Fortunately, we were in no hurry last Wednesday evening. Just like thousands of others, we celebrated Croatia’s victory over England in Moscow out in the streets. Had we had to hurry somewhere, it would have proved a major issue. The streets of our neighbourhood, as well as most of our friends’ neighbourhoods, were blocked by cars and fans who were beside themselves with happiness as a result of the victory. People were jumping up and down on the roofs and hoods of their cars, waving flares, burning tires, and honking their horns incessantly. At one point, the mobile network went down at the Ban Jelačić Square. We can’t remember the last time it was as exciting and fun to be in the streets of Zagreb as it was yesterday.
Literally millions of people were glued to their TV sets last Wednesday. Even the national television cited the highest ever ratings in years (if not of all times?). We heard the other day that 90% of people who were in front of their TVs on Saturday evening watched the match. Newspaper print runs have increased and one local retail chain claim to have sold over 25,000 TV sets in a matter of weeks; even radio ratings have gone up!
The same effect, which we at the office have termed #croatianationalfootballteameffect, is felt on the Internet. Not during the game, of course, when people are glued to their screens. The easiest way to follow the effect that the national team have on Internet traffic in Croatia is through the Midas network, which is breaking all kinds of records these days.
So, let’s take a look at the figures. The Wednesday before the match, on 4th July, we had a regular amount of traffic for the Midas network, with 680,000 daily clicks. A week later, on the day Croatia and Engeland faced off against each other, users clicked on 700,000 links. That was when we felt the euphoria gaining momentum. But we could not predict what happened on Thursday, 12th July, the day after the match.
1,298,000. That is the number of clicks registered on the Midas network the day after the match. 85% of clicks more than the week before the match. The only reason we could think of for this spectacular result on Sunday was that probably the entire population of Croatian spent their day online, posting stuff and checking comments and articles in celebration of the victory – or recovering from hangovers induced by Wednesday's celebrations.
However, impressive figures don’t stop here. The CTR (click-through rate) for Midas network content has also soared. The standard, and very respectable, CTR of 0.59 recorded the weekend before the match has been surpassed this week with the insane CTR of 0.81. Can it get any better than this?
Of course it can! The most impressive figure recorded was the number of recommendations on the Midas network. 120 million recommendations on 1st July have been surpassed by the unbelievable figure of 202 million recommendations on 12th July…
And now, we are looking forward to the final!