The Women’s Football Report

In this report, we’ll take you through our analysis of the marketing that’s helped women’s football trend on social, the sponsors and brands that have made waves in the conversation, and the ways consumers have enjoyed the World Cup across different countries.

Smart marketing

Early on in the World Cup, Brandwatch analyst, Tiff Ansari, began to look at the ways video and influencer marketing were boosting the profile of women’s football online.

Epic influencer marketing

The England team took the opportunity to deploy some impressively high-profile influencers when they announced their line up. The likes of David Beckham, Emma Watson, and even HRH Prince William, announced players and sent their best wishes.

This caused quite the stir – on announcement day, 30,000 people rushed online to congratulate the players using the hashtag: #BeReady.

Video

Tiff also found that video content was sparking a lot of conversation. This incorporates both slick, high-quality video, and unplanned moments. BBC Sport has managed to generate plenty of content using both.

The German team also released their own content, with this powerful video where players explain how they play for a nation that doesn’t even know their names.

These perception-changing, often emotional videos have carved out solid places in the conversation around the Women’s World Cup this year, and helped generate a lot of hype around the sport.

England team: The conversation break down

We looked at Women’s World Cup related mentions in English that came from the UK to find the highlights for the audience watching at home.

Overall, we found nearly 100k mentions. Let’s break them down:

The top players

Looking at mention volume alone, the top-mentioned players were:

1. Ellen White
2. Nikita Parris
3. Steph Houghton

Ellen White was not only the top-mentioned player, she also caused the biggest player-related mention spike. This was down to her ‘devastated’ reaction when the Lionesses crashed out of the World Cup.

Looking at player mentions as a percentage of the whole conversation, England team members were discussed in nearly 40% of them. This is pretty impressive name recognition across social media.

The top games

The games that caused the biggest mention spikes were:

1. England vs Norway
2. England vs USA
3. England vs Cameroon

While England’s final game against the USA caused a huge mention spike, it was the celebration after their match against Norway that created the largest peak.

The top moments

Looking at key games minute-by-minute we were able to determine the top moments in English World Cup conversation.

1. 2 July 10:31pm: England crash out of the World Cup after their game against the USA (221 mentions in a minute)
2. 27 June 10:41pm: Celebrations around England win against Norway (109 mentions in a minute)
3. 23 June 6:35pm and 7:31 pm: VAR controversies during England vs Cameroon (both 92 mentions in a minute)

Visual analysis: The biggest brands

We’ve seen how the media and teams have generated hype online, but what about brands and sponsors in the overall conversation?

We searched for mentions of the Women’s World Cup 2019 in English, French, and German in Crimson Hexagon’s Forsight to see which logos were appearing most in posts.

Big sponsors Visa and Nike did very well, but no one can topple the mighty Adidas when it comes to brand visibility in football.

We saw a similar result in last year’s men’s World Cup tournament when the Adidas logo was significantly more prominent than Nike.

Consumer behaviour across borders

One of our favourite ways to analyse big, global events is to see how they’re celebrated by people across the world. We worked with our German and French colleagues to see what was similar and different about the food people ate, and the beverages people enjoyed while they watched the games.

The most popular food

We were surprised by how little conversation there was about food in the overall conversation around the World Cup – perhaps people were too excited to eat! Still, we thought we’d divide it up to see which popular food types were getting the most conversation in our chosen countries.

It turns out tastes vary across borders, with pizza favoured in England, burgers favoured in France, and BBQ most popular in Germany.

The most popular drinks

In our World Cup study last year, there was all-round consensus that beer was the go-to drink during games.

However, the French have shaken things up this year by opting for bubbly instead.

There was a lot more conversation around drink than there was around food, suggesting people are more likely to get boozy while enjoying the games than to sit down with a meal.