Real-time Branding at the World Cup

One of the goals of South Africa is to rebrand itself as an attractive place for foreign investments. This is a worthy goal and fits in nicely with the hosting of the FIFA World Cup.

The old notion that South Africa is segregated in sport can be buried deep with a little marketing from the good people of South Africa and anyone else that visits the country for the games.

The idea that rugby was followed by whites and soccer was followed by black can be forever assigned to the past when thousands upon thousands of people jam into Soccer City and watch the soccer games of the World Cup. Black and white, sitting side by side, blowing the vuvuzela, wearing the flag of their home country and passionately cheering on their home team…

So, here’s the opportunity: there are thousands of picture phones in the stands just waiting to be used in a simple movement to rebrand their county. A statement that could leave a monumental impression on the people of the world by flooding the Internet with photos of the people of South Africa sitting together and cheering together – regardless of the color of their skin.

Bishop Tutu, Nelson Mandela and President Zuma could each make a point of asking the nation to take pictures of themselves, their friends and everyone around them when they are in the stadium or in the cities. Show the world the diversity of their nation, in real-time, and the goodness of their people. Show the world that South Africa has bright, enthusiastic and good people that get along with each other.

Imagine if the National Tourism Council would simply create a place on their home page at www.southafrica.net where the people of South Africa could post their pictures of the soccer games, especially the crowds, directly to the web site. The message would be simple: send your pictures to this email address and they will post. Let the world see the beauty and natural resources that attract world class investment: the people of South Africa.

Let people include comments with their pictures and send the comments through as Twitter feeds and Facebook wall posts to www.facebook.com/southafrica and a world class event becomes a viral experience in rebranding the country.

Social networking has its place in the bag of tricks, call marketing, and massive social events, like the World Cup are nearly perfect to leverage this kind of technology – especially for the purposes of rebranding a country on the world stage.

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