Making the most of the massive publicity

Coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the sights and sounds of South Africa were watched by a record number of TV viewers, with FIFA claiming an audience of 700 million for the final.

12 million a minute

But, the most impressive amount of publicity this country received was on the Internet, where at times football-related websites were receiving up to 12 million visitors a minute. Easily an all-time online record and far exceeding the Internet activity when Barack Obama was elected president of the United States.

While this massive global focus on South Africa and the enormous success of the world cup bodes well for the country in terms of potential foreign investment and tourism, it is social media that will provide quality marketing.

Power-tweeting

Throughout the tournament, players, celebrities and soccer fans who were here sent out millions of messages on Twitter, the vast majority of which were all about the wonderful time they were having here and the overwhelming hospitality and passion of South Africans.

Never before has South Africa had so much positive publicity.

One cannot overestimate the value of third-party testimonials as one of marketing's most powerful weapons.

The challenge now is to harness all of that, not only to promote foreign investment and tourism but far more importantly to use it all for the benefit of all South Africans. Marketers and the media will have a huge role to play in capitalising on the spirit of 2010.

Clearly the past five weeks have shown that the majority of ordinary South Africans respond extremely positively to something that allows them to escape the drudgery of everyday life. That's a massive clue to potential strategy for marketers and the media.

The success of 2010 has brought vast numbers of pessimists, naysayers and sceptics out of the woodwork. One just has to tune into talk radio or read online columns on the major local news websites to see hordes or South Africans happily admitting they were wrong about not believing this country could successfully host the event.

Time for change

All of this, if used correctly by marketers and the media, has the potential to turn South Africa away from its pre-2010 ingrained habit of concentrating purely on what is negative about the country.

By harnessing the enormous amount of positive energy around right now, marketers and the media have it in their power to talk up economic recovery and at the same time help find solutions to the problems of crime, corruption, xenophobia and poverty by doing something other than just complaining about it all.

The 2010 World Cup has provided invaluable consumer and media research. It has shown that positive news can sell newspapers but most of all it has demonstrated the awesome power of the Internet.

Hopefully, the country's big brands, its media and its politicians will have a long hard look at their marketing strategies and the impact that this new energy will have on them.

It is time, I believe, for some considerable media and marketing paradigm shift.

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