Hollis Sponsorship Bulletin

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.