WB Games, together with Electronic Arts, believe that the EA Sports FIFA series (currently EA Sports FC) could be the biggest soccer video game series in Brazil, surpassing Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer. FIFA 12 was well-received in the Brazilian market and the focus was to make FIFA 13 something much bigger, where they decided to have Brazilian broadcasters for the first time in the series. To warm up the game, one of the focuses of the WB Games marketing department was to develop and grow social media content. That’s when I arrived at Agência Joe’s, the social media agency responsible for WB Home Entertainment’s social medias (games, DVDs and Blu-rays), to manage WB Games’ pages, such as WB Games Brasil, EA Sports FIFA Brasil and The Sims Brasil. The focus on FIFA was to create content with a lot of engagement, but avoiding any kind of soccer rivalry. I created a plan to talking about soccer, with international coverage, focusing especially on big soccer players in the world, those players who make a difference when playing EA Sports FIFA. After some time, we narrowed our focus to the Brazilian soccer, but focused on athletes who were part of the Brazilian national team. We began to create ongoing cultural contests, rewarding fans of the franchise with t-shirts, games, and gift packages negotiated with Nike and Adidas, and with teams like Palmeiras and Corinthians, which are very popular in the state of São Paulo, and where the most of the audience of the Facebook and Twitter were. With the release of FIFA 13, we hired Gustavo Nascimento, the best FIFA player at the time, to give tips on how to play FIFA like a pro. One of the cultural contests we held was to take two people to watch the final match of Copa Libertadores da América (CONMEBOL Libertadores) between Corinthians and Boca Juniors in the city of São Paulo. The cultural contest, which lasted just 4 days, had the participation of 28,000 people without any investment in FB Ads.
The posts on Facebook and Twitter were daily, often more than one per day, and were approved by the WB Games marketing department. Over time and as the page grew, the posts began to be approved by the EA Sports FIFA page in English. I took over the Facebook page with just over 8,000 fans and, when I left, it had almost 830,000, a growth of almost 10,000%. In 2012, it was the 12th most important fan page in Brazil according to Social Bakers. On Twitter, #fifa13 became a trending topic when Tiago Leifert and Caio Ribeiro were announced as broadcasters.

Disclaimer: WB Games was responsible for the physical distribution of Electronic Arts games and the companies cooperated in several ways.

Social media posts from that time are no longer available due to a change in strategy by both companies.

Client: WB Games and Electronic Arts

Date: December 2011 to April 2013

Category: Social Media