For the most part, branded content lives on micro sites and YouTube channels. Both places in which you have to drive viewers to. But, during global events (such as The World Cup) Facebook has the eyeballs. It’s just that the content is created by the owners of the eyeballs and it’s pretty hard to find. Because it’s spread out all over the place. We created a way to focus all of the energy and excitement swirling on Facebook during the World Cup. And we found a way to do it on a global scale. Also, typically, the “brand” in branded content is usually pretty hidden. In our case by simply interacting with the Facebook Ref, people were using our product.

Before the World Cup began we released a film that told the Ref's story. It was followed by a series of shorter films, each showing a different aspect of the Ref's preparation for the games.

Each of these films ended with the CTA. “Follow the Ref, Your Friend on the Field”. By following the Ref's page you got his updates throughout the month long tournament.

Beyond that, we used the tools built into the Facebook platform. Every time the Ref posted a video update that was re-shared by hundreds of people.

Because of that, Awareness of this helpful character happened organically.

The goal was to make Facebook a destination during the World Cup. Considering that at one point there were more people talking about the World Cup on Facebook than Twitter’s entire user base, We’d say we accomplished that. The model we created with The Facebook Ref kept millions of people coming back again and again.In one month The Facebook Ref amassed over 700k followers from 44 different countries. He got over 11.4 million video and photo views and got over 1.65 billion impressions. But perhaps the greatest measure of success might be the comment threads below each of the 3,000 pieces of content he shared. A team of community managers were responding to comments and messages in real time, as the ref. Once people realized the Ref was actually on the other side it really came to life. With over 5700 real time responses, it was clear that this fictional character had a real impact on soccer fans worldwide. He even got a few marriage proposals. No joke.