What does Brazil want from the World Cup?

Any company, when making an investment, has very clear objectives. Among them, we can have increasing production, improving product quality, training its employees, providing better working and social conditions for its employees, improving the institutional image, improving the image of the products, launching new products, and many others.

By defining what she needs and should do, she will seek the appropriate alternatives for each objective. She can buy new machinery, modernize packaging, and carry out marketing activities with advertising, promotions, sponsorships, and various others.

In the case of marketing activity, the company seeks the necessary information in the market so that the product offering is as close as possible to the aspirations of its consumer. Moreover, before launching a particular product on the market, the company has already conducted extensive market research to find out what type of product the market was looking for or needed.

Let's suppose the company's marketing department has concluded that it should engage in sports sponsorship. Or sports sponsorships.

To achieve this, it hired a reputable, professional sports marketing agency with a proven track record in strategically planning what types of sponsorships and events it should sponsor to reach, engage, delight, and win over its target consumer.

This plan should clearly state the objective to be achieved – which could be institutional, commercial, social, or many others – the amount to be invested, and the expected return. In this way, the investment can be evaluated correctly. The famous ROI, so often disregarded by governments, public companies, state-owned enterprises, and politicians.

Could someone tell me – this is a public challenge – what calculations the Brazilian government made to secure the right to host the FIFA World Cup? What commercial, institutional, or other objectives led the country to seek the right to host a World Cup?

I can give you some tips about other countries.

Germany wanted the World Cup to show the world, and Europe especially, that the German people are not a stuffy, grumpy, or unwelcoming people. They wanted to show that tourists in Germany would find technology, natural beauty, good hotels, good beer, good wine, good restaurants, and... a cheerful, cordial, friendly, and welcoming people. To that end, before creating the brand for the German World Cup, they established their positioning: to show the world that it's a time to make friends.

The phrase inspired the World Cup logo. Unlike Brazil, which created a brand without knowing the image the country wants to project to the world.

China's slogan during the Beijing Olympics also took advantage of the moment of extreme visibility to propose to the world: one world, one dream.

South Africa, in turn, used its need to overcome its social and racial problems with the theme: a place for everyone.

And Brazil? What do we want to show the world?

Are we the country of samba, carnival, and football?

Are we a country of natural beauty?

That we are a country of commercial opportunities, that we have excellent consumer potential?

Are we a technologically advanced country, or almost?

Are we going to make the biggest investments ever seen in all World Cups with public money?

Marketing professionals, investors, sponsors, and advertisers expect the authorities who have taken charge of the World Cup to provide direction so that everyone can speak the same language, work towards the same goal, and combine efforts.

Winning the trophy isn't the country's objective. It's the national team's objective.

* José Estevão Cocco is a founding member of the Brazilian Academy of Marketing and president of ABRAESPORTE - the Brazilian Academy of Sports Marketing.