Month: September 2010

My last article focused on the effects of marketing in football and especially Real Madrid’s innovative marketing strategy. This week, we will look into the impact that promotions and merchandising had on the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Football is the most watched sport in the world, and the World Cup its most important competition. With over 400 millions viewers per match and further 700 million more who visited South Africa, the 2010 FIFA World Cup provided a host of opportunities for Fifa’s official marketing partners like Coca Cola, Adidas, Emirates etc.

Held in South Africa, Coke and Adidas created ads centered on the bandwagon of Pride for Africa. For example watch the ad below,

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDwRkiHaOfI[/youtube]

Coke specifically chose the promotional anthem, Waving Flag by K’nann, to match the mood of the World Cup. This particular ad featured as a global anthem for all Coke commercials for the 2010 World Cup.  In fact, a recent report showed that Coke’s global sales had gone up 5% boosted by the World Cup marketing campaign. Similar growth in sales was reported by Adidas. Here is Adidas’ official 2010 Fifa commercial:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha7duAPYdk0[/youtube]

In today’s world, product promotion gets even more focus than the product quality itself.  A company doesn’t just sell a product; it sells an image of the company itself.  Even Fifa, the international governing body of football, advertises itself and earns millions of dollars each year.  In conclusion, I would just like to mention that most of the official ads for the World Cup were of high standard and even I felt compelled to buy some of the World Cup merchandising.

Let me know what your reactions were to the commercials during the 2010 World Cup.

Even just 15 years ago, the financial power of majority of the football clubs were limited. In fact their source of income was majorly based on winning trophies and occasional cash inflow of the owners. Even though domestic shirt sales and limited television revenues provided some source of income for the big clubs, the smaller clubs struggled.

Football, nowadays, has changed dramatically most of which can be attributed to the successful marketing campaigns of different football clubs. You have probably seen all those football commercials nowadays of brands like Nike and Adidas associating themselves with the best players to sell their products. For example, watch this one below:

One particular example of this dramatic change can be showed by closely following Real Madrid’s marketing campaign over the last 10 years.

Real Madrid, voted the “club of the century”, is more than a just a football club, it’s one of the most powerful business entity. Even though, Real Madrid had always historically been a rich club, it was only after the arrival of Florentino Perez in 2000 that marked Real Madrid’s status as a business brand.  Their marketing strategy was to portray themselves as the most entertaining and popular team in the world. So they simply bought the best players in the world namely Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo, David Beckham, Micheal Owen, Ronaldo etc. Famously known as the “galacticos”, with these acquisitions Madrid marked a near double growth in their shirt sales which rose to $1 million sales in one year.

In my opinion, this move was a part of a planned management strategy intended to transform football into the Olympus of imagery and advertising. The idea was simple: It is no longer sufficient just to score goals; you also have to sell jerseys. This idea can be clearly seen by Madrid’s signing of David Beckham. Miguel Angel Sastre, professor at University of Madrid described Beckham as, “a sociological phenomenon, with more than 60,000 web pages of information about his movements. His popularity is greater than that of the British Royal Family”. Just after two years of forming this galactic team, as Sastre claims, “revenues from his advertising campaigns have totaled 21 million Euros.”

Addidas, which is Real Madrid’s official sponsor, made tremendous amount of money through star-studded commercials. For example, watch the video below:

Its 2010 now, and Real Madrid still follow the same policy of getting the best players in world. During the last few years, they have acquired the new galactic additions namely Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Oezil, Alonso etc. The fact that they have the highest revenue when compared to other clubs shows how successful marketing can be of value.

The fact that many of us are regular consumers of products like Nike and Adiddas or buy products/shirts because of some of our favorite players shows how marketing influences us everyday. Lets say, we watch a game between Real Madrid and Barcelona; we are surrounded by advertisements in players’ shirts, boots, banners around the ground, and television commercials. I believe marketing is kind of a win-win situation for everyone because the consumers become more aware of the product that the producer is trying to sell.  Let me know what you guys think about the advantages and disadvantages of marketing in football.