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.