WSC Sports World Cup highlights pull 60m views
December 20, 2022
WSC Sports has reported more than 60 million views of its AI-driven real-time FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 highlights on Google Search throughout the duration of the tournament.
WSC Sports supplied more than 20 national broadcasters – including SuperSport, NOS and TV2 – with its automated, machine-learning video solutions for Qatar 2022, relaying highlights of key incidents directly to the top-ranked position on Google Search as the action unfolded. WSC Sports was the only video highlights provider to partner with Google Search for the event.
In total, WSC Sports’ Web Stories formats – fully-automated and customised real-time videos – generated over 61 million views for its clients via Google’s prime ‘Onebox’ search location. Of total video views, almost 20 million viewers have clicked through to WSC’s client’s native digital assets, meaning one in three people that watched a video via Google Search went on to consume more content on the broadcaster’s native platform.
In a tweet on December 18th, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet confirmed that Google Search recorded its highest ever traffic during the final of the FIFA World Cup and WSC Sports saw the Argentina vs France final represent 14 per cent of total viewership.
WSC Sports VP for Growth, Vadim Drozdovski, said: “Reaching fans at the World Cup, and any major event, is about understanding where they are looking for content. Web Stories’ impressive performance emphasizes how critical it is to be able to create timely AI-based content in a scalable manner to deliver the right content at the right time to capitalize on all potential search traffic. For brands and media partners, our results speak to the scale of opportunity that the World Cup creates with search showing intentionality and highlighting the opportunity to bring consumer directly into a marketing funnel. If rights holders, broadcasters and their brand partners distribute video efficiently and deliver content in real-time, it helps advertisers connect with audiences at their highest point of attention – and, most likely, at an emotional peak. Our own data at WSC Sports shows that click-through rates are extremely high in those moments, with 30 per cent of people visiting native platforms. This higher attentiveness and engagement among fans, leads to significantly improved ROI for advertisers compared to any other digitally available advertising format.”