The Euro 2016 competition may have just ended, but it’s clear the social media conversation is still going strong. We partnered with SportMarket, a French Sports Marketing Agency, to develop an interesting infographic, providing a breakdown of the social media buzz surrounding Euro 2016.
Euro 2016, hosted in France, had an overall positive response on mainstream and social media. Out of all the social media data we analysed, we found that 75% of the posts were positive in sentiment. There were many different factors that drove positive, enthusiastic online posts. This includes buzz around the success of the Irish and Icelandic teams, as well as the French team that gave hope to their host country up until the final match.
On the other hand, there were many negative publications circulating around the beginning of the competition. There were fights that took place in the city of Marseille between the Russian and English, as well as waves of online criticism pointing out that the grass on the official grounds was considered mediocre for such a big competition.
- Among the 31 million Euro 2016 mentions, 9.6 million came from France, Portugal and England:
- France – 2,288,000 mentions
- Portugal – 1,688,000 mentions
- England – 1,486,000 mentions
Despite being eliminated early on in the competition, England came in 3rd place. When playing against Iceland, it was a big surprise to social media users that England did not beat them, since it was Iceland’s first international football competition. Even though they didn’t win, the country had a large voice on social media.
- Top European players score 3.7 million online mentions:
- Cristiano Ronaldo – 1,017,000 mentions
- Antoine Griezmann – 607,000 mentions
- Gareth Bale – 540,000 mentions
Gareth Bale reached the semifinals with Wales before losing against Portugal. This was another surprise to social media users because they didn’t think that Wales would reach the semifinals.
- French players score 1.8 millions online mentions:
- Antoine Griezmann – 607,000 mentions
- Dimitri Payet – 536,000 mentions
- Paul Pogba – 279,000 mentions
As the host of the competition, the spotlight was highly focused on the French team, and there was a lot of speculation around whether or not Dimitri Payet would rank first after the team competitions. Antoine Griezmann had the most social media mentions after he scored two goals against Ireland, qualifying France to the quarter finals.
- A great visibility for sponsors:
- Orange – 137,800 mentions
- Carlsberg – 77,600 mentions
- Hisense – 22,700 mentions
Orange, a major telecommunications corporation, was the most mentioned sponsor throughout the Euro 2016 competition. The brand launched a campaign called: Orange Sponsors You, which offered the possibility for participants to turn the Eiffel Tower light on with the colour of the team most supported. This program was very successful and triggered a massive amount of engagement.
Carlsberg ranked second, as they were a big advertiser for the Man Of The Match award. This program enabled the brand to be mentioned by the Union of European Football Associations after each game. The alcohol advertising policies are very strict in France, but Carlsberg was cleverly able to find a way around it.
Hisense, a Chinese brand, was the 3rd most popular sponsor on social media, due to its #FeelEverything campaign. In this campaign, the brand proposed a contest for participants to win tickets to upcoming games. The most mentions for this brand came from the 2nd phase of the competition.
- The host cities score 1.7 mentions:
- Marseille – 437 050 mentions
- Paris – 395 000 mentions
- Lille – 257 514
Marseille was the most mentioned city during the competition, particularly because of the violence that happened after the England versus Russia game on June 11th, with a peak of 150K mentions on just one day.
Paris benefited from the first game of the competition and the final in Saint Denis, a city very close to Paris, to take the rank of second most mentioned city. The high security program put in place by the city was appreciated by online mentions.
We also turned to our Social Listening platform to monitor mentions around food, while analysing publications related to food consumption during Euro 2016. Food mentions accounted for 57K of the total mentions.
Beer was the most mentioned product despite the advertising restrictions in France for alcoholic beverages, with one out of three beer mentions related to pizza.
Coca Cola was scored the title for top soda, with its visibility particularly boosted by its limited edition packaging for Euro 2016, that sparked a lot of picture sharing on social media.
How were we able to pull all of these social media insights? Request a demo to learn more about Synthesio’s Social Listening platform.
