It’s here! Americans and expatriates who enjoy European
football finally get to watch their sport on tv without having to pay for an
extra 200 channels just to watch the Premier League.Thanks to NBC, people like myself with basic cable no longer
have to pay ridiculous prices for access to one channel or endure sketchy, poor quality illegal streaming sites to
watch the world’s greatest league.
Perfect Timing
Thanks to the FIFA video games and increased access to view live games, America has experienced an influx of the European game into its culture,
especially in the high school/college scenes.NBC has entered at the perfect moment, and with a bang.
Outstanding Marketing
What really makes NBC stand out in my eyes is their ability
to market without singling anyone out.New to soccer?It's okay,
they provide images (like the one below) to help you catch up without alienating the
already devout followers.The
commentators insist they will not dumb down their discussion, but rather help bring everyone
up to speed.
My personal favorite from this promotional campaign is the commercial with comedian,
Jason Sudeikis, acting as an American football coach that moves to the north London
team where it becomes obvious he is out of his league (yes, I know it's a bad joke).
Other notable examples are the giant billboard in Time
Square and the fictional map of North London teams transposed on a map of New York
City (telling you who you should support, i.e. the rich folk of Manhattan fall in the Man City section). Even subway cars were transformed to resemble team benches where you "choose
your side."
Nowadays, it is customary for apparel companies that produce
kits for big time football teams to create a whole launch campaign around the unveiling of
the next season’s upcoming uniforms.
Shirt sales are a lucrative business, especially since fans stretch across
the globe, so it’s important that you grab their attention and then fulfill expectations with an attractive kit.
The German company, Puma, took over Borussia Dortmund’s kit
design from long time partner, Kappa, at the beginning of the 2012/13
season. Obviously, they wanted to
make an entrance, so what better way than to throw a party in the center of one
of the best, if not the greatest, footballing cities in the world? (this coming from a Bayern fan, too).
Puma kicked the party off with a yellow yarn campaign, simply
putting the team’s colors all over anything they could find in the dead of night throughout the
city. When everyone got up in the morning they saw yarn covering trees,
statues, trashcans, etc, nothing was spared. This was a great idea, because it got everyone’s attention and people would take something home as a keepsake, which means the Puma logo
goes home with them.
Next, they took to Alten Markt for an open-air party in the
city center, and conveniently, right in front of a Puma store. In the middle, there was a stage with a 16-foot
blank model of a jersey. A crew of
seven painters emerge with spray-paint cans and begin to paint a replica of the
brand new jersey, officially unveiling the design for the first time to the
public. As you might expect, once
they had finished several team members and the coach emerge from the store, dressed
the new kit. Puma hoped to
finish off its promotion by using the celebrity status of the players to prompt immediate
sales.
(You can skip through it to get the idea)
I feel that events like this are becoming not only commonplace,
but also necessary for these brands.
If you’re not doing it, you’re falling behind, so it’s important for these
brands to not only produce great products and kits, but also to grab the
attention of your audience and reel them in with exciting events. Adidas already started their Bayern München
#RedPassion campaign weeks ago with a series of short videos of past triumphs,
and surely we will see many more campaigns in the months to comes leading up to
the next season.
(On a side note, it is a bit curious seeing several players
wearing the shoes of rival brands, which makes me question if the absence of
some of the big time stars is due to conflicting contractual obligations. Although, they could have simply been
on vacation or with the national team.)
Have you ever seen one of those commercials
that makes your neck hairs stand and gives you that excited jittery feeling down your
spine, and all of a sudden you’re in the zone and ready to go play? For me, at least, there have been several times that I have sat down at my
computer and spent a few hours grazing over football commercial, its something
I could watch all day. This might
be because I live in the U.S. so I rarely see soccer commercials on television (or even games, but that's another story). One reason for
that might be because few people in the U.S., besides myself and the few other
die-hard fans, would be able to recognized even half the players in my two
favorite spots that I am about to discuss.
Let’s start with Nike, my second
favorite brand and commercial. This
campaign was call “Write the Future” and it was used for the 2010 World Cup.
Even if I had only heard the
slogan I would have gotten goosebumps.
It sticks out. Your
imagination immediate gets to work as you picture yourself being the hero, in
control of your own destiny, becoming legendary. Well, that is exactly what this extended tv spot
depicts. You’re Wayne Rooney and
you either accept failure due to a misplaced pass, or you go all out to win it
back and become the hero.
This commercial is also great
because it shows how the real world reacts to what “you” do on the pitch. This spot emphasizes that legends are
born in big moments. Jut as
Christiano Ronaldo steps up to take the free-kick near the end, it simulates
that experience. All of a sudden
you cant hear the crowd, you start imaging the glory you’ll bring if you score,
and then it happens, but all you see is the “write the future” slogan. It ends on a cliffhanger, leaving you wanting more (a very common advertising principle),
and that is something every brand dreams of for its advertisements. I also love the you decide mentality that this commercial provokes and the
subliminal Nike plug, rather than the in-your-face-buy-our-product advertisement.
Next up, adidas and their “+10” / “Impossible is Nothing” campaigns
for the 2006 World Cup.
Again, the “+10” probably doesn’t
mean much to a non-native football player, but even still, it is unclear until
you actually watch the commercial.
Adidas sets the stage with the most common type of football game played,
a pick-up/street-ball game, with one exception: this game involves the world’s
greatest players. But wait,
another twist is thrown in when the boys calls out “Beckenbauer” and then
“Platini” who are former German and French football legends who have long since
retired from the game (they either used awesome special editing effects or
extreme look-a-likes, but either way, its awesome).
At the end of the commercial the “+10” resonates as you
realize its referring to you + 10 other
players. Once again, there is
a you’re in control feeling, because the
boys are controlling the team and putting players in different positions than
expected.
“Impossible is Nothing” to me means if these kids can play a pick-up
game with the worlds greatest, the anything is possible. However, I feel adidas was more focused
on the fun of the game aspect. The World Cup is a time where the world comes
together, emphasized by the different nationalities of the players depicted, which
is more of the emotion that adidas was aiming for. I believe it to be effective as well, because there is
nothing that I enjoy more than a pick-up game with friends. The subtle use of product placement,
like the adidas sponsored uniforms or training gear for the players on a team
that is sponsored by a different brand, and makes sure the viewer knows this is
an adidas commercial.
In summery, I would say that
Nike’s “Write the Future” has a much more impactful slogan and powerful
commercial than adidas’, but maybe because I know I will never get to play on
such a stage, or because I am biased to adidas since they partially own and sponsor Bayern München, I
will always keep this adidas commercial as my favorite.
Advertising with a sports team is one of the most popular
ways to get your brand name out there.
If you have an on field ad you get at least 90 minutes of camera time. But how do you keep your brand in front
of potential consumers for longer? The
answer is in the title, shirt sponsorships!
Most teams adopted shirt sponsors at the boom of advertising, at the beginning of the 20th century.
Although the U.K. was one of the last to accept this practice, it has
become the must lucrative league for shirt sponsors due to it being the most
popular with 7 of the top 10 shirt sponsorship deals. However, Spanish side, Barcelona, currently make the
most with a $38,337,500 per year deal
with the Qatar Foundation, while the German giants, Bayern München, come in second with a $36,190,600 per year deal with Deutche Telekom.
From there on the only non-English teams are Real Madrid (7th -
Bwin) and AC Milan (9th- Emirates).
To an outsider of European football, this probably seems a
little ridiculous, especially since you don’t see sponsor's logos on the shirts of American
football, basketball, or baseball teams.
Shouldn’t you be concerned about decreasing the image of your club or
spoiling the image of the uniform?
This is an honest concern, because if you look at some South American
shirts you might confuse them with NASCAR outfits with sponsors in the middle, on the arms, and on the back.
Or why pay a ton of money to only sponsor one sports
team? Well that answer is pretty
obvious when you consider that the average season is from August to May, longer
than any American sports season, meaning more time in front of viewers. You also should consider that the
majority of sporting focus is on football, so they get the majority of attention
on the TV, in print ads, etc. Of course, what I think is the biggest bonus, is the shirt sales! For example, over the past 5 years Nikes top selling jersey,
Manchester United, and Adidas’ Real Madrid, averaged 1.4 million shirts sold a
season. That means 1.4 million
people own a shirt with your name
smack-in-the-middle of it. That
also means you have 1.4 million mini billboards walking around.
I feel that shirt sponsors are a great way to earn revenue for clubs,
especially when you consider the ridiculous amount of money they spend buying
players from clubs (millions of dollars per player) and their salaries (again,
millions) and then operating costs and more. I personally, don’t want my team looking like a tacky billboard,
but one sponsor won’t sour the look of a uniform as long as it’s done tastefully.
Around this time last year, German football club Bayern München, launched the first ever
social networking site specifically for their football fans. Despite the rough start, it has
reinvented the way football clubs interact with fans.
It started with an online countdown to reveal some big news, however, the marketing department of Germany’s biggest club should have been a bit more careful with the ‘big reveal’. It succeeded in getting football fanatics (myself included) watering at the mouth and speculating what
big time player they might have just signed.
However, as the countdown ended it was revealed that “FCB has just signed
‘your name here’ as the 12th man!” ( see picture below) as a way to launch you into their new fan website. You might have guess that this resulted in a public
relations melt down with disgruntled fans.
As the (self proclaimed) number one fan this club, I must
admit I was none to thrilled with this charade. Although some simply write it off as typical German humor
(as in it's not funny), I believe the honest intentions were there, but the
execution was not ideal. That said, it was definitely no failure. Their facebook page grew by
10,000 fans per day (according to Sports+Markt research) and now boast over 6
million.
So what is "myFCB"? Well, put simply, it’s a facebook for Bayern Munich fans. It allows members to get the inside scoop before anyone
else, post picture of themselves representing the club, live tickers of the games, competitions to predict
the line-up and win FCB prizes, chat with fans across the world in the forums, and much
more.
Of course there is something in it for the club, nothing is done without a return on investment. In this case it not only keeps fans engaged, but it also collects data about their activities and words, which will help the business side of the club provide better services. It also serves as advertising for sponsors who can promote special deals for fans.
I believe this club has pioneered a new way for sports club
to interact with their fans. Of course it will never
compete with the likes of facebook and twitter, but it is another tool for the
most loyal of fans to feel even closer to the club. A key strategy will be for the site to generate content and
experiences that cannot be found anywhere else, and in my opinion, that means
exclusive behind the scenes access and numerous chances to win merchandise.
If you have ever watched a football match in your life, then you have probably fallen for the 3 dimensional advertising mind trick on either side of the goals. It's okay, you're not alone, everybody cringes the first time they see a player about to 'trip' over the sign. If you don't know what I'm talking about, here you go:
TV viewers see:
But in reality it's flat:
Genius! The company LogoPaint saw a chance to exploit the most valuable space on the field without endangering the players or blocking the line of sight for spectators. They entice the market by stating that 50-80% of football sponsorship comes from TV exposure (not to mention the numerous replays that circle the internet) and that over 500 football clubs use this form of advertising (including the biggest names in football).
