Guerilla marketing in Football

Today I am going to write about a strategy that was used in last year’s world cup in South Africa called guerrilla marketing. Guerrilla marketing  is an advertising strategy in which low-cost unconventional are utilized, often in a localized fashion or large network of individual cells, to convey or promote a product or an idea. The term guerrilla marketing is easily traced to guerilla warfare which utilizes atypical tactics to achieve a goal in a competitive environment like the world cup. Typically campaigns are unexpected and are targeted in unexpected places. Guerrilla marketing focuses on low cost creative strategies of marketing. Basic requirements are time, energy, and imagination and not money. Marketingonline.com

The concept of guerrilla marketing was invented for promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. The goal of guerrilla marketing is to generate buzz. During the European Champions in Holland and Belgium in 2000, Nike places a 100 meters sticker of Dutch football player Edgar Davids on a building in Rotterdam. This was never seen in Holland. The buzz and free publicity that was caused by it was far more effective than the expensive commercials that Nike made at the time. Now 12 years later people in marketing world still talk about the big Nike sticker.

Guerrilla marketing involves unusual approaches such as the 100 meter sticker to get maximum results from minimal resources. Guerrilla marketing also intercept encounters in public places, street giveaways of products and PR stunts. Take a look at the video about Guerrilla marketing during the last year’s world cup. You can see events that where held with tourist and football fans who came to support their country. I am sure you will like the video.

top European football clubs and their mega sponsorship deals

Today I want to write about top European football clubs and their mega sponsorship deals. My two favorite teams Arsenal and FC Barcelona are also in it. But first I want to beginning with Italian champions AC Milan and their sponsorship with Fly Emirates. All amount are in euros.

10. AC Milan and Emirates Airline
Value: 64,78m over 5 years

Austrian online betting group Bwin got replaced last year by Fly Emirates from Dubai. AC Milan was the Dubai-based airline’s second biggest shirt deal.

9. Real Madrid and Bwin.
Value: 65,79m over 3 years.

Real Madrid’s previous 2006 deal with Taiwanese mobile phone giant BenQ went bankrupted. But in 2007 it signed a deal with Austrian online gambling firm Bwin. Real Madrid  also had a deal with Adidas since 1998 and both have helped make the club the richest in football history, with revenue of around €438.6m.

8. Bayern Munich and Deutsche Telekom
Value: 89,76m over 3 years.

This deal is performance related and Deutsche Telekom will have to pay the German team even more if its rankings improve. The deal lasts until 2013.

7. Liverpool and Standard Chartered
Value: 101,47m over 4 years.

Liverpool ended their long-association with Danish beer brand Carlsberg when they signed

Standard Chartered Bank sign a four-year deal with Liverpool in Sept 2009. Standard Chartered Bank is listed on the London and Hong Kong stock exchanges, had previously tried to sponsor the club’s fierce rivals Manchester United.

6. Arsenal and Emirates Airline
Value: 124,88m over 15 years.

The 2006 deal between Arsenal and Dubai-based airline Emirates Airline was the biggest of its kind. The current deal expires in 2021. Arsenal’s kit manufacturing deal is with Nike.

5. Chelsea and Adidas
Value: 124,88m over 10 years.

London team Chelsea, owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, renewed its multi-million pound deal with Korean electronics giant Samsung in 2008. The clubs also has a kit manufacturing deal with Adidas.

4. Barcelona and Nike
Value: 163,86m over 5 years.

FC Barcelona had previously refused to allow logos on their jerseys, but a favorable deal from the shirt manufacturers and tougher economic conditions saw them change its mind.

3. Barcelona and Qatar Foundation
Value: 183,37m over 5 years.

Signed in last year, the Qatar Foundation deal was reported as a record shirt sponsorship deal with Barcelona. The deal with the Qatar Foundation, which promotes education and research in the Middle East.

2. Juventus and Tamoil
Value: 206,78m over 10 years

Signed in 2005 between the Italian club and the Libyan oil company, the deal was for 5 years and renewable for up to 10. However, when scandal struck the Turin-based club and it was relegated, the deal turned sour and the Libyans backed out.

1. Manchester United and Nike
Value: 379,23m over 13 years.

This was the biggest deal at the time before Etihad and Manchester City clinched the top title last summer. Signed in 2002, Nike replaced Umbro as the club’s kit provider and the deal included the team’s global licensing and retail operations. In 2009, The English clubs also signed a 99,83m four-year deal with US  insurance operator Aon Corp, replacing previous sponsor AIG.

What stands out in this top 10 is that 3 companies from the Middle-East are big sponsors in European top football. Ten years ago there was zero sponsors from this continent. FC Barcelona did not have a sponsor since the club was founded in 1899, but during the economic crises in Spain they count not refuse the offer from Qatar. Because the crisis did not affect these Middle-East like it affected us. They now have a lead on European and American companies. Last summer the relative unknown and  small Spanish club Malaga got sold for 35m euro to an oil magnet from Qatar. These are now new marketing and sponsoring opportunities for investors from the Arabic world. Like we are seeing at Manchester City, with their association with Ittihad airlines from Abu Dhabi. So don’t get surprised if your favorite club gets owed or sponsored by an foreign company.

Social media and football

Many people in the world are using Twitter as their daily social network. And Twitter grows bigger and bigger every day. So new opportunities for football clubs and players to use it.

A lot of football players are twittering nowadays. Some send positive reactions into the media world and some negative. The most popular twitters in the UK are for instance, Ferdinand and Rooney from Manchester United. Everything they twitter about  their followers find it interesting and talk about or the media writes or publish it. With these kind of attention the player and the club get a lot of free publicity. For example when FC Barcelona player Lionel Messi twittered about his new Adidas shoes, the next day the Adidas shoe got a lot of attention in the media and Adidas saw that their shoe was selling out.

Twitter can also bring a player negative attention like Aston Villa’s Darren Bent used his page to vent his frustrations at a hold up in his move to Sunderland, he cursed words. He apologized to his then employers and even closed his Twitter page at one point during his time with Sunderland to concentrate on his football. So the social media is becoming a new hype for football players and also football clubs who twitter or are on Facebook. In the chart below you can that FC Barcelona has the most followers on twitter and Facebook. FC Barcelona even overtook the NBA basketball last year so not are they leader in the social media for football but also for all sports in the world.

The chart presented below show the number of Twitter followers and Facebook likes for each club. The teams are ranked by their combined number of fans across the two sites. The chart only tracked the sites and accounts identified as official. Many clubs and players have a lot of unofficial Facebook and Twitter accounts but only official sites were monitored.

RANK	TEAM		FACEBOOK	TWITTER	TOTAL	MONTH +/-
1		FC Barcelona	23,359,311	2,316,765	25,676,076	+ 1,485,019
2		Real Madrid	22,182,985	2,872,018	25,055,003	+ 1,197,582
3		Manchester United	20,269,260	0	20,269,260	+ 220,561
4		Arsenal	8,155,842	1,061,636	9,217,478	+ 285,794
5		Chelsea	7,885,970	501,375	8,387,345	+ 312,061
6		Liverpool	7,598,225	583,482	8,181,707	+ 248,282
7 (+1)		AC Milan	6,996,455	242,681	7,239,136	+ 460,542

FC Barcelona seeking new markets

Last week I blogged about American business magnet Bill Gates and his foundation working together with FC Barcelona. Today I read on their internet side an article about them looking for new marketing options in China. FC Barcelona believes internet users are the only growth revenue streams left for clubs to tap into. That is why the Spanish football giants aim to extract 1 euro from every Chinese citizen to access their webpage in order to make €1.3 billion. The club discussed diversifying revenue streams in light of mounting costs, 56 per cent of clubs in Europe run at an annual loss despite combined revenue increases of €12-13 billion, with many still forced to spend beyond their means to compete. It was revealed 64 per cent of each club’s average revenue is spent on transfers and wages.

The director of FC Barcelona said : In order to balance your expenses, new technologies in Asian markets are the only way forward. We’ve just got a contract with a Chinese webpage developer and we are trying to get a euro from every Chinese internet user a year. That would give us €1.3 billion extra annual income. Of course we won’t get this, but we aim towards such figures.(fcbarcelona.cat)
At the moment the club cannot increase income from TV rights. And it is almost impossible given the current crisis to increase the  marketing. Camp Nou (the stadium) gets 1.5 million visitors per year to the museum and the fan shop but they are sold out every year and of course they cannot increase the stadiums capacity.

FC Barcelona thinks the only way to  increase in revenue is to adopt new technologies like the internet and the future way to go is the Chinese market. But being the first ones it is not going to be easy. The Asian markets are completely different, but the club has to take advantage. FC Barcelona has 180,000 members, the most in the world. The biggest fan club is in Japan. So FC Barcelona are doing the right thing. I live in the Netherlands and I am also wane be a member. If they pull this off I think many clubs will definitely follow.

Bill Gates and Barca

What do FC Barcelona, the best football club in the world and American business magnate Bill gates have in common?

Today I like to write my blog about my favorite football club FC Barcelona. Watching last night’s match for the King’s Cup of Spain against Osasuna on Barca TV, there was a commercials that caught my attention. It was a commercial featuring Bill Gates wearing a Barca shirt and talking about FC Barcelona. Under the slogan 'More than a goal… End Polio. Meaning FC Barcelona has put itself at the service of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help improve its media message and global recognition, and thus facilitate programs and news about the eradication of the disease polio.

Last summer The Fundacio FC Barcelona and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation signed a collaboration agreement, that wishes to promote the campaign to get rid of the polio disease for good. The agreement between the two foundations wishes to speak out for awareness of the illness and encourage society and relevant organizations to join the fight against polio. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the The Fundacio FC Barcelona share the same objectives.

FC Barcelona and Bill Gates have a special sense of social responsibility. The two try to help those in need, life is not just about watching football or having fun, it is also helping people in need. FC Barcelona is known for its beautiful football, superstar Lionel Messi and many prices. But the club was also the first club in 2006 with shirt sponsor Unicef, the club donates 1,5 percent of their revenues to Unicef. What a beautiful combination of sport PR and caring.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are always looking for strong and prestigious alliances to join forces and give shape to their projects. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is like FC Barcelona  a family foundation which also defines the social message. That is why Bill Gates choose for this club, who already where doing such projects, for instance for their new shirt sponsor Qatar Foundations. I wish more big football clubs would follow the example of FC Barcelona and maybe we can than reach more people in need.

Soccer in the USA

Football commonly known as soccer in the USA, is rising since the country hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1994. The term soccer is commonly used to refer to that sport due to the term football being used for another sport,  American football. The number one sports in the States  are still basketball, American football, baseball and  ice hockey. These sports are making billions of dollars every year, while soccer just makes 300 million dollar a year, soccer is still less popular in the USA than in Europe. 
The United States Soccer Federation is trying hard to market soccer in America. Last year they appointed German football legend Jürgen Klinsmann as the men’s national team coach. Last year New York Red Bulls signed two big players from FC Barcelona, Thierry Henry (Mister Arsenal see my last week’s blog and Mexican superstar Rafael Marquez). And of course the signing of David Beckham for LA Galaxy, the contract was 250 million dollars for five years.

Although MLS is also much younger than most other countries divisions, and has 19 teams in 2012, it is already the 12th most-attended premier division in the world. In 2006 MLS broke its all-time record for attendance at a regular-season match, which saw 92,650 spectators fill the  LA Galaxy. Although that claim is somewhat misattributed to the MLS game as it was one of two games played that night, the second being a match between two very popular football clubs in the Spanish speaking world FC Barcelona from Spain and Mexico's Guadalajara. On August 1, 2009, a friendly match between the Los Angeles Galaxy and Barcelona at the Rose Bowl, drew a crowd of 93,137 fans. The last time a soccer match drew that many people in the United States was during the 1994 FIFA World Cup. barcaloco.com

The biggest impact of course has been the internet. Soccer fans in the States are quite different. But sites like bigsoccer.com and blogs, both for teams changed that. Reading these blogs I believe that the passion was there they just needed the outlet. Another big change has come on the TV side. ESPN Gol TV and Fox Soccer all show games live from Holland, England, Spain, Germany and Italy.  It is now much easy to watch the highest levels of world soccer on just about any day of the week in the States. This all was unheard of fifteen years ago. Now the market is also marketing big Europeans games via social media.

Football marketing in the U.S. will never be like here in Europe but it continues to grow. A recent review of attendance shows that soccer is enjoying higher per game attendance than basketball and ice hockey. It is at least going the right way.

Which club brands are the most powerful

Today i want to share with you wich club brands are most powerful in the Europe. This week I read a post on the ten best best known European football brands The article referenced a sport + mark 2010 study of brand recognition among football fans in the top five markets in France, Germany, Spain, UK & Italy.
I thought it might be interesting to look at this data and see which club brands were the most powerful. And see to what degree being aligned with a specific club  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 at the Delloitte & Touche Money League of clubs along with the brands listed in the sport+markt 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 Lyon –            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)

From the Sport+Markt list Reebok, Opel, Vodafone, Ford MasterCard and Sony were not represented by a club from the Delloitte & Touche Money League clubs? Strange looking at Opel who in 2001 where the most successful shirt sponsor.Vodafone is a massive sponsor of sport and had a run with Manchester United a few years ago from which they may still be associated with. Reebok sponsors Manchester United Ryan Giggs. Thierry Henry (Mister Arsenal) and  Iker Casillas in Spain. And formally kitted out Liverpool and Manchester City. AS Roma are the only club in the top 20 not linking with a big sponsor.

The big winner I think is Audi. They have partnerships with al big teams I the top five. With also allowed them to create the Audi cup in the summer, where all the big clubs feature. Adidas and Nike are also winners, but they were already big names in the sports industry. Adidas and Nike sponsor 15 of the 20 clubs in the top 20. AS Roma AS are the only club in the top 20 not aligned with a big sponsor. They are sponsored by Kappa (an Italian company specialized at the manufacture of sporting clothes and accessories) and Wind an Italian telecom operator.

Mister Arsenal is back

After four and a half years mister Arsenal Thierry Henry is back at his old club. The all time top goalscorer of Arsenal will sign a two-month loan deal from New York Red Bulls. The former Arsenal captain, has been training with the club during the Major League Soccer off-season. Henry will play during January and February, while fellow strikers Gervinho and Chamack will  be absent at the Africa Cup of Nations.
Thierry Henry now 34 will not play a major part in the Arsenal team, he is here for two reasons. One to help Arsenal with there shortage in strikers and two for a PR move for the club. Since Henry left the club in the summer of 2007, Arsenal did not only lose there top goalscorer but they also lost a world class player. Henry has millions of fans around the world, he was considered  one of the greatest in the English football league. I also was and still am a Henry admirer and can not wait to see him make his debut coming Monday in the FA cup against Leeds United.
Like i said Arsenal will get more attention in England now for signing Henry, shirts with his famous number 14 will sell like ice ream in the summer and more tickets will be sold at the Emirates stadium now there mister Arsenal Henry is back in London.
With the loss of there two big players last summer, Nasri who went to rivals Manchester City and Cesc Fabregas to Spanish giants FC Barcelona, Arsenal lost a lot of fans and shirt revenues. Now the are making it up with the signing of mister Arsenal, Thierry Henry. 
The effect of his return raised media interest worldwide in Arsenal and says something extraordinary about the club’s attraction. More importantly it will raise the spirits of those most closely connected with the club. The fans will look forward to seeing him play. It will send a message that Henry identifies with their loyalty. It’s always good to see him return to the Emirates as a spectator but appearing on the pitch is a stronger show of support. He is here to help. Can't wait to see him play in the new Arsenal shirt coming Monday, welcome back Henry.