CASE STUDY:
Nimble execution NETS HUGE engagement, with FIFA + KIA MOTORS
THE SCENARIO
A last minute opportunity fell into Waze’s lap. We could join forces with FIFA for a World Cup 2026 brand partnership… but there was a catch.
THE CHALLENGE
We could only work with FIFA if we could find a way to make a creative collaboration work with Kia Motors. Why Kia? Kia was the official mobility partner of World Cup 2026 Cup, so by co-branding with them, we could back into a creative relationship with FIFA. No Kia? No Cup.
THE BRIEF
We were tasked with building a custom audio navigation experience to excite Waze users, FIFA and Kia. It had to be:
- GLOBAL in concept
- HYPERLOCAL in execution
- FIRST-TO-MARKET in 6 nations
THE WORK
We created 20 “Soccer Superfan” navigation characters to give users directions to their destination, each representing one nation at the tournament. This audio experience sounds like you’re driving with the funniest, most knowledgeable international soccer fan in your country.
These are the kind of dudes who:
Set an alarm for 3am to watch Iran vs. Albania.
risks their career by watching the games on their phones at work.
are obsessed with their national team… but can still laugh at themselves.
This is the “everyman superfan”, giving voice to all the agony, ecstasy and absurdity of the greatest sport on earth. Each script was filled with hot takes and inside jokes, specifically tailored to individual nations in the Cup. With FIFA’s blessing, we worked with 20 copywriters in five continents to bring these characters to life, writing unique navigation scripts for each, brimming with native slang and deep-cut national soccer references. We pushed our AI audio models to their limit, creating rich, authentic content in languages as bespoke as the Arabic vernacular Darija dialect, Uruguayan Spanish and the “Model C” South African English accent. For Kia, we built a beautiful 3D model of their latest Sportage (dripping with World Cup logos) and allowed drivers to select it as their on-map avatar. This placed their product directly into the focused attention of tens of millions of drivers.
FIFA got a massive global branding reach across a third of all World Cup participating nations. Below is a user journey of the iOS experience.
THE RESULTS
The impact was wild.
Kia was thrilled. In the first 28 days the campaign was live, users took 7.8 million drives with the Kia vehicle avatar - an incredible engagement return. And FIFA loved the execution so much, there are already whispers of doing this again in 2030… with ALL the World Cup nations.
But Waze lifted the biggest trophy of all. This experience performed 200% above all of our content marketing performance benchmarks: drives, minutes of engagement/driving and miles driven. The campaign achieved a record-setting +27% Month-over-Month increase in Incremental Waze Drives, a huge win for both user acquisition and retention.
CREDITS
Waze Creative: Tom Cowell / Jamie Fine
Waze Production: Erica Quinn
Visual Design: Burn & Broad
3D Modelling: Irresistible Studios
Waze Leadership: Ally Taylor, Tram Huynh