FIFA uses Singlish in TikTok video: Possible location-based advertising?

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) has used Singlish in the caption of a TikTok video it recently posted, surprising Singaporean fans who were not expecting it from the global organisation. 

The video features a compilation of football players playing for their international teams and going past their opponents with a fair amount of skill and flair. It features clips from Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappe, Neymar and other football players. 

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The caption read:

Sibeh zai until opponents all blur. One moment see ball, next moment kena trick, don’t know where the ball go liao.

Essentially, the caption referenced how the players skills were so good that it left their opponents confused and "blur like sotong", a meaning further amplified with a squid emoji in the caption. 

Singaporeans in the comments were quick to identify the use of Singlish with some saying they were "tripping" and asking why FIFA was suddenly using Singlish. 

Some suggested that it might be specifically done to cater to a country's way of speaking. 

Location-data based advertising is not new in the industry, but it has been on the rise.

More than half of marketers surveyed said that they were spending SG$10,000 to SG$100,000 annually on location-data based advertising, according to an APAC study by Blis which interviewed 150 marketers. However, most respondents also revealed that they are unsure as to how best to utilise and measure the effectiveness of location data in their campaigns.

The study, which surveyed heads of marketing from retail and travel brands as well as marketing agencies, found that 31% of marketers spent between SG$10,000 and SG$50,000 annually on location-data based advertisements. About 21% spent between SG$50,000 and SG$100,000, and 11% spent above SG$100,000. Of those spending more than SG$100,000, only website development (19%) and email marketing (15%) received greater investment.

According to the press release at the time, the "significant" spending arose from retailers' efforts to keep up with evolving consumer habits and "meet demands for personalised and perfectly timed experiences". Location data was largely used to help marketers directly target competitor stores through geo-conquesting (53%) and win over shoppers with geo-fencing (51%).

Meanwhile, 48% of the marketers use it to chart the correlation between store traffic and sales, 43% to track return on advertising spend, and 38% to gain insight into store location performance. As part of their omni-channel strategies, 42% of those surveyed target shoppers based on online and offline behaviour data and 35% of them also use location data to close the online to offline attribution gap.

Today, location-based marketing and experiences are very common. Early this year, Google and the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) said that it would be expanding its partnership by developing location-based AR experiences that will be directly available on Google Maps for the first time. 

As part of this pilot, STB will continue to use Google’s ARCore and Geospatial Creator to develop new location-based AR experiences.

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