CorpComms Magazine

The pain caused by England's inevitable quarter-final defeat in this summer's World Cup is fading, leaving only a sense of embarrassment among those supporters foolish enough to think the national team had a chance in the first place.

But while Italy may have walked away with the trophy, German firm Adidas has emerged victorious in the battle that was played out on the touchline. The sportswear giant was clearly the sponsorship champion of the World Cup.

Fifteen companies, including Fujifilm, Continental Tyres and Gillette, paid an average of $35 mn to football's governing body Fifa for the right to participate as an official sponsor of the 2006 World Cup. A further six companies acted as national suppliers.

All the sponsors clearly believe that an association with the World Cup pays dividends, and their optimism is hardly surprising - the event is an incomparable marketing opportunity. With an average TV audience for each match of 93 mn viewers, Fifa claims that total viewing figures for the 2006 tournament exceeded 6 bn - up 10 percent from 2002.

Indeed, the 15 companies bought their sponsorship packages three years before the first ball was even kicked, and Fifa is already promoting opportunities for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Plan of attack

The governing body is changing its strategy, however. All World Cup television, commercial, licensing and marketing rights reverted to Fifa after the tournament ended, and the body is taking advantage of this to start with a clean slate.

'We are now reorganising things to reduce clutter and optimise value for our sponsors,' explains Stefan Schuster, head of Fifa sales. The organisation plans to have eight Fifa World Cup sponsors, which it envisages as 'local or regional players', and between four and six national partners, which will be able to get involved in Fifa's 45 events between now and 2014.

But Schuster's comments about increasing value for sponsors hint that, for some, the World Cup may have proved an own goal rather than a triumph.

According to Factiva, Continental Tyres received just 70 mentions in the global press between January 1 and July 9 associating the company with the World Cup. Only Fujifilm, with 41 mentions, did worse. At the other end of the spectrum, Adidas received 1,065 mentions, or one in four of all articles. Avaya, a supplier of equipment for web-based phone calls, was mentioned 125 times, but a study by German university Hohenheim revealed that the company's brand recognition inGermany rose by 21 percentage points to 25 percent. Avaya paid $105 mn for its sponsorship agreement, which covered the World Cup tournaments in 2002 and 2006 and the 2003 Women's World Cup.

The university study was based on a poll asking German consumers about the sponsors shortly after the tournament ended and comparing the results to a survey taken just ahead of the World Cup's kick-off.

It found that Hyundai doubled brand awareness in Germany, with 50 percent of those polled recognising the South Korean car-maker. Airline Emirates boosted brand awareness to 30 percent from 11 percent; Coca-Cola, McDonald's and phone giant Deutsche Telekom all gained 8 percent, taking them to levels between 75 and 84 percent.

'For smaller, less well-known firms, the sponsoring deal paid off much more in terms of boosting brand visibility than it did for some well-established brands,' explains Isabel Tobies, a scientist at Hohenheim University. The study focused on Germany because, the researchers claimed, the impact of sponsorship was much higher there as sponsors also had advertising rights in many German cities broadcasting matches in public.

Strangely, the study found that Adidas lost 3 percentage points during the tournament, dropping from 80 percent brand recognition to 77 percent. The sportswear giant is unlikely to feel concerned about the blip, however. Sales jumped 60 percent during the second quarter, while profits rose 24 percent. Figures for the third quarter, in which the World Cup was scheduled, have yet to be released.

The one to beat

Sponsorship experts believe that two factors boosted the impact of Adidas' campaign. As a German company, it had a home advantage - and it also sponsored two sides that did very well. Germany, despite pre-tournament concerns about a poor side, reached the semi-finals, while Italy won the competition.

Adidas is also a sporting company, so the association with football is tangible - unlike, for example, sponsorship campaigns by MasterCard or Yahoo!. Nike, which admittedly was not an official sponsor, fared less well, however. The 'Just do it' company bet that its longstanding relationship with the Brazil team would ensure it received high-profile coverage through to the final.

 Robert Tuchman, founder and president of New York-based sports marketing firm TSE Sports & Entertainment, says: 'Nike was the big loser, as Brazil did not play up to par. Nike put a lot of its money into the Brazil team for the World Cup with its 'Joga bonito' campaign. Although it was clever and interesting, the focus on Brazil hurt the company's efforts.'

By the end of the competition, Nike was left running TV ads featuring Ronaldinho when he was no longer playing. Puma benefited from the good fortune of backing Italy, but it also had a long-standing partnership agreement with Pele, which is about as certain a marketing goal as it is possible to score. Adidas, on the other hand, had hedged its bets by backing a roster of stars.

The marketing men at Adidas also seem to have watched the way the media works at a World Cup and cleverly exploited journalists' appetite for stories, most notably by promoting the footballs that were used in the matches. This led to a name check every time John Motson and his international contemporaries discussed the wild unpredictability of this year's Adidasbranded leather sphere. Adidas executives might have felt miffed when their ball took the blame for Peter Crouch's lacklustre performance, but it was still free advertising.

Post-match analysis

Larry DeGaris, president of US consultancy Sponsorship Research & Strategy, says: 'In the Nike/Puma/Adidas competition, Adidas came out on top. At the broadest consumer level, companies sponsoring the World Cup seek exposure and image enhancement, both of which are provided by the World Cup rather uniquely. Nike's strategy was somewhat limited, developing sponsorships with the US team and Brazil, neither of which had a good showing.'

Sponsorship experts believe that some fans do not like the presence of companies that have little to do with sport. It is hard, for example, to argue that there is a connection between

McDonald's and football prowess. DeGaris believes that companies will have to look for ways to become part of an event without alienating viewers. 'I think you will see more attention paid to how sponsors can integrate themselves at events,' he says.

In the US, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (Nascar) has become the darling of the sponsorship industry because it has been effective at many levels. For example, delivery service UPS, which has sponsored driver Dale Jarrett for five seasons, counted 40 percent of Nascar-associated businesses as customers when it first signed up. Today the company has 99 percent of the more than 1,000 companies, tracks and teams affiliated with Nascar.

One study revealed that 93 percent of Nascar fans agreed that corporate sponsors are 'very important' to the sport, while 83 percent said they 'liked' corporate sponsorship. 'Unlike fans of other sports events, Nascar aficionados welcome sponsors at the events,' says DeGaris. 'I think that's a model that more sports properties will look to, somewhere in between the Coca-Cola Olympics in Atlanta in 1996 and the staid Sydney Games in 2000.'

Big-name sponsors will clearly dominate future World Cup tournaments, but that doesn't necessarily mean that smaller companies will fare badly. 'Given the increasing fragmentation of the media and the looming broadband expansion, I think there's lots of room for smaller brands to develop markets via targeted sports sponsorships,' explains DeGaris. 'For the mega-brands, there needs to be some balance between global and local coverage because while the bigger brands occupy themselves with the broadest exposure, savvy smaller brands can fly under the radar. It will be very interesting to see how the major players react.'

share me: del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Tweet