Corporations market at World Cup despite absence of US

MOSCOW, July 15, (AP): Budweiser has a boat on the Moscow River and a disco. Coke set up an interactive sculpture-video installation in Gorky Park and entertained 5,000 guests during the monthlong tournament. Visa built a campaign around former Sweden star Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Business went on at the World Cup without the presence of the United States, although the tournament’s visibility decreased across America.

“The absence of the US team here doesn’t change what we’re doing,” said Ricardo Fort, The Coca-Cola Co’s head of global sponsorships. “The real value is based on how broad our programs are implemented. We have over 180 countries doing work.”

FIFA said after the group stage that of 2.6 million tickets sold, US residents bought about 97,000 on FIFA’s website and from its ticketing centers, second only to host Russia’s 1.1 million. The US was second to host Brazil in 2014, but the American total was around 200,000 that year.

“We were all disappointed when the US team didn’t qualify,” said Brian Perkins, vice president of global marketing for Budweiser at Anheuser-Busch InBev.

“But two-thirds of the sales of Budweiser globally are sold outside of the US, so actually the bigger part of the business is international, and that’s where all the growth is coming from as well. It really didn’t change much at all.”

World Cup advertising increased sharply in the US during the past few tournaments. Nike used a 70½-foot advertising board near New York’s Penn Station and its store windows to attract attention.

Plans for US marketing changed last October when the US lost at Trinidad and Tobago, ending a string of seven straight World Cup appearances dating to 1990.

“Since Team USA will not be competing, we don’t have much going on,” Nike spokesman Ilana Finley said in an email.

Past World Cups contributed to soccer’s growth in the US, both at Major League Soccer and at the youth level.

The four matches involving the American team in 2014 were seen by 10 million to 18 million viewers on ESPN and generated what then-US Soccer Federation President Sunil Gulati called “water-cooler talk.” That opportunity was lost in this four-year cycle.