For those who are familiar with my posts, I have pointed out the major football brands, and the key players in football marketing. Most of them are either FIFA sponsors or FIFA partners. The FIFA World Cup sponsors benefit from a tremendous marketing platform to showcase their producs, link their brand image to the biggest football event in the world, promote  online and offline activities, engage with consumers,  and ultimately have an exclusive component as an official sponsor.

The strategy to heavily invest in being a FIFA sponsor could be justified based on the above mentioned advantages. However, a recent survey by The Nielsen Company* showed that Nike was more frequently linked to the World Cup than any of the tournament’s official partners and sponsors. The survey analyzed online blogs, social networking platforms and came to the conclusion that the Swoosh was fully part of the FIFA World Cup landscape, and engraved in consumer’s minds.

With no doubt, the huge online buzz made by the “write the future” campaign strongly contributed to put Nike under the football spotlights. The viral was launched mid-may and had more than 3 million viewers the first week. So far, 14 million viewers enjoyed the video online.  Nike’s biggest stars were featured in the video:  Drogba, Cristiano Ronaldo, Rooney and even Kobe Bryant, Roger Federer and Homer Simpson. Not sure the latter is a Nike athlete though.

HIGHEST SHARE OF ONLINE WORLD CUP BUZZ (Sponsors vs. Competitors)

Source: The Nielsen Company
**Share of online buzz across the 10 sponsors/partners with a global footprint and two of their major competitors in English language messages related to the World Cup from May 7 to June 6.

I pointed out in a previous article, that Nike, adidas, Puma are widely acknowledged as football brands. It seems that not being a FIFA (nor UEFA) sponsor does not stop Nike from succesfully link its brand to the biggest football competition. The “Write the Future” campaign only did not contribute to those facts. It must be added that Nike sponsors 9 teams at World Cup, provides outfit to several players including superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and many others. On top of that, on February 25, the Swoosh launched a powerful campaign “taking ownership” of the sustainable component in football.

This strategy seem to pay off as Nike has managed to leverage its brands, products, activities in football around the World Cup without being a sponsor i.e without paying any sponsorship fees to FIFA.

Let me add one thing. I do remember back in 1994 after the World Cup in the US, a statement from Phil Knight (Co-Founder and CEO of Nike) about football. His goal was to make Nike THE global football brand.  I was a student at that time and was quite doubtful about this objective. To me, Nike was a Basketball brand with Michael Jordan as an icon, period.  I bet I was not the only one. However, one year later, Nike partnered with CBF (The Brazil National Team) then with, players, european clubs etc.

The results and facts speak for themselves, but what is interesting to point out is that this achievement has been done without being a FIFA sponsor or partner. Other brands such as Carlsberg and Pepsi are adopting a similar strategy although the results are not yet to be compared with Nike’s.

Don’t get me wrong, by no means do I say that it is not worth it to be a FIFA sponsor. I think  the contrary. It is key for a brand to associate with FIFA hence World Cup and benefit from all sponsorship components. Nevertheless, I must be pointed out that some brands, and in the present case, Nike managed to create a strong link between their brand and an event they do not sponsor. I would echo Pete Blackshaw (Executive vice president of digital strategy at The Nielsen Company) “If you’re a company with a large global footprint, it’s natural to want to associate yourself with a major worldwide event like the World Cup”

I am a big believer in strong competition. It makes other brands work harder, be more creative, think out of the box, and keep the stimulation flow on. For sure, the other football brands will strike back, and it’s….”for the good of the game” right?

I would be delighted to hear your thoughts.

Karl

*Nielsen’s study, conducted between May 7^th to June 6^th 2010, looked at English language World Cup-related messages on blogs, message boards, groups, video and image sites – including Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter – that mentioned at least one of the 10 official FIFA partners and sponsors with a global footprint or two of their top competitors (30 brands in all).

Last week saw our first entry into live events under the joint banners of The UK Sports Network and FundSport.  It has been a dream of mine for the last couple of years and it was a great feeling to make it a reality.

The idea was to create an event that would benefit those whose full-time job is not in sponsorship sales and cannot afford the £200+ fees for sponsorship events.  Those who run grassroots sports clubs, semi-professional teams, are athletes or associations further down the food chain.

Yes, they still need to raise sponsorship to keep themselves or their teams in sport but how much knowledge have they got and where do they turn to for advice?  I have seen proposals from teams and I knew what they would look like before I got there.  One page of A4 which basically said ‘please give me some money’. 

This is a widespread problem at a time when sponsorship is harder to get and sponsors are wanting more professional approaches.  It is their hard earned money at the end of the day which they want to use to further their business.

Did we achieve what we set out to do?  Yes, I think so.  There were representatives from a diverse selection of sports bodies primarily from the Ipswich area but also some came from Somerset, Bristol and Birmingham to show there is a widespread interest in the field.  Over 2000 hits on the webpage backed this up and although the numbers who attended were not large this was a first event…. and in Ipswich.

The main section of the night was a presentation by Fiona Green, one of the top sponsorship sales people we have, has worked properties including the ECB, AEGON, FIFA, Glamorgan CCC, Cardiff City FC and Manchester City.  She took everyone through the sponsorship process step by step; from inventory assessment to calling prospective sponsors.  Rather than me taking you through what great tips she gave, why not take a look yourself by watching her video in full… 

Round-the-world sailor Alex Alley gave a great insight into how he came about his idea for the ‘People’s Boat’.  An example of how you can set yourself apart from the rest and use creativity to help with the objective of raising sponsorship.  There are a lot of people chasing the same goals so if you can be different and professional in your approach then you improve your chances significantly.

Highlights will be shown on the Your Sport show on the Community Channel in the next few weeks.  We will also be adding them to our facebook pages and websites as we look to help as many people as we can.

A final thank you to Team Ipswich and Karen Pickering for stepping in to host the event and being so supportive.  Also thank you to Sport Suffolk, Suffolk FA, Schport, Jim Cowan and many others for helping promote it and Ipswich College for filming the occasion (look forward to seeing the edited version soon!). 

Planning for event number 2 is already underway…… hope to see you there!

Fiona Green Sponsorship Presentation – Ipswich 2010

Real Madrid is one of the most recognisable brands in sport, and no club better embodies our times, when sports, business and technology are in constant flux. With some of the worlds great players on the field Real need to make shrewd businesses moves off it and are very keen to embrace new technologies and communication to increase their profitability.

To find out more about how the Spanish Club is approaching social media I recently spoke with Oscar Ugaz, Real Madrid Online Marketing & Digital Business Manager about social media and Real´s digital strategies.

While many UK clubs are just starting to ride the social media wave Real Madrid have been utilising it for a while now explained Oscar, “two years ago we changed all of our digital strategies, starting by re-designing RealMadrid.com with the aims of providing fans with more features and services. When discussing the new website one thing that that arose was the importance of interactions and the importance to have the capacity to interact with our fans online.”

“At first we talked about RealMadrid.com offering comments on articles but we we’re a little worried as we didn’t know how people would react with these comments inside our official website – so we thought about how we could test this and as a result we started our Facebook page in which we could find out how our fans behaved, if they were confrontational towards the Real Madrid brand and also how they like to express themselves.”

Since its launch the clubs Facebook page has been a massive success and built up a huge following with over 1.2 million fans and an average of around 3000 new fans joining every day. The page may have been started as a way for Real to test fan interaction, but, it has also developed into a powerful tool to direct traffic to RealMadrid.com.

“The important thing about the traffic from Facebook is that it is traffic that we can control, we decide where we want our users to be and where they go on RealMadrid.com. If we have news that we want people to see that maybe isn’t on the homepage of our website we use Facebook to drive traffic to those specific pages, and, we want to be very honest, in these sections we drive traffic to there may be advertising or other services that we can sell. We use Facebook as a way to drive people to news and pages on the website that they may otherwise not see.”

Madrid’s strategy focuses on more than just Facebook. “The strategy of the club is to go where the traffic is; we know not all the fans come directly to RealMadrid.com and although we get a huge amount of traffic we know there is a lot more out there. We distribute Real Madrid content and build the Real Madrid brand through the media that the people are using.”

“We want to be where the traffic is and in that sense we follow the trends – if people are using Facebook, we use Facebook, the people start using twitter, and we create a twitter page. We are always looking for the next trends, whilst at the moment Twitter and Facebook are at the top when they start losing traffic we want to be riding the next wave and making the most of new opportunities – for example what Google is doing with Buzz. However, we don’t just jump in, before we start doing anything we make an analysis and see how each platform can help us.”

Social media has also opened up many new opportunities for Madrid to test content, gain feedback and also understand things from their fans perspective. “When we post content or news articles people immediately comment saying this is cool or this is not cool, we like this video or this video is boring. This feedback is very interesting because we can relay it back to our communications department and show them what the people like, what they don’t like and also what content our fans are most pro-active to.”

A great example of how this feedback can benefit the club is when Madrid started to include links to the club’s online shop on their Facebook page, “it took fans a while to realise that this was our official online store. This made us think maybe the things which we think are obvious are maybe not so obvious to all the fans – maybe we need to include on posts that this is the official Real Madrid online store. We can also relay this information back to the people in other departments and say maybe we are missing are sales in other places because the fans are misunderstanding our messages.”

From speaking to Oscar one thing that really stood out to me was that Real clearly understand the importance of engagement and providing fans with great content, they also understand how this can be turned into revenue for the club. For one of the player´s birthdays the club produced special video content dedicated to the player itself and alongside this they ran a 24 hour jersey sale.

“We know you can’t make a direct sale on Facebook, you have to engage the fans in conversation and once you have the people interested you can then direct them onto a product or service. The key to the success of this promotion was great content which created conversation amongst our fans, we didn’t just say here is the players shirt you can buy it here – we created engagement and interest, via the content, which then sent traffic back to the online store and created conversions and shirt sales.”

They also use social media to encourage fans to join club membership programmes, by putting out content via social media they can encourage fans to join their eMadristas membership to access even more great content. “What we are doing is pushing people from Facebook to this membership, we are saying – you are a Facebook fan and that’s great you can get good content here, but you can do more with our eMadristas membership. So, we are moving people from Facebook to club affiliated membership programmes which in turn generates revenue via permission marketing and we also offer paid membership programmes so we are able to build a large database of fans affiliated to the club.”

Social media also opens up additional ways for sponsors and club partners to activate their partnerships with Real Madrid because now they have the opportunity not only to be in the stadium, on the shirts and on RealMadrid.com they can also get their message across via social media and provide engaging content for the fans – for example every week Bwin hosts an interview with the team talking about the next game.

Some partners even value mentions and space on the clubs Facebook and Twitter pages above advertising and banners on RealMadrid.com. “A lot of people are coming to us and making products with us who are saying no more that they want the coverage on Realmadrid.com they want to be on our Facebook and Twitter pages because they understand the reach of these platformss. An example of this is a company who came to us and wanted to make a toolbar for Real Madrid and another company who made a digital calendar. We were expecting for them to want a banner on RealMadrid.com but this is changing and they now ask us to send out a message to all of our fans on Facebook so we have created a whole new media not just for Real Madrid but for our club partners too.”

Real’s views on players utilising social media are very relaxed, and a sharp contrast to some Premier League clubs. “We don´t have a specific policy regarding players using social media to communicate with fans,” said Oscar, the players are free to use social media however they want. It comes down to common sense – obviously we don’t want players to be discussing business such as transfers and contracts as this not good for the club, but, it’s also no good for the players.”

“We understand that some clubs may have a stricter policy of saying that players can’t get involved with social media and that is a respectful decision. But there are a lot of opportunities in social media not only for clubs, but for players too. Instead of blocking social media which is an easy thing to do, maybe it’s better to use common sense and tell players not to say online what they won’t say in public.”

Social media plays a very important part in keeping Real’s global fanbase up to date with the club and allows them to make fans feel more connected. “We post in English and Spanish – but we are still missing a lot of people, whilst English and Spanish are very universal languages we have many fans who speak Arabic or Turkish for example, and we are working on sharing content in more languages – these fans may understand English but they will be more comfortable and feel closer to the club if we communicate to them in their language.”

“In terms of growing their fanbase through social media there are two markets which Real hope to focus on over the coming months. “The Arab and Asian markets are two growing markets that are very important to us as we have a lot of fans there and we want to become more approachable to these fans. Social media may give us ways to enter these markets and whilst Facebook is very popular in the US and Europe maybe in Asia it’s not as strong and doesn’t have as much reach, therefore we are looking into more local social networks that will have very good penetration in these markets.”

In conclusion Oscar says, “if you compare social media with our traditional business of television rights, sponsorship etc. social media still generates a very small part of the clubs turnover but it is also a good amount of money. The other revenues are tried and tested ways but we in the new media department we are always exploring what will be the future.”

I’d like to thank Oscar Ugaz and Real Madrid for this interview and for sharing some great information. Be sure to look out for my next article in which I will be speaking to Pedro Duarte, Real Madrid’s Mobile Marketing Manager.

FundSport.com and The UK Sports Network are proud to announce the creation of a new event to be held at Grafton House, Ipswich on the 14th April.

The event is designed with grassroots sports firmly in mind, to help educate and give tools to those who need it the most in these tough times. With many clubs, associations, leagues and athletes struggling we aim to educate those attending in how to approach sponsors, how they should view sponsorship and the basics to help them on their way to a successful future.

The event highlights will be aired on the ‘Your Sport’ programme on the Community Channel at a later date (which we will of course keep you updated about) and we will be using Social Media tools to expand upon the event and audience – more details to follow soon!

Grassroots Sports Sponsorship seminar

The event will be made up of some great speakers who can talk from experience on the subject. They include;

FIONA GREEN – Fiona has worked on the commercial side of sport for the past 21 years. Over the years Fiona has worked on 2 UEFA European Championships (EURO 96 and Euro 2000) and 3 FIFA World Cups (USA 94, France 98 and Japan/Korea 2002). Fiona has also worked with the English Cricket Board, UK Athletics, Special Olympics and the Lawn Tennis Association to name just a few. Currently Fiona runs a small sports marketing consultancy advising corporate sponsors, media partners, and sports rights holders and recently appointed a Non-Executive Director at Notts County FC.

ALEX ALLEY – Alex is a professional sailor who has already completed one round the world race and has over 100,000 miles of racing behind him. Alex has produced a unique sponsorship strategy to aid his entry to the 2010/11 Global Ocean Race by developing www.peoplesboat.com. He is opening it up for everyone to be able to take part, from small individual sponsorships to large company packages that include corporate days on the boat. After the race Alex will sell the boat and raise between £150,000 – £200,000 for charity.

In association with the Team Ipswich, Suffolk Sport and the Suffolk FA this will be a great event. But there are only 50 spaces available and they will go quickly. To book your place go to;

http://uksportsnetwork.eventbrite.com

If you have any questions about the event or would like more information please feel free to get in touch at daniel@theuksportsnetwork.com or leave a comment below.

Last week Karl Lusbec wrote about the 20 Best Known European Football Brands. The article referenced a Sport+Markt 2009-2010 study of brand recognition among football fans in the top five markets (UK, Germany, Spain, France & Italy).  You can read the report yourself here.

I thought it might be interesting to look at this data and try to extrapolate from it which club brands were the most powerful.  Unscientific of course, but I wanted to see to what degree being aligned with a specific club (or clubs) is a factor, in addition to sponsoring tournaments like the FIFA World Cup, UEFA Champions League or UEFA European Championships.  So, let’s take a look.  Here’s the 2009 Delloitte & Touche Money League of clubs* along with the brands listed in the Sport+Markt survey (and the brands ranking in that survey) associated with them:

1. Real Madrid – adidas (1), Coca-Cola (5), Audi (8), bwin (9)

2. Manchester United – Nike (2), AIG (6), Audi (8),

3. FC Barcelona – Nike (2), Audi (8), Unicef (15)

4. Bayern Munich – adidas (1), Coca-Cola (5), Audi (8)

5. Chelsea – adidas (1), Samsung (10), Heineken (20)

6. Arsenal – Nike (2), Emirates (5)

7. Liverpool – adidas (1), Carlsberg (7)

8. AC Milan – adidas (1), bwin (9)

9. AS Roma -

10. Inter Milan – Nike (2)

11. Juventus – Nike (2)

12. Olympique Lyonnais – Umbro (16), Orange (18)

13. Schalke 04 – adidas (1)

14. Tottenham Hotspur – Puma (3), Carlsberg (7)

15. Hamburger SV – adidas (1), Emirates (5)

16. Olympique Marseille – adidas (1), Orange (18)

17. Newcastle United – adidas (1)

18. VfB Stuttgart – Puma (3), Coca-Cola (4)

19. Fenerbahce – adidas (1), Audi (8)

20. Manchester City – Umbro (16)

*I looked for the list of official club sponsors on official team websites as of February 2010.

Who from the Sport+Markt list weren’t represented by a club from the Delloitte & Touche Money League clubs?

11. Reebok

12. Opel (Read this Sport Business story from 2001 calling them the ‘most successful shirt sponsor’)

13. Vodafone

14. Ford – Champions League

17. MasterCard – Champions League

19. Sony – Champions League

So, the two odd men out appear to be Reebok and Vodafone.  Now, Vodafone is a massive sponsor of sport and had a run with Man Utd a while back from which they may still be seeing a halo effect.  Reebok sponsors Ryan Giggs (Man Utd), Thierry Henry (Barca) and formally kitted out Liverpool and Man City.  AS Roma are the only club in the top 20 not aligned with a big sponsor.

I think a big winner here may be Audi.  Not a name I immediately associated with big time European football, I was surprised to see them so high.  But they have a variety of partnerships with leading clubs, allowing them to also create the Audi Cup in July 2009, which featured ManU, Bayern Munich and AC Milan along with Boca Juniors of Argentina.  I don’t think they’ve spent the same type of money as some of the other top 10 brands, bet I suspect they are reaping rewards from their associations.  Look too for Umbro to move up the charts if the English National Team can make a run in the 2010 FIFA World Cup this summer.

Gavin Cowley is the adidas Marketing Director and Local Head 2010 FIFA World Cup. 

I had the pleasure to work with him on several football projects.  Gavin has a true passion for football and genuine dedication to make football a unique social developing and unifying component for South Africa.  He is a key player within the adidas organisation, his knowledge of the country, his integrity make him a respected and trusted character. 

I interviewed him to get his view on the first World Cup in South Africa; on the marketing activations, competition, but also on how the World Cup will contribute to the social and economic development of the country.

Enjoy!

Karl Lusbec

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If most football fans were asked if they’d like a multi-national company to pump £100m into their club they’d jump at the chance.  Tell them that in return their historic ground, which has been home to their club for over 100 years, would have its name changed to reflect their new backers and suddenly the atmosphere would change.

For it seems that football fans will accept almost any commercial activity surrounding their club except the selling of naming rights. And even during one of the deepest recessions in generation this attitude still prevails, although some change does seem to be on the horizon.  The most recent example of a club getting into hot water over naming rights was at Newcaslte where, perhaps understandably, fans were riled on being told their ground was now to be called Sports Direct@St James’ Park – it hardly rolls off the tongue.  It’s also unlikely it would have secured much more income for the Magpies as Sports Direct is the company owned by club owner – and PR disaster – Mike Ashley.

Another owner of similar standing to Ashley among his fans, Malcolm Glazer, has also been reported to be considering selling the naming rights at Old Trafford.  In a business sense, for a club a reported £700m+ in debt to try and claw back some money it makes sense. But to fans it’s just the latest example of the way Glazer and his family are slowly killing the club and all its traditions.

But naming rights can work and are accepted by fans. Think The Emirates, The Reebok Stadium, the Ricoh Arena as just some examples of  clubs who play at branded stadiums.  The difference? The grounds have been built over the last decade or so and therefore have no history or heritage.  Arsenal’s deal with Emirates was reportedly worth over £100m which for a club who, unlike many, like to keep their finances on an even keel was a godsend.

Some Arsenal die-hards continue to call the ground Ashburton Grove, but in the media, where it really matters for the sponsor, the Emirates name has stuck.  Perhaps the secret is not to give fans any alternative options. When Southampton’s new ground opened, it was originally called the Friends Provident St Marys Stadium.  A bit of a mouthful, the obvious thing was to cut out the sponsors name so St Mary’s stuck and Friends Provident probably asked for a refund from the Saints marketing department.

The next battle in the name game could come on Merseyside where Liverpool owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett have announced that they will sell the naming rights of Liverpool’s new stadium in Stanley Park once (or is that if) it is built.  Again, perhaps because the owners are already mistrusted by the majority of fans, at first the plan was criticised by Reds fans who said they would call it Stanley Park or the New Anfield.

But then an interesting debate took place between supporters who, maybe having spent a day thinking about things, came to realise that at this moment in their history money is more important.  As one fan on a messageboard put it: “I’d rather see Torres and Gerrard playing at the Budweiser Stadium, than see Ngog and Lucas playing at the New Anfield”.  And that attitude does seem to be catching on. When Tottenham announced plans for their new ground over the road from White Hart Lane little fuss was kicked up when fans were told naming rights were up for grabs.

Supporting a football club is as much about knowing its history as it is about knowing who your best left-back currently is.  But the reality of the football business today means clubs always need to find new revenue streams and if it is done the right way and at the right time many fans can now see the financial advantage of selling naming rights.

They might not like it, but when their £20m centre forward scores the winning goal in the Champions League final, they probably won’t care.