FTD survey shows 76% not aware of World Cup sponsorship partners

24th June 2010

Did you take notice of the advertising boards?

A Football Trade Directory survey has found that 76% of people are not aware of the key partners of FIFA’s South Africa World Cup 2010.

In our weekly newsletter Football Trade Directory asked the question - With the 2010 World Cup in full swing are you aware of the competitions key partners?  76% of you answered no despite being two weeks into the tournament with the remaining 24% noticing the competition’s main partners.

Such news will be disappointing reading for the global brands including Visa, McDonalds, Coca Cola, Emirates, Adidas and Sony who have each paid a staggering $125 million for the privilege.  

One issue facing World Cup partners is that while they have exclusivity of being the only brand in their chosen area, they still face competition from team’s respective partners. 

Budweiser, official beer of the competition, still has to compete with England’s official beer partner Carlsberg, who are perfectly entitled to run World Cup marketing with the England team without the $125m cost.  Multiply this by every other beer partner for the rest of the competition’s participants and you can see that the exclusivity is somewhat lost in a saturated market.  This applies across the board and leaves brands the challenge of fully exploiting their World Cup Partner status not only in the competition but implementing a more long term strategy beyond the finals which makes the investment a worthwhile one.

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