The biggest brands in the world are taking advantage of the huge surge in mobile traffic driven by soccer fanatics seeking coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

Across all digital platforms?online, mobile, social media, fantasy, games and digital audio?ESPN is dedicating a full month of 24/7 news, analysis, commentary and interactivity around the world?s biggest sporting event. ESPN sold out its entire mobile inventory before the first World Cup match had even been played, with brands such as Anheuser-Busch, adidas, Sony, EA, Cisco, Hyundai and AT&T targeting soccer fans across ESPN?s mobile Web site, applications, SMS alerts and mobile television.

?You can?t overstate how big of an event the World Cup is on a global basis, and ESPN set this as a priority last June?it?s been a real focus of the company along with mobile,? said John Zehr, senior vice president and general manager of mobile at ESPN, Bristol, CT.

?If you look at the game windows, they?re early in the Western Hemisphere, so mobile becomes a great outlet for people that want to follow the matches,? he said. ?There are 64 matches on ESPN?s mobile TV channel, and additional simulcast matches on AT&T?s network.

?We also have an iPhone app we launched back in December when the draw came out featuring live radiocast, alerts for all goals that are scored, scores, push notifications and SMS alerts.?

ESPN attracts eyeballs across platforms
Mr. Zehr said that the 2010 FIFA World Cup has been a breakthrough event for ESPN Mobile, which is serving fans through a variety of applications, alerts, mobile Web and mobile video services.

The event marks the first time that World Cup live matches will be available domestically on mobile platforms.

ESPN Mobile offers all 64 matches live from the first round to the final match on mobile platforms nationwide.

ESPN Mobile TV, available on AT&T Mobile TV, FLO TV, MobiTV, Sprint TV and Verizon VCast platforms, carries 56 matches live in the U.S.

Additionally, AT&T Mobile TV carries the eight live overlapping concurrent matches on a World Cup dedicated channel.

A premium upgrade to the current ESPN 2010 FIFA World Cup application is available for a one-time purchase of $7.99, letting fans to access enhanced features such as live play by plays, live audio, live commentary, live scoring alerts, breaking news alerts, news by team alerts and in game video highlights (see story).

The upgrade will include community tools such as sharing favorite teams and stories through Facebook and Twitter integrations.  An international version of the app will also be launching in June.

For $4.99, fans receive text message updates on all World Cup match starts, scores and news.

ESPN has published three games dedicated to the World Cup: ESPN Shootout, ESPN Pinball and ESPN Trivia.

Fans on any data-enabled mobile device can follow live scores, Gamecast play-by-play, news and information on a dedicated World Cup section of the ESPNsoccernet mobile Web.

Additionally, the ESPN Deportes Radio iPhone application provides access to on-the-ground Spanish language coverage from a team of writers, correspondents and on-air talent for ESPNdeportes.com. It features the 24/7 ESPN Deportes Radio stream, soccer scores, news, audio podcasts and video clips.

The large majority of these platforms are ad-supported, even some of the paid content.

ESPN has been airing World Cup spots on its TV network with call-outs on the end card for mobile TV, promotion of the mobile Web site and the World Cup and ScoreCenter applications and the on-air call-to-action ?text GOAL to 43376.?

As the World Cup kicked off last month, ESPN?s World Cup application knocked ESPN?s ScoreCenter off of the top spot among free applications in the App Store.

As of June 27, just before the quarterfinals began, ESPN?s mobile Web site, the 2010 FIFA World Cup application and the ScoreCenter application had generated 70.3 million visits and 385.5 million page views to World Cup content.

ESPN's World Cup application had generated 3.1 million video views by that date for World Cup highlights, news and analysis content.

Viewers to matches on ESPN Mobile TV had spent a total of 40 million-plus minutes with that offering through June 23.

?The World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world other than in the U.S.?it?s the No. 1 event that is followed worldwide,? Mr. Zehr said. ?For America it?s seen a big growth trajectory as the country has gotten more global and the world has gotten smaller, with immigrants coming here bring their soccer passion.

?Most sponsors take part in multiplatform advertising that include ad units within our World Cup app, ScoreCenter app, mobile Web site and other mobile properties,? he said.

Goal.com scores big
The FIFA World Cup presents big opportunities for brands to create successful mobile advertising campaigns, especially with the evolution of location-based and geo-targeting capabilities (see story).

The Goal.com mobile application has been downloaded over 651,000 times, World Cup 2010 and global soccer coverage to fans? handsets.

The application is available free across all major smartphone platforms, including Nokia (S60 5th edition), iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Windows Mobile devices.

It is also now available in nine languages?English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Dutch and Indonesian.

The updated World Cup 2010 version of the application, developed in partnership with Handmark, includes live scores for fans on the move as well as group-by-group fixtures, ensuring users are able to keep track of the world?s most popular event whether they are on the train, at work or in between meetings.

News and scores within the application update automatically, even when not in use, meaning the user is greeted with immediate, up-to-date information upon its launch.

All stories are available for offline reading and can be shared via email and social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

?Mobile is a core and ever-expanding part of our content delivery strategy since football fans want to be in touch with their players and their national teams every minute of the day,? said Gianluigi Longinotti-Buitoni, founder/president of Goal.com, London.

?As the largest football new media community in the world, the World Cup represents a perfect occasion to showcase new products and new services,? he said. ?We are present in every country in the world therefore demographic may change depending on the country.?

Brands have not missed the opportunity to engage those fans via mobile.

Sponsors of the Goal.com application include Coca-Cola, Nike, Puma, adidas, Emirates, Castrol, Sony and Pepsi.

?Every month our 550 editors around the world create more than 70,000 stories in 15 languages and 22 versions thus the challenge was to deliver such a huge amount of content through an application that was intuitive, fast, easy to navigate and in many different languages,? Mr. Longinotti-Buitoni said.

?Handmark has been successful at overcoming this challenge," he said.

At the start of the World Cup, Goal.com had more than 20 million monthly unique users across its online and mobile platforms, and that number has grown substantially during the World Cup.

?Because of the quality of the application we have been featured in Nokia, BlackBerry, Apple and Android app stores,? Mr. Longinotti-Buitoni said.

Final take

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