Taewan Kim's Blog

In response to Stephanie‘s blog post about the Budweiser’s poor ad placement for the commercial aired during the Super Bowl.

As Steph criticized Budweiser for airing a hockey-related commercial during the Super Bowl, placement is critical for a successful marketing. In contrast to Budweiser’s poor ad placement, Nike successfully placed their commercial in 2010 before and during the South Africa World Cup 2010.

FIFA World Cup is the most watched and the most popular event of the world. Every 4 years, football (soccer) fans all around the world gets excited for the summer event. Nike targeted the athletes and fans of the most popular event during the season. 2010 Nike commercial, named “Write the Future” starred the most expensive and the most popular stars in the world, especially in their own countries, such as Didier Drogba (Cote d’Ivoire), Wayne Rooney (England), Fabio Cannavaro (Italy), Frank Ribery (France), Ronaldinho (Brazil), Cesc Fabregas (Spain), and Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), who are all dreaming to win the World Cup and to be the hero of their country.

This approach added excitement and expectations of the competition, and also it gave something to talk about to the football fans and columnists. The fame, money, and popularity described in the video are what we believe those soccer stars actually wanted and what we hoped them to achieve through winning the competition.

The successful commercial attracted 7.8 million viewers on YouTube in its first week. The World Cup ended with the winner sponsored by Adidas, Spain; however, the main members of the team are sponsored by Nike, including Gerard Pique, Carles Puyol, Andres Iniesta, Sergio Busquets, Fernando Torres, Sergio Ramos, and Pedro. More importantly, with the commercial, Nike was recognized again as the brand that sponsors the most popular players, beating Adidas, Nike’s direct competitor and the main sponsor of the FIFA World Cup.

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Nike has outfitted national soccer teams including Brazil and the United States. However, the European great powers, such as Spain, Germany, and France have traditionally worn Adidas as it represents the Europeans (with some exceptions of the Dutch and the Portuguese who have been sponsored by Nike since mid 1990s.)

In the summer of 2007, Nike lost out in a bid to supply the German national team. Although Nike offered a few times more (500 million euros) than Adidas’ bid, the German Football Association opt to retain and renew the deal with their home brand Adidas, which has sponsored since 1954.

In 2008, Nike outbid Adidas for the rights to outfit the French national team with the offer that amounts to 4.5 times more than Adidas’ old contract. Hereby, the French Federation of Football, the French national soccer team betrayed Adidas, its sponsor since 1972, and made contract with Nike, which started in 2011 and is effective through 2017-2018 seasons.

An internet football news, mCalcio. com calls it Nike’s coupe d’etat on Adidas and it also notes that “six in ten French prefer Adidas to Nike.” There still is some anti-Americanism in Europe, but Nike is in the way to Americanize the continent as well as the island. It also recently acquired British soccer brand Umbro.

Nike is successfully increasing its market share with the aggressive strategy; however a legacy passed down through generations of Michel Platini and Zinedine Zidane has come to an end, and personally I will miss the French Tricolor on the Adidas’ three stripes.

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Image: a cover page of SPORT, Spanish daily sports newspaper. (Translation: Qatar Foundation will be the sponsor of Barcelona; HIGHEST-PAID IN THE WORLD)

So who’s this El Barça’s extravagant new sponsor that pours £125m (for five years) onto the jersey?

The Qatar Foundation, located in Doha, Qatar, is an independent, private, non-profit, chartered organization founded in 1995. According to their website (http://www.qf.org.qa),  they claim that their vision is “to support centers of excellence which develop people’s abilities through investment in human capital, innovative technology, state of art facilities and partnerships with elite organizations, thus raising the competency of people and the quality of life.” They also believes that the nation Qatar’s greatest natural resource is “its people”, not oil, as stated in their mission statement.

£125m may be small potatoes for a billionaire Qatari who owns a petroleum production company; however, for most people, firms, and organizations, that is a huge $$. All of a sudden, why did the Qatar Foundation market themselves to the worldwide football fans and media? The reason, most likely, is to spread and  promote the Qatari’s justification of and contribution to the 2022 FIFA World Cup that will be held in Qatar.

Soon after Russia was selected to be the host of 2018 FIFA World Cup, the oil-rich Middle-Eastern nation of Qatar won the right to host the 2022 World Cup, beating out bids from the U.S. and Australia. The World Cup is voted by FIFA executive committee members. Allegations have been made that those resource-affluent countries paid bribes to voters. Qatar, of course, denied the claim and also FIFA doubtfully said there is no need for an investigation.

While the voting process remains in a blur, a tremendous amount of money that Qatar is going to spend on the event related infrastructure (hotels, stadiums, roads, etc.), which is estimated to be $64 billion, got me to re-consider the Qatar Foundation’s motto “Supporting Qatar on its journey from carbon economy to knowledge economy by unlocking human potential” and to find the paradox that the Qatari are making.

Qatar is building 9 new football stadiums. Here are the fascinating, first five stadiums.  

Qatar delegates argue that the stadiums will be zero-carbon emitting and climate controlled as the average daytime temperature is over 40 °C in June and July. And they claim that the stadiums will have a system that reduces solar radiation and warm winds, and provide “air-conditioning” so that players and fans won’t die from heatstroke… Although they say the stadiums won’t emit any carbon dioxide; however, all the money they spend has come from selling crude oil, and the whole project surely will contain a huge amount of carbon footprints, which is exactly what the Qatar Foundation tries to escape from.

The Societal Marketing Concept is what consumers expect and what organizations concentrate these days, as Jessica Li related it with Nike’s sustainable business plan that eliminates PVC in its products and as Alexandra Lam talked about Lexus that uses recyclable material to sustain the business.

(Barça fans were against the arrival of QF, the new sponsor.)

The dirty oil money can do whatever they want, but it bothers me as a football fan and a global citizen as the rich Qatari is being against the global society’s long-run interests. The Qatar Foundation professes itself to be a socially and environmentally responsible organization, but it supports the opposite.

Tags:   FC Barcelona and Qatar Foundation · FIFA bribe · Qatar Foundation and Qatar World Cup · The Qatar Foundation1 Comment

FC Barcelona, the unbeatable world “Football” Champion who won the most titles in past three years including the 2011 UEFA Champions League title, was renowned for their long term stance of refusing commercial shirt sponsorship.

In 2006, the club announced a five year agreement with UNICEF, which includes having the UNICEF logo on their shirt. The Catalan club has donated €1.5m (which equals to $2.3m) each year, abiding by the agreement.

With the increasing debt, as sizeable as £369.5m, the club seemed unable to keep their star players. Finally in the winter of 2010 Barcelona had to have ended their noble-minded practice of refusing commercial shirt sponsorship, which had been kept since its founding in 1899, by signing a record £125m ($192m) contract with the Qatar Foundation. The Catalan’s jersey still carries the UNICEF logo on their back, but the children’s charity had to yield the prior positioning to the new comer.

El Barça’s deadly, Spanish rival Real Madrid, and Liverpool and Manchester United, the overseas competitors with worldwide reputation all earn about £20m a year in regards to their values; considering the amount their rivals receive, Barcelona’s new agreement has revealed the club to be “the undisputed brand leader in world football.”

The Flying Dutchman Johan Cruyff, a Barcelona legend, severely criticized his former club for selling the team’s uniqueness for six per cent of their annual budget. From the interview with El Periodico de Catalunya, Cruyff said, “We are a unique club in world football, no one has kept their jersey intact throughout history, yet remained so competitive.” He added, “I understand that we are currently losing more than we are earning. However, by selling the shirt it shows me that we are not being creative, and that we have become vulgar.”

The expensive shirt ad is the Qatari group’s aggressive marketing approach (maybe not, considering their oil money) to reveal them by the world’s most popular team of the world’s most popular sport; however, the recent move of the Catalans, having them as a marketer, may not be the optimal approach to keep their societal, cultural value that the club had passed on throughout the history.

To be continued… FC Barcelona & Qatar Foundation Part II:                                               Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup and the Dirty (Oil) Money

Tags:   Barcelona · FC Barcelona · Johan Cruyff · The Qatar Foundation1 Comment

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