It’s fair to say that the new football season is back in full swing. Every week, millions of expectant fans across the country flock to see their beloved team in anticipation of goals galore, last-minute tension, and controversial refereeing decisions leading to further debates of goal-line technology. Last season, overall match attendance reached 13 million in the Premier League, and grew to 17 million (a 50-year high) in the 3 divisions of the Football League. This provides marketers with a key angle in which to target our football-loving Nation. In this post, we look at some of the ways in which products and brands have been promoted via the wonderful medium of football.
With stadium capacities in the Premier League ranging from 17,000 (sorry Blackpool!) to 75,000, there is clear potential for advertising exposure. This is not to mention the millions of TV viewers across the globe watching live games and highlight shows. Advertising boards around the ground are by no means a new concept, but over the last couple of years all Premiership grounds have been fitted with new digital advertising boards around the pitch-side. These digital hoardings have the ability to constantly change the advert displayed at specific points during the game. With this in mind, Wrigley’s Extra, the Official chewing gum of the Premier League, released their ‘90+’ campaign. As matches pass the 90 minute mark, advertising boards light up with the Extra advert encouraging fans to “chew through the minutes that matter”, whilst enduring the thrills and spills of the nail-biting (or gum-chewing) minutes of ‘Extra’ time. Other examples of ‘timely’ adverts include injury compensation ads whilst players are receiving injury treatment, or greeting card ads whilst players receive yellow or red cards. Very apt!
Football shirts offer another source of prime advertising space, with big money sponsorship deals being struck by many clubs. For example, London-based international bank ‘Standard Chartered’ recently forked out a whopping £80 million in a 4 year deal to have their name plastered across the Liverpool shirt. This matched the previous and most lucrative football shirt sponsorship deal in history between Manchester United and American financial giants, ‘Aon’. It seems clear that the global reach of top football clubs makes them highly attractive to commercial brands who are looking for exposure in growing markets. Even the referees are getting in on the act – Air Asia’s ‘Tune’ group recently agreed a seven-figure sum to sponsor Premier League match officials in over 2,000 games.
Another important aspect of sponsorship is player endorsement, which plays a particularly large role in enhancing the brand image of sportswear companies such as Nike, Adidas, Reebok, etc. Take for example the endorsement between Nike and Brazilian star Ronaldinho. The two teamed up to make a viral ad which displayed Ronaldinho testing out the new ‘Nike R10’ football boots, and skilfully hitting the crossbar four times in a row.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5tyARFRXnI]
The video was viewed over 50 million times online, and caused a great amount of hype as to whether the footage was real or fake!
Given that football is a sport that so many people can relate to, it lends itself to huge potential in both press and television advertising. Many successful advertising campaigns have been built upon the foundations of combining football and humour. There’s no doubt that football has the ability to capture the interest of the viewer, whilst also putting across some important brand values. Here are some of my favourite football-related ads from over the years. Hope you enjoy them too 🙂
If Carlsberg did pub teams…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TOF8kgCTx0]
John Smith (ft. Peter Kay) – ‘Ave it!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8y3BaRxUBs]
Wickes – Just the Job:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_VdfAbsgXA]
Italian Training Camp:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcCw9RHI5mc]
Greg Brooks is a Digital Marketing Executive at Happy Creative, a full service marketing agency based in Blackpool, Lancashire. To learn more or contact us please go to www.happy-creative.co.uk
