Weibo World Cup: Real-time branding 'goal' of the day

July 13: By scoring a late goal in overtime to deliver a World Cup trophy for Germany in a 1-0 win, Mario Gotze also indirectly helped his shoe sponsor Nike snub Adidas and its Argentinan superstar Lionel Messi, who failed to score. Copy accompanying the smug image translates to: "The top of the world has become your stage, Götze." (把世界之巅，变成你的舞台。格策，#搏上一切#)

July 9: Before the penalty shoot-out during the Netherlands-Argentina semi-finals began, Argentinian goalkeeper Sergio Romero was seen studying a small piece of paper. Okamoto's sharp eyes caught him stuffing the note, apparently a cheat-sheet containing details about every Dutch penalty-taker, into his crotch (!), and then saving the next penalty. What exactly was written on the piece of paper? Okamoto makes a fun speculation.

July 8: There have been umpteenth posts making fun of Brazil after Germany trampled the host nation's team 7-1 in the semi-finals. Harbin Beer, banking on how beer is a major part of German culture, made references at how Brazil's national cocktail (the Caipirinha) is the odd one 'out'.

July 1: The United States team was sent packing after it was eliminated 2-1 by Belgium, but not before an Italian man with a history of match-stopping stunts ran onto the field at the 16th minute, wearing a blue Superman t-shirt with '#SAVE FAVELAS CHILDREN' and '#CIRO VIVE' printed on it. The Ice Breakers candy brand joked about it with Chinese copy lamenting "Superman could save the world, but could not save America".

June 30: With dry humour (meant for these icy liners to be associated with the candy's flavour), Ice Breakers expressed regret that Nigerian coach Stephen Keshi had to step down from his post after his side was eliminated following a 2-0 loss to France. "The Super [African] Eagles lost. After all, football is played on the ground" ensued in the same series.

June 26: Despite the star power of Cristiano Ronaldo, who earned a man-of-the-match award and scored his first World Cup goal to beat Ghana, Portugal was still eliminated from the tournament. Ronaldo's new zig-zag haircut was reportedly styled to match the scar of a Spanish boy (his fan) who recently underwent brain surgery successfully. But Ice Breakers bemoaned Portugal's fate with "A hairstylist is after all not a fengshui master".

June 25: Uruguay striker Luis Suarez’s chomp of indiscretion on the shoulder of Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini is still good fodder for food brands two days later. McDonald’s China got its teeth into the ripe real-time marketing opportunity with “Suarez, McD’s football burger is actually more tempting than Chiellini’s sexy shoulder.” (Original Chinese copy: 苏神，麦麦家的足球汉堡，其实比基耶利尼的香肩更诱人。) McDonald's apparently made a conscious decision to tease Suarez on a global scale, as the brand's Uruguayan Twitter account made the same wordplay in Spanish with a tweet reading, “Hi, Luis Suarez, if you are still hungry, come take a bite out of a Big Mac.”

June 24: Adidas China made two Weibo miscues after Uruguay’s World Cup win over Italy. Firstly, its perceived act of connivance after brand ambassador Luis Suarez bit his Italian opponent Giorgio Chiellini during yesterday’s game. Copy accompanying this image had a reference to Suarez's teethy misdeed: "一咬牙，就过去了" roughly translates to "Grit your teeth and it will be over", which did not go down well with fans, who swore to boycott Adidas products. What made matters worse was Adidas deleted that offending Weibo post one hour later, but not before netizens did screen-captures of it and criticised the brand for condoning the lack of sportsmanship by Suarez.

June 19: England's defeat by Uruguay suffered an intentional double entendre by Durex China, who pieced together red condom packets on white paper to represent the country's flag. The implication is that England was 'unable to shoot'. Copy accompanying the Weibo image consoled fans with lyrics from "You'll never walk alone”, the anthem of Liverpool (English Premier League football club).

June 16: Just before Germany's match against Portugal, Mercedes-Benz and BMW put their rivalry aside to leverage their country-of-origin connection with the German national team. The brands jointly promoted themselves with exactly the same Weibo image, meaning they worked together behind the scenes.

June 16: Chinese copy accompanying the two identical images loosely translates to "Cup in hand; together we battle, advance and retreat! Let the forces of the German chariots combine! We will point both our swords at the enemy ahead and be sleepless tonight. #We are one team#"