With the biggest sporting event of the year on the horizon, we wanted to help Spotify become a part of the excitement around the World Cup in the Middle East and North Africa by leveraging the power of sound to connect the brand with its audiences.
The idea was to enrich our audience’s biggest World Cup moments by connecting them with music and audio and to be a part of the World Cup commentary in real-time as true fans along with the rest of the world.
In order to capture the excitement and passion of the World Cup in a way that resonated with Spotify MENA’s followers, as true fans ourselves, we joined in the World Cup conversations as they happened; incorporating cultural references and humor to capture the mood of each nation in real-time.
The first big moment that catapulted Spotify into the conversation came in the form of Saudi Arabia's glorious defeat of Argentina, for which we immediately harnessed the Spotify KSA account to playfully tweet a link to the song 'Don't Cry for me Argentina' at the Spotify Argentina account.
This exchange sparked amusement from fans and quickly became the account's highest-ever retweeted content, getting picked up by news outlets such as Al Jazeera and influencing consumption on other platforms such as YouTube and TikTok.
The next significant moment was Spain's savage beatdown by Morocco, for which we harnessed the Spotify Arabia account to cheekily express our sympathies in the form of a link to the song ‘Adiós’ by Selena Gomez. The post was promptly hijacked by the singer’s fanbase sending it hundreds of thousands of impressions in just 24 hours.
Finally, when Morocco became the first Arab team to ever reach the World Cup semi-finals, we rebranded Spotify MENA accounts across social platforms with Moroccan flag colours and the slogan ‘Dima Maroc’ - meaning ‘Morocco Forever’. A powerful stance that represented a united arab audience, standing behind one team, together.
Overall, our strategy for the World Cup successfully combined audio and football in a way that added value for both fans and music lovers. Allowing us to capture the excitement of the World Cup and leverage key moments that resonated with followers, drove engagement, and earned public recognition.
Our Saudi Win tweet achieved a record-breaking 1,900+ organic retweets and 36,500+ organic engagements on Twitter, while our Morocco Win tweet was hijacked by Selena Gomez's fanbase, resulting in 235,900+ impressions and 3,800+ interactions in just 24 hours. These tweets inspired thousands of conversations across platforms, achieving a total of 3,950,837 organic impressions and 265,518 organic interactions, as well as breaking Spotify MENA's records for highest retweets, impressions, and Instagram shares.
Our efforts directly resulted in a 1,200% increase in streams for the track 'Don't Cry for Me Argentina' after Saudi Arabia celebrated their famous victory, and led to 13.5K account reactivations in Saudi Arabia. Additionally, our Moroccan flag rebrand for Spotify KSA & Arabia was celebrated by many fans and Arab musical influencers, achieving a buzz with 23,000+ reactions, 1,500+ comments, and 6,800+ shares.
Our success did not go unnoticed within Spotify either, as our activation earned the attention and praise of Spotify's global CMO and has been celebrated as a big win globally as well as within our regional markets. The buzz was even picked up by MENA's biggest news outlet, Al Jazeera, and saw engagement from other brands like Noon & Goal.com.
Overall, our team's contributions to the football season conversation were a huge success for Spotify MENA, meeting our objectives and exceeding our expectations. We are proud of the impact we made and are excited to continue driving engagement and brand love for Spotify in the future.
