Rugby World Cup: marketing campaign ideas to launch before, during and after the competition
The Rugby World Cup is set to captivate rugby fans worldwide once again, from September 8th to October 28th 2023. For brands and marketers, this global sporting event represents an opportunity to engage with passionate fans, leverage the excitement surrounding the competition and collect first- and zero-party data.
In this article, we explore engaging marketing campaign ideas designed specifically for the Rugby World Cup, inspiring brands to make the most of this major event. Whether it’s before, during or after the competition, we’ve got Rugby World Cup marketing ideas that will engage your community, increase your brand visibility and boost your sales.
Rugby World Cup: marketing ideas before the competition
1. Calendar: get ready for the competition
Encourage your community to get ready for the competition with your brand thanks to an original calendar. Each calendar box is represented by a flag behind which participants can find a quiz asking questions about the participating countries. This calendar is a horizontal calendar, meaning that to access all the boxes, participants need to scroll horizontally.
We’ve already used this calendar in our summer inspiration, so you can quickly look at it here! If you’d like to create a calendar like this, get in touch with our Studio, they’ll be happy to help you create this campaign for you.
For Qualifio users: all Qualifio Engage campaigns can be embedded in your loyalty program, making it even more easy for members to participate. If you want to know how to customise and brand your member portal, check out our FAQ.
2. Sudden death: it’s your turn to play!
For this idea, we came up with an immersive campaign where participants have to put themselves in the shoes of rugby players and make the right decisions to win. With the sudden death quiz, participants are excluded as soon as they give a wrong answer, making this game even more challenging! Do you want to try it? Let’s go!
3. Team selector: your dream team
The team selector is an absolute must-have campaign for the Rugby World Cup! Ask your users to create their own team for the competition and see who the most popular players are.
Once they have made their choice, they can submit their selection and their lineup image is directly generated from it. Encourage them to share it on Facebook, and enjoy the engagement created between your brand and your community.
4. Guess the word: who’s participating?
The online game “Countrydle” inspired us for this campaign. We’ve created a Qualifio version of the game by using our “guess the word” format. The goal? Find the names of the participating countries according to their shape!
5. Quiz: how much do you know about the previous world cups?
A quiz is always a good idea to engage quickly with your audience and for this campaign idea, we’ve decided to use the swiper format. Participants have to “swipe” left or right to answer the question “Which teams took part in the last rugby tournament?”.
Rugby World Cup: marketing ideas during the competition
1. GIF quiz: you’re the referee
You know that with the quiz, you can create a multitude of different question types based on pictures, videos, audio or just text. For this campaign idea, we’ve chosen to use GIFs and to ask participants to put themselves in the shoes of a referee by answering one question that can be tricky sometimes: is it a foul or not?
2. Obstacle run: run and score!
Take your interactive marketing campaigns for the Rugby World Cup to the next level by using our “Advanced Formats” add-on! This add-on gives you access to original games like the obstacle run, enabling you to gamify even more your website and attract more fans.
In this game, participants have to avoid players to score a try.
3. Swap & match: rugby jerseys
Like the obstacle run, the swap & match is also a game included in our “Advanced Formats” add-on. Here, participants swap objects (balls, jerseys, players, etc.) to make a row or a column of at least three identical items. The more objects they match, the more points they score!
4. Quiz: what team is this jersey from?
If you want to test the knowledge of rugby fans via another fun quiz, we suggest using this campaign idea that challenges participants to guess from which team the jersey is from. You can then make a draw among the winners and offer them a jersey to boost your participations!
5. Hidden object: find the golden ball
With the hidden object, your community will have to look at the image of your choice for a relatively long time to find the object hidden in it. We’ve chosen a golden ball, but it can be your logo, your new product or whatever object you like.
6. Photo editor: support your team!
User-generated content is also a must-have for the Rugby World Cup. Ask your audience which team they support and encourage them to upload a picture of themselves in the stadium. With the photo editor, participants can upload and edit a photo by adding visual elements of your choice: thematic frame, logo, flags, stickers, mascot, etc. They can then vote for their favourite pictures and you can reward the fan with the most votes with a nice gift.
Rugby World Cup: marketing ideas after the competition
1. Vote: the best try of the competition
Select the best tries of the competition, insert the video extracts in a campaign and ask your community to vote for their favourite one. Perfect for staying connected with rugby fans even after the competition!
2. Battle: the man of the match
The battle is an easy format to put in place for your brand. It’s visually appealing and doesn’t require much action from your participants who simply have to make a choice by clicking on one of the two proposed images.
3. Jackpot: it’s your lucky day
Just because the competition is over doesn’t mean you can’t still spoil your community! The jackpot is the perfect campaign format for that, with no questions needed. Much like in a classic instant win, participants immediately know if they have won… or lost, depending on whether the three images in the machine are identical or not.
4. Personality test: which rugby player are you?
And one last campaign idea for the road: the personality test, enabling your users to discover which rugby player they are. As well as being fun, the personality test allows you to collect precious data on your audience and use this data for your next communication, like in the subject of your email for example.
That’s all folks! So, as the tournament approaches, feel free to choose one (or more) of the campaign ideas above and adapt it to your brand’s identity. And if you need help creating your stunning campaign, don’t hesitate to contact us.
If you want to find out how to leverage Qualifio for major sporting events, read the RTBF success story or our football competitions inspiration article.
