A new football season has kicked off and, for a moment at least, optimism is all around as every club and every fan starts the new campaign with dreams of glory. At the same time, a host of sponsors – some familiar, but many of them new to football this season – begin their journeys too. So, in the time-honoured manner of early season previews, let’s take a look at some of the sponsorships, sponsors and trends to look out for.

England – this space for sale.

The England team has of course started the season without a team sponsor, the FA having so far failed to find a replacement for Nationwide in the wake of England’s disastrous World Cup. It will be interesting to see how long it takes the FA to fill the gap and which company comes on board to partner a team, manager and organisation with, for the time being at least, a lot of on- and off- field baggage.

England 2018?

Everybody remembers where they were when London won the IOC vote to stage the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Will we all look back on 2 December 2010 in the same way? That is of course the day when we’ll find out whether the dream scenario of a 2018 World Cup in England will follow London 2012 and RWC 2015. Whichever way the FIFA vote goes, it will have a defining effect on the zeitgeist of this season – and many seasons to come if it goes the right way. Let’s hope it does.

Rise of the New Red Corporates

Manchester United and Liverpool start this season with new shirt sponsors, Aon and Standard Chartered respectively. Both are primarily corporate sponsorships focused on driving awareness, in particular among the clubs’ Far East fan bases. But both will need to do more than use the sponsorships as ‘walking billboards’ (as the CEO of one was quoted the other day) to drive credibility and relevance in the UK, particularly – being financial brands – against the background of the two clubs’ debt issues. To compare in parallel how Aon and Standard Chartered approach the challenge, particularly in the first, critical year, will be well worth watching.

Energy Wars

Another one to watch is the energy category. One year ago e.on announced that it was not renewing its FA Cup sponsorship. Then npower took over the Football League title sponsorship as well as signing up as a partner of England’s 2018 Bid. Following which, in an unusual and surprising move, e.on did an about-turn and announced a 1-year extension to the FA Cup deal. And so, for one more year at least, battle is re-joined in football between the two brands, npower having previously used its Wembley partnership to regularly ambush e.on, particularly around the FA Cup Final.

Will Barclays find a football point of view?

This season will be Barclays’ seventh as Premiership title sponsors, and I’ll be interested to see how their positioning evolves. Against the background of the banking category’s image problems and the less desirable financial elements of the Premiership – debt and runaway wages – this is a tough job. But to me Barclays’ ‘bringing fans closer to football’ positioning looks increasingly generic and much in need of a more differentiating and resonant point of view.

Spurs – one becomes two

Spurs’ new strategy of having two shirt sponsors – one for Premiership matches, and one for Cup games – has been the big early season sponsorship story, with many observers hailing it as a positive move. I’m not so sure. Whilst there’s no doubt it’s worked for Spurs’ balance sheet – getting them to the financial number they needed, but couldn’t find, from one sponsor – for sponsors and sponsorship I believe it’s a backward step, because it takes sponsorship back to being all about media-led visibility rather than experience-led engagement. And the jury is still very much out as to how Spurs fans will react to another shirt with another sponsor. Watch this space.

Social Football

The 2009/10 domestic football season was the first in which social media really started to make an impact on the football brand landscape, and this trend continued around the World Cup, with even FIFA President Sepp Blatter getting into the act in person on Twitter. Although, sadly, I doubt that we’ll see other top figures from English football officialdom following suit anytime soon, the continuing and inexorable rise of social media to the top table of football marketing strategy is the trend to watch this season, and if you’re a brand in football without a social media strategy and presence, you need one – fast.

This article was first published in the July/August 2010 edition of Platform

By Tim Crow on August 31st, 2010

Tags: Barclays Premier League, FA Cup, Football, Football Sponsorship, Manchester United, Social Media, Sponsorship

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As I’ve written here before, since sports marketing got serious twenty years ago, one of the industry’s most important trends has been NPD. Inspired by the Premier League and the UEFA Champions League, both launched in the early 90s, every sport has created new or re-packaged events and formats in search of the same success. Some work, some don’t, but the dynamic continually creates new opportunities for sponsors.

When I first heard about the football 4 Nations tournament a couple of years ago I really liked it, and I still do. In case you haven’t heard about the 4 Nations, it’s a new biennial football tournament, starting in 2011, to be contested by the national teams of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Carling were unveiled today as title sponsors.

Here are my 4 reasons why  I welcome the 4 Nations and believe that it will be a success.

1. It’s based on a similar template to rugby’s RBS 6 Nations, which is one of the great events in the sporting calendar because it taps into the rivalry between the four home nations – as well, of course, as France and Italy.

2. It represents a welcome antidote to one of the curses of international football, and indeed modern sport, meaningless matches. The 4 Nations will have meaning.

3. All four countries will have a title to play for regularly on the international stage, something they don’t have right now – and will want to win it.

4. Because of all of the above, I believe the fans will embrace it.

Success isn’t guaranteed of course: there are challenges to be overcome. The tournament will take time to build its identity, profile and meaning, which will need skilful promotion by its stakeholders, particularly given the two month gap between rounds of matches. Most importantly, the teams will need to field the strongest players: nothing turns fans off more quickly than an inferior product.

But if those challenges can be overcome, I believe the 4 Nations will be a resounding success.

And if it is, maybe, just maybe, England will in time want to join in too, and (if the Irish, Scots and Welsh let them in!) we’ll see the return of the Home Internationals tournament, which fans of a slightly older vintage (such as myself) loved so much when we were kids in the 70s – because of moments like this…

By Tim Crow on August 12th, 2010

Tags: Football, Football Sponsorship, New Product Development, Sponsorship, UEFA Champions League

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With the Premier League season just a matter of days away, fans such as myself start to feel excited towards football again (no burn out here Galer!) After being let down as an England fan (again) this summer in South Africa, until Monday the thought of a good season for my club (Aston Villa) was an exciting prospect.

Last season I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Spurs pip Man City to fourth spot and it was hugely satisfying, as a Villa fan, to see Gareth Barry miss out on Champions League football. The 2010/2011 campaign should be another fantastic Premier League season as a host of clubs continue to close the gap on the so called “big four”, in fact I’d say with the depth of Man City’s pockets we really should be referring to it as a “big five” and, in fact, the odds at Betfair agree. For the first time in Premier League history five teams (Chelsea, Man Utd, Man City, Arsenal and Liverpool) are all 15/1 or shorter to win the Premier League title, suggesting that the title is most definitely a five horse race.

This Premier League first led to a fantastic Betfair event at Kempton Park on Thursday 5th August 2010 when five legends from the aforementioned clubs took part in the Betfair Five Horse Race. Yes, five ex-footballers agreed to jump on horses and race each other over one furlong and what a race it was! The ex-players vying to be first past the post were Ray Parlour, a Premier League and FA Cup winner with Arsenal, Chelsea’s second all-time leading goalscorer Kerry Dixon, ex-Liverpool hard-man Neil ‘Razor’ Ruddock, Steve Lomas, the combative midfielder formerly of Manchester City, and David May, a Champions League winner with Manchester United.

Prior to the event Neil Ruddock weighed in at a worrying weight and Ray Parlour was introduced to his horse, cheekily named after the current Gunners boss, Arsene Wenger. The Synergy and Betfair teams were met at Kempton Racecourse by glorious sunshine after a morning of training for the legends that saw David May flung to the floor and Steve Lomas emerge as the early favourite. Kitted out in club colours and full riding clobber the former stars took to riding like ducks to water and the race was eventually won by… well you can watch below.

By George Woffenden on August 11th, 2010

Tags: Barclays Premier League, Betfair, Football, Football Sponsorship, Manchester United, Viral Marketing

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Following a recent brainstorm here at Synergy, I asked myself a quick, but thought-provoking question:

Are the football fans of England suffering from ‘burnout’?

Burnout, for those who don’t know is: ‘a psychological term for the experience of long-term exhaustion and diminished interest.’ More common in younger sportsmen and women, burnout will occur if excessively high expectations are placed on an athlete by teammates or coaches and if the athlete in question is pushed too hard too quickly.

It was obvious, in my humble opinion, that this could well have been the case with the England Football team in South Africa. People can say what they like about their ridiculous salaries and the fact these young men are paid to train and play, but, ‘at the end of the day’ (sorry) these guys are only human and they need a break from work, just like the rest of us.

But is it now the football fans themselves who are starting to suffer from this physical, mental and emotional exhaustion?

The 2009/2010 season gave us a number of warning signs: half empty grounds in the Premiership, extortionate ticket prices, teams such as Palace and Pompey falling close to the precipice where Chester City now lurk, and if all this wasn’t bad enough, we then had to put up with what can only be described as a comedy show, as our National team flopped out of the World Cup with ease.

And 2010/2011 doesn’t seem to be getting better, with a number of top clubs still trying to flog season tickets to their once loyal fan base.

So my question is; ‘Is the football-loving UK now suffering from ‘burnout’ following the sheer amount of football we’ve had to endure every day of the summer – and ultimately the depression that followed our hyped up World Cup campaign?’

Well, I guess we’ll find out soon, when the new season starts on August 14th…

By Jonathan Gale on August 10th, 2010

Tags: Barclays Premier League, Default, Football, Football Sponsorship, World Cup

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Since FIFA announced its 2007-2014 sponsorship programme, many industry commentators have made much of FIFA’s new, so-called ‘less is more’ approach. It is a Very Good Thing, they say, that whereas the 2006 World Cup had 15 global partners and thus too much clutter, the 2010 edition has only 6 global partners and thus much less clutter.  I’ve never been persuaded by this argument, because I don’t think this is how it plays with consumers during the World Cup itself.

Consider, for example, what consumers see on the TV interview backdrops behind players and officials during the World Cup right now – illustrated in the still below (from the halcyon days before England played Germany on June 27). Call me old-fashioned, but I count 20 different brand logos.

Yes, I know that the logos of the 6 global ‘FIFA Partners’ are bigger than those of the 8 second-tier ‘World Cup Sponsors’, whose logos are in turn bigger than those of the 6 ‘National Supporters’. I know that the rights packages vary widely between tiers too. But I still count 20 logos. And that’s what the consumer sees. Not too different, then, from the 2006 World Cup, where there were 15 global partners and 6 ‘National Partners’. A difference, to be precise, of one less sponsor.

Consider too, Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal in the England v Germany match, surely destined to be one of the most replayed football moments of all time around the world.  Brilliant news for the 6 FIFA global partners then. Except it wasn’t. Because the brands whose logos were on display at that moment on the perimeter ads behind the goal, and who’ll be in shot forever, were MTN and Seara – as you see below.

Contrast this with the UEFA Champions League, which in the modern era remains the examplar of ‘less is more’. Only six brands are official Champions League partners, and that’s what you see when it comes to the TV interview backdrops – again, as illustrated in the screen grab below of Sir Alex Ferguson in post-match interview mode last season – and on the main televised perimeter ad positions.

Now that’s what I call ‘less is more’.

By Tim Crow on June 28th, 2010

Tags: Default, Football, Football Sponsorship, Sponsorship, Television, UEFA Champions League, World Cup

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By Tim Crow on June 11th, 2010

Tags: Default, Digital marketing, Downloads, Facebook, Football, Football Sponsorship, New Product Development, Olympic sponsorship, Social Media, Vancouver 2010, Winter Olympics, World Cup

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As the “Golden Generation” of England footballers bid for the umpteenth (and probably last) time to realise their potential at a major international tournament, fans across the country will be reaching for their Three Lions replica shirts, keeping their fingers crossed, and praying that “Wazza” really can Write The Future.

Back to the present. Before a fly-away Jabulani ball has been struck in earnest, the contest between “official sponsors” and those pesky ambushers has truly kicked off. The FA and Mars, an official partner of the England Team, are reportedly considering legal action against Nestlé, for “passing off” an association with the England team through Kit Kat’s “Fingers Crossed” campaign. Yes, this is the same Mars who undertook the infamous “Believe” ambush marketing campaign around the 2006 World Cup. For 2010, and the first football World Cup on African soil, a classic case of poacher turned gamekeeper.

Three questions, one for each lion on John Barnes’s Mars Bar :

1. Is Nestlé actually passing off an association with the England team?

This should probably be left to the lawyers, but from a layman’s / sport industry professional’s perspective, using Sol Campbell and Mansfield Town manager David Holdsworth as your “talent” is not the best way to infer an association with the England team. And despite the well observed allusions to England’s World Cup heritage – “cross your fingers for no penalties…no broken metatarsals…no tears” -and liberal use of the ambusher’s best friend (the St George’s flag), nothing suggests that Kit Kat sponsors Capello’s boys.

2. Should Mars be trying to protect their hard bought status as the England Team’s confectionary brand of choice?

A lesson for all official sponsors. Complain about the ambushers and you are giving their campaigns the oxygen of publicity. Mars clearly had good reason to turn gamekeeper and pay for the privilege of England partner status. They should be confident that their association, leveraged properly, will pay off. Otherwise, why not remain a poacher?

3. Whose current World Cup campaign is better?

No contest. Kit Kat have tapped into the very essence of the English sporting psyche, and the pervading sense of hope over expectation that grips every England football fan during international football tournaments. Their TV ad brings that insight to life in a down to earth, domestic football environment. Compare that with John Barnes re-hashing a song from 1990 in a sparsely populated park, with production values that suggest too much money in the FA’s coffers and not enough in the activation pot.

Reports suggest that Mars may have won the battle of the lawyers, and that Nestlé have agreed to curtail the campaign. Is that the final whistle on this contest? Probably not if Kit Kat’s PR team are on the ball. What price England players crossing their fingers during a crucial penalty shoot, or being caught on camera tucking into one of the 200 Kit Kat’s that have been delivered to the England training camp by the FA’s official supermarket …?

Whatever happens, fingers crossed that 2010 marks the end of John Barnes’s singing career.

By Tom Gladstone on June 11th, 2010

Tags: Advertising, Ambush campaign, Brand marketing, Communications, Content, Football, Football Sponsorship, Media, Public relations, Social Media, Sponsorship, Sport

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Sixteen countries, a sun-filled Old Trafford, a victorious Czech Republic team, a German cardboard cut-out mascot, a stadium awash with national team kits and the legendary Sir Bobby Charlton – that was the first ever Betfair World Cup!

As part of Betfair’s sponsorship of Manchester United, 96 lucky amateur football players and United fans from 16 different nations entered the world of the mighty Reds to enjoy a once in a lifetime opportunity to play at the Theatre of Dreams. The Betfair World Cup included a three-hour training day at United’s exclusive Carrington Training Facility before the 5-a-side teams went head-to-head on the pitch at Old Trafford. Clad in their nation’s colours and with the Betfair LED boards rotating in the background we witnessed sporting class, team hugs, and football fans fulfilling their dream of playing at Old Trafford! Check out our video to see the event in action…

Despite their national team not making it through to the FIFA World Cup Finals the players from the Czech Republic triumphed over Ukraine in the Betfair World Cup Final, whilst the Bulgarians lost out to the ever-so vocal Portuguese team in the Plate Final.

Manchester United and England star Gary Pallister was on site to watch all the action and said, ‘These players are following in the footsteps of legends, from Sir Bobby Charlton to Eric Cantona to Wayne Rooney. The final was a pretty close run thing but the Czech’s seemed to have the upper hand in the final half and came away with the all important win.’

Whilst the Synergy Experiential team managed to help 96 footie fans fulfil their dreams (along with the help of the incredibly well organised Manchester United Soccer Schools) I realised a personal dream of my own, interviewing the legendary Sir Bobby Charlton for the post event video (see You Tube player above).

It has to be said Sir Bobby is nothing short of a true hero for every United fan and he was certainly one of the highlights of the event, as every team had their photo taken with the United and England legend (gotta love those white suits, Bulgaria!).

With one World Cup over we now eagerly anticipate the FIFA World Cup in South Africa starting on Friday. Keep your eyes peeled on www.thevoiceofthefans.com and the Betfair poster at Waterloo station as England try to go all the way!

This blog was written by Vicky Clark and Caroline Ayling.

By Caroline Ayling on June 9th, 2010

Tags: Betfair, Event management service, Experiential marketing, Football, Football Sponsorship, Manchester United, Sponsorship, Synergy

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Yesterday, FIFA announced the stellar line-up – an array of international and African artists – for a ‘Kick-Off Celebration Concert‘ in Soweto on June 10 to mark the opening of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Predictably, the story generated worldwide coverage. But I couldn’t help feeling that FIFA has got its PR strategy on this wrong, and could learn something from the Olympic Games.

Shakira and Alicia Keys will help kick-off the 2010 FIFA World Cup

Back in February, I blogged from Vancouver on what a huge story the Vancouver 2010 Opening Ceremony became in the week leading up to the ceremony itself. This was because the VANOC took the opposite approach to FIFA, by deliberately not revealing details of who would be performing in the Opening Ceremony, or indeed anything about what the show would be like – which naturally generated a tidal wave of media and consumer speculation and discussion, and made the Opening Ceremony one of the most eagerly-anticipated events I’ve ever encountered.

Bryan Adams and Nelly Furtado performed “Bang the Drum” at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games opening ceremony

My mind went back to this when FIFA made their announcement yesterday, and I couldn’t help but feel that FIFA has missed a trick by announcing their line-up. Had they adopted the approach taken by VANOC, I’m sure it would have created the same level of buzz and anticipation that we saw in Vancouver – maybe even more. Sure, there will be buzz around the FIFA gig, but nowhere near as much as there would have been if we didn’t know who was going to perform.

By Tim Crow on March 18th, 2010

Tags: Football, Football Sponsorship, Music, Olympic sponsorship, Olympic sponsorship consultants, Olympics, Public relations, Vancouver 2010, Winter Olympics, World Cup

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The King of the World is dead, long live the King of the World.

You have to hand it to James Cameron: at $1.88billion in takings to date, his 3D epic Avatar is officially the biggest box office ticket of all time. And having taken only six weeks to eclipse the record set by Titanic, JC’s last feature film, this is likely to be just the tip of the iceberg.

Yes, the world and his wife (and their three children, plus extended circle of friends) have queued up at cinemas to see Avatar: whilst it’s not perhaps a film for everybody, it has nonetheless garnered some strong reviews, and, 3D effects aside, features some of the best CGI ever used in medium. The spectacle in 3D, however, elevates Avatar beyond movie to experience, drawing the audience into Cameron’s alien world of Pandora without simply resorting to the customary “oh, that was the 3D bit” camera pans. Not all 3D films can claim to do the same.

Avatar is a 3D success because the extra something this technology brings makes us believe it more, enriching the immersion and further suspending disbelief. The question is, how to monetise this on a more regular basis, as opposed to only once every 15 years, when Mr Cameron decides to take us one step beyond?

Naturally, the answer came in the form of the ever-inventive Sky, with Sky Sports’ first foray into 3D programming the live coverage of Arsenal vs Manchester United last weekend. For those lucky enough to be in one of the nine bars across the UK to feature 3D screens – well, if you’d call ‘lucky’ being reciprocally filmed by Sky Sports looking like the rejects from a Buddy Holly casting session – the experience was mixed. The customary Sky Sports graphics, player line-ups (where a sense of depth and perspective is inherent to the camera view) and wide angle shots from behind goal were suitably impressive; however, the third dimension was not the totally eye-popping revolution many were imagining.

To be fair, Sky does spoil the viewer: with up to 20 cameras tracking the game in regular Ds and lovely High Definition crispness for those willing to pay an extra tenner a month – it’s hard to say whether the final spectacle of 3D could ever match up to our expectations. It’s no massive surprise that this was basically a glorified experiment by the broadcaster – football may not be the ultimate sport to benefit from an extra dimension, versus, say boxing, rugby, or even golf – but the fanfare of such a world’s first certainly captured the public’s imagination, leaving viewers hungry, or at least peckish, for more.

Whatever the future holds for in-home 3D, it’s clear that from a sporting perspective, as James Cameron understands, the extra dimension needs to add something to our experience, to give something back, with Sunday’s experiment representing a small step in furthering Sky’s opinion on exactly how it plans to achieve this.

By Jonathan Izzard on February 2nd, 2010

Tags: Barclays Premier League, Branded content, Broadcast sponsorship, Experiential marketing, Football, Football Sponsorship, Manchester United, Media, Sport, Television, Television audiences

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