First-ever FIFA WWC Multicultural Fan Engagement

The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup (FWWC23) unfolded as the ninth edition of this international event, a once-every-four-years celebration. Australia and New Zealand co-hosted, making it the inaugural Women’s World Cup in the Southern Hemisphere and the first with a dual-host arrangement.

CulturalPulse was engaged for the execution of a specialised Multicultural Fan Engagement Program. The primary focus was crafting tailored content, fostering relevant community engagement, and amplifying community connections, all with the ultimate aim of boosting ticket sales and attendance.

FIFA were facing challenges around limited awareness of the tournament, participating nations, players, host cities, and low literacy on digital ticket purchasing within target communities. CulturalPulse was engaged with a mission to heighten awareness, engagement, and participation from Australia’s diverse communities.

The Approach

This program was strategically designed to optimise multicultural community development, increase awareness, and drive attendance at matches. The program aims were:

• Big crowds to increase awareness and drive attendance to matches.
• Celebrate culture to encourage communities to use the event as an opportunity to celebrate their culture on the global stage.
• Provide an engagement platform for community champions to have the tools to engage their communities.

We focused on 24 competing nations and their associated communities spanning Europe, Africa, Asia, America, and Oceania, considering team locations, host cities, and stadium capacities.

Insights and Strategy:

• We collated census data, focusing on population sizes relative to match locations and stadium capacities. This process ensured our efforts were concentrated in areas with sizable target diasporas and high potential for attendance.
• We then triangulated diaspora numbers against communities’ levels of interest in football, propensity to travel, and expected support levels (e.g. higher-ranked teams have higher support), to prioritise our marketing spend. 
• We integrated CulturalPulse’s understanding of the unique cultural nuances of each community—including values and consumer behaviours such as last-minute purchases and group buying practices.

Technology:

• We developed a proprietary FWWC23 ticketing dashboard to analyse ticket sales by match, allowing our team to recalibrate promotions towards games and communities that required more information and encouragement to buy tickets.

CALD Content and Creative:

• We created 164 customised creative assets such as community guide, posters, specific match tiles, and vibrant flyers. Every asset was translated and contextualised to resonate deeply within each community.

CALD Media:

• We disseminated culturally resonant content across diverse community segments, leveraging the expansive CulturalPulse network. This network comprised social media channels, multicultural media publications, community social groups, and influential community leaders and associations. Our concerted efforts led to an impactful outreach with over 21 million impressions within our target communities.
• The essence of our market and community communication strategy is to amplify the message extensively through both formal and informal channels. This approach fosters a sense of community engagement, encouraging multicultural communities to organically share specific, language-tailored messages with their circles—family, friends, and colleagues. This ripple effect not only enhances awareness but also ensures that the communicated message is received as credible and trustworthy, emanating from respected sources within the community.

Cultural Ambassadors and Activation – Community Champion Program:

• We initiated a Community Champions program, managing the entire process, from recruitment to onboarding, induction, and final delivery.
• In total, we assembled a team of 192 champions—individuals chosen by both CulturalPulse and FWWC23 for their leadership roles within multicultural communities, including community organisation leaders, community media representatives, football community leaders, business group leaders, embassy representatives and influential community social media figures.
• As part of the Program, we managed Community Champions Induction Events, bringing vibrancy to Sydney and Auckland. These gatherings, attended by a diverse cross-section of local communities groups and organisations and cultural media entities.
• CulturalPulse also managed 9 activation dinners spanning Australia and New Zealand, each uniquely tailored to resonate with one of the 24 target communities, aiming to drive awareness in local communities.

The Outcome

The FWWC23 was a highly successful tournament, drawing a record-breaking total crowd of 1,977,824 across all matches in Australia and New Zealand. A remarkable 74% of the attendance, totalling 1,466,948, were away matches (excluding those featuring Australia and New Zealand), with 31 sellout matches.

The impact of the Multicultural Fan Engagement Program was profound.

• Total Reach: A staggering 18.2 million individuals reached.
• Total Impressions: 21.1 million impressions were recorded.
• Ticketing Page Clicks: CulturalPulse campaigns recorded 340,000 clicks on the ticketing page, showcasing the impact of our initiatives.

The FWWC23 Multicultural Fan Engagement Program, executed by CulturalPulse, achieved remarkable success in meeting its objectives and delivering key outcomes, setting a new standard for multicultural engagement in sports marketing. The FWWC23 was the most watched – in live attendance and on television – sporting tournament hosted in Australia since the 2000 Sydney Olympics, as well as the most watched women’s sporting tournament in the history of the world.

“It’s been an amazing event, great to see all the vibrant cultural communities. Thanks to you and the team for all of the help fostering that energy and excitement.”

– Kim Anderson, Head of Marketing, FWWC23

“I believe I have witnessed multiple barriers being broken during this great global tournament. The legacy will live forever, the impact will benefit generations to come. We all agree that this has deepened people-to-people links. Congratulations to your team and thank you for engaging our communities.”

– Dr. Casta Tungaraza, Community Champion and President of African Women’s Council of Australia