So, who outside of the Netherlands HAD actually heard of Bavaria beer before the world cup?
The orange dresses the beer brewery introduced for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, caused quite the hype. Prior to an incident involving the eviction of a group of women in the Bavaria dresses, from a stadium where they were wanting to watch a Netherlands - Denmark game, the dresses were mostly of interest to Dutch women wanting to support their national team, and some women whose men liked the low cut of the dress on their girlfriends. However, when three women were arrested for coordinating the event where thirty-six women showed up at the stadium in the Bavaria Dutch Dresses, the press caught on fire.
This wasn't the first time for Bavaria to battle with FIFA over whether their World Cup gadgets went against advertisement regulations. At the 2006 World Cup in Germany, prior to the Dutch game against the Ivory Coast, people were asked by stadium staff to remove their so called 'Leeuwenhosen', to be replaced by orange shorts without a brand printed on it. The Leeuwenhosen were donned an act of ambush marketing, with Bavaria getting called on it by the FIFA for not having paid to be a corporate sponsor or official event partner, to be allowed to market their own brand.
Why is it that we barely remember this incident in 2006, which is after all only four years ago?
One possible answer is: social media. The 2010 incident with the Dutch Dresses might not have been much more than an incident, if it hadn't immediately set social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and the popular version of the Dutch MySpace, Hyves, on fire. News has never traveled faster as it does nowadays, with just about anyone being able to launch a tidbit of information onto the world wide web, only to have it spread like wildfire. With so many tweets, Facebook posts and Hyves comments and updates on Bavaria's Dutch Dresses, Bavaria got more marketing done in a few days than it could have paid for during the whole World Cup month in total.
In the end, FIFA did Bavaria a favor by telling them they couldn't market their brand in the stadiums by having large groups of people wear their dresses. Whether Bavaria intended for that to happen or not, didn't matter much to the FIFA organization. Bavaria settled the case of the arrested women out of court and they were released moments later. Another Bavaria marketing scandal put to rest... everywhere, except on the internet. A search on Twitter shows people are still tweeting about the dresses, showing off the Bavaria logos in photos, manipulated photos and other such popular internet mediums to get a message across.
You have to wonder if Nike isn't hoping someone will notice people wear their shoes to matches in the South African stadiums, while they're not an official sponsor of the event this year, either. Someone launch a tweet debate about whether or not this is breaking FIFA marketing rules, and watch social media work some more unpaid marketing magic.
The orange dresses the beer brewery introduced for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, caused quite the hype. Prior to an incident involving the eviction of a group of women in the Bavaria dresses, from a stadium where they were wanting to watch a Netherlands - Denmark game, the dresses were mostly of interest to Dutch women wanting to support their national team, and some women whose men liked the low cut of the dress on their girlfriends. However, when three women were arrested for coordinating the event where thirty-six women showed up at the stadium in the Bavaria Dutch Dresses, the press caught on fire.
This wasn't the first time for Bavaria to battle with FIFA over whether their World Cup gadgets went against advertisement regulations. At the 2006 World Cup in Germany, prior to the Dutch game against the Ivory Coast, people were asked by stadium staff to remove their so called 'Leeuwenhosen', to be replaced by orange shorts without a brand printed on it. The Leeuwenhosen were donned an act of ambush marketing, with Bavaria getting called on it by the FIFA for not having paid to be a corporate sponsor or official event partner, to be allowed to market their own brand.
Why is it that we barely remember this incident in 2006, which is after all only four years ago?
One possible answer is: social media. The 2010 incident with the Dutch Dresses might not have been much more than an incident, if it hadn't immediately set social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and the popular version of the Dutch MySpace, Hyves, on fire. News has never traveled faster as it does nowadays, with just about anyone being able to launch a tidbit of information onto the world wide web, only to have it spread like wildfire. With so many tweets, Facebook posts and Hyves comments and updates on Bavaria's Dutch Dresses, Bavaria got more marketing done in a few days than it could have paid for during the whole World Cup month in total.
In the end, FIFA did Bavaria a favor by telling them they couldn't market their brand in the stadiums by having large groups of people wear their dresses. Whether Bavaria intended for that to happen or not, didn't matter much to the FIFA organization. Bavaria settled the case of the arrested women out of court and they were released moments later. Another Bavaria marketing scandal put to rest... everywhere, except on the internet. A search on Twitter shows people are still tweeting about the dresses, showing off the Bavaria logos in photos, manipulated photos and other such popular internet mediums to get a message across.
You have to wonder if Nike isn't hoping someone will notice people wear their shoes to matches in the South African stadiums, while they're not an official sponsor of the event this year, either. Someone launch a tweet debate about whether or not this is breaking FIFA marketing rules, and watch social media work some more unpaid marketing magic.
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