Localized Content in Action: How West Ham and the Chiefs Connect with New Markets
The Importance of Genuine Localized Content
When a brand decides to expand its presence into new markets, simply translating content is rarely enough to create a meaningful connection. What truly makes a difference is genuine content, created with a deep understanding of the local market. Understanding cultural nuances, holidays, and audience trends are crucial elements to ensure that a brand not only communicates but also resonates with its new followers. At Samba Digital, we believe it’s not just about translation, we create specific content for new markets, using data and insights that only a local team can provide.
Two examples that demonstrate this approach are the work done with West Ham United’s Spanish accounts and the Kansas City Chiefs in the Latin American market. Both projects highlight how content tailored to local culture and audience preferences can have a significant impact on brand internationalization and fan engagement.
West Ham Spanish Accounts
For West Ham United, since the arrival of Edson Álvarez in August 2023, the Spanish accounts have greatly improved their performance. To achieve relevant results, our team took advantage of important dates, content opportunities and anything that could be explored about the Mexican audience, which is of course the largest on the account.
Some examples of local audience research were: Mexican Independence Day, Día de Muertos (it’s coming up again in the next few weeks), some influencer marketing opportunities, of which we have a special case to show: a collaboration with Mexican star Mercedes Roa, with whom we had the opportunity to create content during the West Ham Tour in the USA.
The collab post with @mercedes_roa was the one with the largest audience in 2024. There were more than 66k engagements with the original content that combined Mexican culture and celebrity interaction.
But even though we had Edson, our most important player and asset to grow the audience, other assets were essential to continue growing the audience with a variety of content. And since we had Julen Lopetegui and Carlos Soler (Spanish arrivals for the men’s team) and Camila Sáez (from Chile) and Manuela Paví (from Colombia) for the women’s West Ham team
With these assets, the ability to vary content, combined with local knowledge of interest plus what’s trending and consistency in terms of posting, is the perfect equation to continue to grow the channel and increase a client’s brand internationalization.
Kansas City Chiefs – Trajineras
One of the most successful localized content accounts at Samba is Kansas City Chiefs en Español. The Chiefs became the number one NFL account in Spanish on Instagram at the beginning of the year and has been a partner of Samba since 2022.
Every year, we co-host multiple in-person events and watch parties. One that is now becoming a yearly tradition for the team is the visit to the Trajineras in Xochimilco. This event includes a ride in custom painted Chiefs coloured boats, food, giveaways, games, and a performance by the “MariaChiefs”, mariachis dressed in Chiefs colours.
The performance this year had a 17% increase in attendance, with over 125 people coming over, and a 41% increase in show up rate. 87% of new followers on Tik Tok were from content related to the event.
Each Instagram reel generated 1.6X more views than the average of the last 3 months. The content was featured on Fox Sports Mexico TV channel, and NFL Mexico Instagram accounts. Earned Media was also huge and international, with articles on Associated Press, Washington Post, Diario Olé, and El Financiero.
Reel of celebrating fans, which had 2.2x more views than account average in the last months.
The giveaway of the signed Pacheco jersey generated 5x more views than the average reel of the last 3 months.
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