Imagine enlarging Williams-Brice tailgating to the size of New York City and involving everyone in the city.
That’s how Joseph Gelay would describe the World Cup experience.
“It was just like being in a big soccer heaven,” Gelay said. “It was like what you would see in the movies or what you would imagine to be an overdone Nike or Adidas commercial with everyone in the streets or wearing Brazilian colors.”
Gelay and his best friend since Welcome Week at USC, Jack Mitchell, received a Magellan Research Grant to study ambush marketing at the 2014 World Cup.
Ambush marketing is a strategy that involves companies taking advantage of a large event to receive free press without paying fees to become an official sponsor. The two fourth-year sport and entertainment students examined the efforts FIFA had in place to inhibit ambush marketing and assessed whether or not it was successful in its efforts.
“It’s basically a marketing study about how companies who aren’t official sponsors with an event use the presence of the event and all the fans it draws to try and ride on the coattails of the official sponsors and the event itself,” Mitchell said.
Gelay first thought of the idea, since he has always wanted to go to the World Cup. The USC HRSM School sent people to London for the 2012 Olympics, and Mitchell and Gelay, both self-proclaimed soccer fans, thought they might try to find a way to make it to Rio de Janeiro.
“I’ve always wanted to go to the World Cup my whole life. I figured it would be something years and years and years down the road, but just a year ago I thought ‘maybe I can go next year,’” Gelay said. “It was all such a whirlwind.”
They approached John Grady, a professor they knew was very involved in undergraduate experience and who is known for his years of extensive research in ambush marketing. Grady spent the fall semester of last year helping them design a project that would be fundable.
“It didn’t occur to me for a while that I could get maybe down [to Brazil], then one day I was thinking about it and went to his office and put something together,” Gelay said. “What started as a little project turned into something that would be fundable.”
After they received the Magellan Grant, their dream became a reality, and they were able to spend 10 days in Brazil. They stayed with their friend David Lazaroff, a USC student who has been studying abroad in Rio de Janeiro.
“I can only imagine what a full month down in Brazil was like. There’s so many people coming in, and there’s just so many people that the cities aren’t used to having,” Mitchell said. “It’s incredibly busy, which also makes it incredibly exciting, which is part of the reason it’s a great opportunity for sponsors to have all this access to people they wouldn’t normally get.”
They spent the entirety of the time in Rio de Janeiro, the epicenter of the World Cup action, taking pictures of the event space, observing the marketing and advertisements and absorbing the atmosphere.
“We figured there would be the most marketing there, which there was, so it was perfect,” Gelay said. “You kind of act like you aren’t a researcher, but more like a standard fan, a standard consumer, and you kind of like see in your eyes what someone else would see.”
Both Mitchell and Gelay enjoyed being able to see the details of the World Cup that can’t be experienced through television.
“It was great to see what a World Cup stadium was like. That was my favorite part,” Mitchell said. “We got to see what it’s like all around, like the excitement. You get the whole feel of the event … the whole flavor of the event you can see outside of the stadium.”
Their research focused on bigger advertisers and companies, but Gelay was surprised by how many marketing schemes from small businesses flew under FIFA’s radar without any efforts to stop them. He said every business had a World Cup advertisement and every restaurant had a menu themed around the event.
“Every bar, every street corner is just draped in Brazilian flags and decorations,” Gelay said. “Everything’s about the World Cup the entire time you’re down there. You couldn’t avoid it if you wanted to.”
While they were abroad, Mitchell and Gelay had the details for their trip precisely planned out.
“While we were down in Brazil, that’s when we already had everything laid out for us and it was just a matter of following our guidelines and going there and looking for the stuff that would help us with our research,” Gelay said. “It was kind of like we were following a blueprint the whole time. It was easy.”
Both students, however, said the hardest part is yet to come. They will spend the upcoming semester synthesizing their research and applying it to social media and news about the World Cup.
His desire to have the opportunity to do research such as this was one aspect that motivated Gelay to choose USC during his college search.
“Doing something like research, for me, is just so hands-on and it’s just so different from being in a classroom setting versus being out in the field and actually being able to see and hear and experience everything you’ve been learning about and then be able to apply your own creative thinking to it … and make it something that’s yours,” Gelay said. “I liked being able to design, create and make something that was my own versus learning about something other people are doing.”
Both Mitchell and Gelay believe that other USC students should care about their research because it is a prominent example of the opportunities available for USC students.
“Our research project, being at the World Cup, it’s nice because it has a flashy title. Everyone sees it and they’re all like, ‘what the hell, why can’t I go to the World Cup for free?’” Gelay said. “But what you learn from it is that you can, and students need to realize that.”
In addition, they both did more than just learn about ambush marketing. They were reminded about the opportunities they’ve been given and truly began to understand exactly what they could achieve.
“Everything always says to chase your dreams and that nothing’s impossible; there’s opportunities out there at Carolina,” Gelay said. “But until you actually experience that, that’s just things that people tell you. Every time I get to do something like that, like a big project for school, it’s always a great reminder of the opportunities that are open to us as students at Carolina.”