Hollis Sponsorship Bulletin

It’s not just the handful of teams who are now enjoying success at the World Cup.  Some of the world’s leading brands are battling it out for dominance in an event that is being watched in over 200 countries by a cumulative global audience estimated to be a staggering 26 billion. 
For the first time at the World Cup moving electronic perimeter advertising for the sponsors is being used, reports sponsorship specialists brandRapport.  Each of the World Cup’s six partners, eight sponsors and five local sponsors have their brands displayed in 30 second slots on the LED boards during each match.  The partners – Coca-Cola, Emirates, Visa, Hyundai, Sony and adidas -  each receive exclusive branding which can amount to eight or nine minutes per match while the sponsors appear in pairs – McDonalds with Yingli Solar, Budweiser with Castrol, Continental with Mahindra Satyam and MTN with Seara.  The local sponsors all appear on the boards together.
This new system guarantees a specific amount of exposure for all the brands during each match.  However those brands that happen to be showing when each goal is scored receive significantly greater benefits.  The goals are of course the most repeated and most widely shown part of each match and as the tournament progresses each goal becomes more important as do the benefits to the sponsors who are visible when they are scored.  Also certain key goals will be shown for years after the tournament has finished.
After the group stages and round, of the last 16 matches a total of 123 goals have been scored in the tournament.   FIFA Partner Coca Cola has been on show for 15 of the goals.  Close behind Coke with 14 is the boards showing the joint branding of sponsors MTN and Seara. Visa is next with 13 goals, Mahindra Satyam and Continental have been on show for 12 goals and adidas for 11.  David Villa’s winning goal for Spain against Portugal was scored while the Coke branding was on show which took Coke into the lead.  However, had Frank Lampard’s disallowed “goal” been awarded in the match against Germany, MTN and Seara would have joined Coca Cola in the lead with 15 goals. Only goals scored during normal time and any extra time period have been counted. 
Three of the partners are using the World Cup platform to promote more than one of their brands.  Hyundai shares its exposure with its sister company, Kia Motors, Coca Cola gives over exposure time to its sports drink Powerade and Budweiser showcases a number of the brands in the Anheuser Busch portfolio depending on which teams are playing.  For example, Brahma Beer appears when Brazil are playing, Hasseroder when Germany play and Quilmes when Argentina are in action.
 After the 2006 World Cup, there was criticism of the sponsorship structure which saw 15 main sponsors shared among the limited amount of branding space offered by a static perimeter board system.  What FIFA has done is to open up the categories, limiting the number of elite “partners” to just six. 
However, it is the eight sponsors that comprise the next tier that are perhaps the most interesting in terms of what we can expect in the future – Mahindra Satyam, an IT service provider from India, Seara, a Brazilian food manufacturer, Yingli Solar, the Chinese Solar Energy specialists and MTN, the African mobile communications company.  Major companies and brands are developing fast from economies outside of Europe and North America and are specialising in sectors which are new to the World Cup and they have clearly identified the event as the way to launch their brands globally.
Another great commercial battle between adidas, Nike and Puma is also hotting up.  Adidas is, of course, an Official FIFA Partner, but both brands have kit supplier/sponsorship agreements with many of the teams in the competition and both will be hoping that teams carrying their brand will be competing in the final on July 11th.  At the start of the tournament adidas had 12 teams wearing its kit while Nike had 10.  Puma who had the 2006 World Champions Italy had seven teams including four of the African nations.  The hopes of Adidas now lie with the German and Spanish teams, Puma with Uruguay and Nike with the Netherlands.
Commenting on the commercial aspects of the tournament, brandRapport’s Director of Football, Richard Thompson said, “The Football World Cup has established itself as the stand-out global sporting event  for commercial partners.  The passion and levels of interest in all the matches are unrivalled and the fact that sponsorship revenue for this year’s tournament is up 80% on Germany 2006 speaks volumes for the demand from companies and brands to be part of it”.

A poll by reputation auditors Echo Research has shown that the British public may well be uncertain which companies are sponsoring the tournament. Respondents were clearer, however, about sponsors’ motives, understanding they are driven by hard-nosed targets, such as TV coverage and selling product, rather than any commitment to any softer issues.
Echo’s Group CEO, Sandra Macleod, remarked “these findings show that, as the tournament gets underway, sponsors have much work to do to raise awareness of their role in the World Cup, and to convince the British public that they are motivated by a genuine concern for the host nation and for football and its supporters, as much as by commercial gains. Should confusion in these areas continue as the World Cup unfolds, sponsors will not realize the brand and reputation benefits that sponsorship should bring”.

Conducted the day before the FIFA World Cup opening ceremony on 11 June, the 1,005 adults polled across Great Britain struggled to correctly identify eight World Cup sponsors and partners (Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, adidas, Sony, Visa, Budweiser, Emirates and Hyundai) from a list of well-known brands. Coca-Cola was the only company to be correctly identified as a sponsor by more than half of those polled (57%) and Hyundai by the least (10%).
Nike was incorrectly identified as an official sponsor by 30% of those polled – more than identified adidas, an actual sponsor (29%). Carlsberg was also incorrectly identified as a sponsor by 23%, not far behind the 28% identifying actual sponsor Budweiser.

When asked to select reasons why a company would sponsor the World Cup, 81% agreed it was “to get their company name or logo on TV” and 50% “to sell more of their products within South Africa”.
Thirteen percent agreed it was “because they care about football and its supporters”; nine percent “because they care about issues of health, fitness and wellbeing” and seven percent “because they care about South Africa and its people”.

With England expected to have a decent run at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa next summer, ITV has signed up two high-profile sponsors for its coverage of the event. Hyundai, which is official car sponsor of the event, and Lucozade Sport (Team England’s official sport drink) have both agreed to packages which cover broadcast, online, interactive and mobile for the duration of the event.

Both deals were negotiated for the broadcaster by ITV Commercial. Acting for Hyundai was ZenithOptimedia while Mediacom London negotiated on behalf of GlaxoSmithKline’s Lucozade Sport. The sponsorship creative for both partners will be handled by M&C Saatchi.

For the first time in its ten-year history, Channel 4′s Big Brother will not have a phone sponsor attached when its new series launches this summer. Instead, series 10 of the reality show will be sponsored by Lucozade Energy.

Reports in the tabloid press have suggested that audiences on BB have got too low to interest phone sponsors – which like to build multi-platform content strategies around such deals. However the show is still a pretty big ratings puller. As such, it will give Lucozade a lot of summer exposure.

The deal, which also covers E4 spin-offs and the Big Brother website, was negotiated by Mediacom. Idents for the show were created by advertising agency M&C Saatchi.

In a separate development, car manufacturer Hyundai has signed a deal to sponsor movies on Five and its digital sister channels Fiver and Five USA. The deal, which started this week, runs until the end of 2009. Creative work is by M&C Saatchi – which won Hyundai’s UK ad account in October.