePlay has been fantastic, they have integrated into the digital content team at FIFA as real partners.

Giuliano Giorgetti Head of Digital Content, FIFA