21 Jul 2010
If World Cup sponsorship is the answer, then lack of awareness is rarely the question. Charlie Dundas, global head of partnerships at MediaCom Worldwide, examines where the real value lies for top tier partners in South Africa.
Deep in the bowels of the world’s biggest corporations, marketers are doing some complex sums. They want to know who won the World Cup. Did FIFA’s brand partners get the returns they were looking for?
Publicly available figures would appear to suggest that they didn’t. A plethora of surveys show that when it comes to awareness, the likes of Sony, Emirates and Coke all crashed out at the group stage of the tournament.
Fortunately for the marketers concerned, their sums are likely to involve much harder metrics than simple awareness.
Smart brand marketers don’t commit $20m-$25m a year on global sponsorship deals for the purpose of building brand awareness. It’s part of the picture but rarely the most important reason for investing in such blue chip partnerships.
We’ve worked on sports marketing campaigns and sponsorship evaluations for Snickers, Nokia, Mars, Sky and Seat and many others. Like many of the FIFA world cup partners, issues such as trade relations, sales promotions, employee satisfaction and corporate reputation are far more central to success and failure.
Take tier one World Cup sponsor Coke, for example – is awareness really a problem? It might be in North Korea but consumers in all the other competing countries are certainly aware of the brand – even if they don’t attribute that awareness sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup.
The key metrics for Coke around South Africa 2010 are likely to have included levels of interaction with consumer promotions, share and dominance of shelf space in the retail environment and, most importantly of all, the year on year change in sales volume.
Hyundai and Kia have a different challenge. They have used football sponsorship as a platform for their wider global brand communications in order to drive consideration and improve consumer attitudes to the brand. They want to be perceived not as cheap, Korean cars that you buy because you can’t afford the brand you want; but as a viable, affordable premium option.
This strategy is then complimented by on the ground activation throughout their dealer networks.
Competitions and incentives can ensure consumers take test drives, allowing the dealers to challenge preconceptions and generate sales.
McDonald’s has traditionally used sponsorship and sports associations to enable the brand to push its corporate social responsibility and also counter accusations that it’s an “unhealthy” brand.
Following a strategy that is already well developed in the UK, McDonald’s have invested in a programme in South Africa to increase the number of qualified coaches and provide much needed equipment to help develop football talent.
Sony is using its 2010 and 2014 deals with the World Cup to drive revenues in Africa and Latin America. Football sits at the centre of local marketing initiatives in these key growth territories.
It also enables Sony to demonstrate its latest technology. In South Africa, it captured games in 3D and showed this content at special viewings to grow consumer understanding. This was further supported at point of sale and via above the line advertising.
For Visa, the obvious benefit is as a driver for its payment systems. Partner status also enabled it to offer prizes such as tickets further increasing usage and loyalty. The brand will also have taken the chance to use corporate hospitality to build trade relationships by taking key customers to games.
Of all the top tier sponsors, perhaps only Emirates may have an awareness challenge. Its rapid expansion means that some of the airline’s newer routes could be promoted via World Cup campaigns.
However the main goal is likely to be centred on building better trade relations, making aviation authorities more amenable to the brand and helping the airline get better positions and slots at key global hubs.
Below Tier One, another sponsor with trade relations on the agenda is Castrol. The Castrol Index has been used widely by journalists looking to analyse players’ performances, thus making a nice link back to the brand’s equities of research and technical performance, and yet it is actually the trade relations benefits that matter most.
Because the oil used in your car is very often selected by the mechanic or the garage, Castrol’s key metrics will be around trade. Driving consideration and penetration amongst Castrol’s most important customers is far more important than driving consumer awareness of their sponsorship.
So when these marketers concerned complete their sums and determine whether they’ve had good value, it’ll be based on hard facts. Bottom line revenue, footfall through retail outlets as well as softer measures such as trade attitudes towards their brands will all be part of the equation.
Few outside these corporations will ever get to see the calculations but ultimately, the fact that many brands go on to renew their deals and that most global sports sponsorships have run for decades is probably the only metric of success that matters.
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