A Big Summer for Sport

Sponsors enjoy a leap in awareness

This summer the European sports marketing industry can expect a significant boost from high profile events such as the Athens Olympic Games in August, and the UEFA European football championships in Portugal in June and July.

Like many other industries, the sports marketing sector is reliant on investment from a corporate world that has been affected by the recent economic and geopolitical climate, but both events found little trouble in fulfilling their sponsorship quotas well ahead of schedule.

According to independent bodies such as the Institute of Sports Sponsorship and the Advertising Association, a strong 2004 will help Europe challenge the US as the most important destination for sponsorship. It’s estimated that Europe currently represents around US$25 billion, or one-third of the global sponsorship market. Sport sponsorship is responsible for more than US$62 billion of the global US$75 billion market.

Companies usually use sports sponsorship to enhance their image, gain media exposure or target a specific group of consumers – mainly affluent young men – who are interested in sport. It’s a popular marketing vehicle because it not only raises brand awareness but also engages an audience on both a rational and emotional level; something that direct advertising can seldom do.

Sponsorship should not be expected to deliver immediate sales or to have an instant impact on the bottom line, but it can help to reach consumers and get them to think about a product or brand in a favourable way. Any sponsorship must be leveraged across all communication channels, otherwise its return won’t be maximised. A sponsor’s advertising, branding and public relations campaigns are all vital in strengthening the association between sponsor and sport.

Eight brands will kick off this month’s Euro 2004 football championships as ‘official partners’, a status awarded by European football’s governing body UEFA. Many more unofficial brands will be looking to take advantage of the football mania that will grip the competing countries and their media.

But official status doesn’t guarantee a successful sponsorship campaign. The companies who will make the most of Euro 2004 will be those that use their status and commercial rights to achieve specific goals. These range widely from driving sales to launching new products, and must be understood before evaluating how well the sponsorship worked.

The battle between official partners, and brands just looking to ambush the market, is a mini tournament in itself in which public relations and advertising agencies come into their own.

Think of Pepsi’s advertising around the FIFA 2002 World Cup in Japan and Korea: although Coca-Cola was the official sponsor, Pepsi managed to link to the tournament with an advertising and public relations campaign with a Tokyo 2002 theme. As the World Cup’s slogan was Korea-Japan 2002 - which FIFA had a patent for – Pepsi’s campaign appeared to fans to be ‘official’.

The sponsorship contest around major football championships is never more intense than in the brewing category, as it offers the most direct link between rights fee expenditure and product sales. It’s the ultimate in experiential marketing – we watch the game, we drink beer. The issue faced by individual brands is how to stand out in such a cluttered marketplace.

Danish lager Carlsberg is sitting in the official corner for Euro 2004, with commercial partnerships with both UEFA and the England team. In the unofficial corner are brands such as Carling and Budweiser, which have strong historical links with football.

Carlsberg sponsorship manager Gareth Roberts says "It’s not what you have, it’s what you do with it". During the 2002 World Cup, Carling fought a successful awareness campaign around a humorous football-related TV advert and a series of impactful PR stunts. On the final whistle of England’s 2002 World Cup opener against Sweden, for example, Carling flew a banner plane over the Big Brother house in the UK to let the house mates know the score.

In one survey of UK pub goers after the tournament, 40% named Carling as the official beer of the tournament and the England team, with only 15% choosing Carlsberg and 10% going for Budweiser.

With the official route costing significantly more – Carlsberg will spend around €21mn on football related properties during 2004, including its deal with the men’s England national team as well as Euro 2004 – why sponsor?

Carlsberg would argue it’s down to exclusivity. In a competitive market, the company can use tournament and team marques, imagery, tickets and hospitality to do things others simply can’t, while communicating one message to 20,000 pubs around the UK.

Despite losing out to Carling in the survey of pub goers, Carlsberg sold over five and a half million pints of Carlsberg during the tournament, and sales in supermarkets and off-licences increased by 128% in the week of England’s quarter final with Brazil.

Unfortunately, success on the pitch is never something that can be guaranteed. Victory for a sponsor’s team can help to cement a successful campaign. Just look at the positive glow England rugby team sponsor O2 enjoyed after the team’s win in the 2003 Rugby World Cup.

And English Premier League champions Arsenal deliver the best awareness levels amongst football fans in Europe to club sponsor O2, according to a study by German sports research company Sport+Markt.

In contrast, this summer’s Olympic Games’ sponsors must be nervously watching the goings on in Athens at the moment. Household names like Coca-Cola, Visa and McDonald’s will be no doubt hoping they have an event to promote their products around, and their public relations teams will be called upon to deflect any negative coverage.

However uncertain the Games look at the moment, there’s no doubt that involvement in sport can bring brands great opportunities.

By Andreas Keller, director, Weber Shandwick Sport in Geneva and Anthony Scammell, account director, Weber Shandwick Sport in London.

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