The Fifa World Cup is the world’s most widely viewed sporting event. The objective of the campaign was to raise awareness of Ecobank’s pan-African support of the football and its supporters across the continent. The bank’s position as the official broadcast sponsor of the World Cup satellite feed into Africa, under the auspices of the African Union of Broadcasters, epitomised its solidarity with Africa.
Brand Communications worked closely with Ecobank to negotiate the sponsorship deal, securing the bank as the principal broadcast sponsor in Africa (excluding South Africa). The sponsorship package provided Ecobank with visibility on terrestrial national TV channels that carried all the matches across the continent. Viewership numbers were naturally higher on these channels during this global festival of football.
Brand Communications’ 360º degree campaign was devised from concept and produced under the creative platform of “Go Team Africa” to highlight that Ecobank is truly The pan-African Bank.
Two TVCs were produced; one showcasing Ecobank’s broadcast sponsorship and the second promoting Ecobank’s various account offerings based on customers’ different lifestyle needs. Both underlined the brand message that Ecobank was the pre-eminent pan-African bank.
According to ratings agency Geopoll high viewing figures were achieved in key markets.
In Nigeria, the NTA channel carried the World Cup and had the highest viewership in the country during the period with 3,355 billion views – which translates to 112 million TV viewing situations per day.
In Ghana, the June 2014 TV audience alone for TV 3 was 687,873,625 total viewers and for the second channel GTV, 608,442,222 total viewers – 40 million unique TV viewing situations per day.
In Kenya, the KBC Channel received 565 million views in June 2014 – 19 million unique TV viewing situations per day.
In these three markets alone, the campaign reached 38 TV sets for just 1 dollar!
This campaign continued to build on the reputation of and recognition for Ecobank as the most valuable banking brand outside South Africa– a ranking bestowed upon it by The Global Banker – a Financial Times publication.