Major sporting events are a great time for fans to purchase TV equipment, and for manufacturers, it offers a unique opportunity to create promotions that reach the most willing customers at the right time. The World Cup has just kicked off, so it is a great time to reflect on how it is possible to transform soccer fans’ most important event into a huge opportunity to maximize product interest and brand exposure.

Event-driven sales growth has always been a powerful tool for marketers. Recently, the number of people buying home electronics before and during international sporting events has experienced an upward trend. RTB House saw that Poland’s participation European Championship, for instance, rocketed TV sales. According to Panelmarket Gfk, a market research firm, TV sales had explosive sales leading up to the June event in both April and May. In April, LCD TV sales rose an annual 18.2 percent and sales growth in May was up 56.6 percent. Plasma sales grew to 27 percent in May, and the total cumulative sales from the beginning to end of May 2012, LCD TV sales rose an annual 22.2 percent while plasmas rose 5.9 percent.

These figures are solid predictors of sales growth for manufacturers, but what do you do when competitors are also armed with this knowledge? The question becomes: how does a manufacturer win-out over the competition and reach the pool of customers ready to make a TV purchase?

Identify Online Shoppers

There are many channels of communication with potential customers, but only the Internet allows personalized ads based on the unique interests and shopping history of each user. With personalization ad platforms, the manufacturer can determine with great accuracy who exactly, before the World Cup, is looking to purchase TV-related products. This includes not only the brand, but the model, category, price range, and history of products viewed. With this kind of information, commercials and promotions are targeted to reach high-value customers and beat out generic advertisements.

Target Only High-Potential Customers

The group of users currently shopping online for TVs has the greatest potential for making a purchase when they see a brand’s message. With intelligent advertising solutions, manufacturers can easily filter out the “chaos” in a network and precisely target a defined group. For example, manufacturers can devote more resources to sending custom messages to users looking specifically for a 42’’ TV, or place higher ad bids for users frantically shopping 7 days before the sporting event.

Personalise Promotions

Once a customer group has been identified, and a target customer group selected, manufacturers can then use intelligent solutions like retargeting platforms to deliver customized, personalized creatives. Intelligent solutions give manufacturers the opportunity to present unique content tailored to a person that matches an ongoing promotion or event. Any of the high-potential customers that browse the internet within the next few hours or days, will see one of many special creatives. For the World Cup, for instance, users would see a promotion or discount, specifically related to the World Cup, and personalized products based on similarities to what they shopped for previously.

Summary

The World Cup is a huge opportunity for manufacturer brands of electronics for explosive sales growth and brand awareness. It’s important to use intelligent online advertising solutions such as RTB and retargeting technologies to identify, reach, and convert users that are most likely to buy. Whether a user buys online or offline, online promotion, personalization, and retargeting are powerful tools to influence brand recognition, so that a specific brand stays top-of-mind in a potential customer, over competitor brands.