ESPN Deportes is expected to
announce next week the launch of a comprehensive, multimedia marketing campaign
touting its coverage of this year's 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa from
June 11 through July 11, 2010.
Dubbed 90 minutos no son suficientes (90
Minutes: It's Not Enough), the effort aims at showcasing ESPN's "game
around the game" capabilities and its plans to deliver more than 330 hours of
World Cup-related news and information in Spanish (more than double the
coverage from the 2006 World Cup in Germany).
ESPN's family of networks
holds the U.S. World Cup rights for coverage in all languages except Spanish, for
which Univision is the rights-holder. That's the point of the campaign's
message to Spanish-speaking fans: the actual 90 minutes of game time is not
enough to fully enjoy the World Cup, says ESPN Deportes.
The campaign, set to break May
24, publicizes the presence of some of ESPN Deportes' top Spanish-speaking
talent in South Africa, including Jorge Ramos, Jose Ramon Fernandez, David
Faitelson, Fernando Palomo, Tato Noriega and Fernando Schwartz. The multimedia
marketing effort consists of on-air spots, online video banners, radio, print
and a series of viral spots on YouTube and Facebook. Creative was developed by
ESPN Deportes Mexican ad agency, named "A bunch of monkeys."
"Soccer fans spend so many minutes
with ESPN soccer coverage that we want to provide them with the best news and
information before and after the actual games," ESPN senior director of sports
marketing Seth Ader said during the programmer's mid-April coverage
announcement.
Altogether, ESPN Deportes is
deploying 25 reporters to cover South Africa and it will have as many as 15
commentators rotating through news from a state-of-the-art outdoor set located
at Nelson Mandela Square, one of the most important landmarks in South
Africa. Some of the network's most popular shows, including Cronómetro and Jorge Ramos y su Banda, will originate live throughout the
tournament. Coverage will include a special 90-minute edition of Mexican soccer
show Futbol Picante on the days that
Mexico plays.
ESPN will also offer more than 40 FIFA World Cup contests in
Portuguese in the U.S., part of a multi-language strategy to reach out to U.S. fans.
