Despite the hundreds of millions of pounds already spent, and with the FIFA World Cup less than a month away, a new study shows how most sponsors are still failing to connect with football fans.
The study, commissioned amongst 1,143 football fans in the
But the remaining official FIFA partners and sponsors have failed to get onto people’s radar.
The study by PR consultancy Van Communications shows that Sony and Visa have unprompted awareness scores of 10% and 7% respectively.
Just five per cent of fans associate Budweiser with the Tournament.
And only 1% of those questioned thought Emirates and Hyundai a World Cup partner.
The research shows the huge strides Coca-Cola has made in the past four years to deepen its association with the sport.
A mirror study carried out by Van Communications in May 2006 shows that Coca-Cola’s pre-tournament association has jumped by 19%.
Visa will be particularly concerned to note that slightly more fans (8%) associate rival (and Champion’s League sponsor) MasterCard at this summer’s Tournament.
Usual suspect Nike (18%) tops the list of brands winning the guerilla World Cup War – beating many brands investing in official ‘partner’ and ‘sponsor’ status.
The study also highlights that brands that have chosen to link their association with the World Cup through the
None of the FA’s ‘official supporters’ have any meaningful level of consumer recognition.
Kit supplier Umbro has an unprompted awareness score of 4%, followed by Carlsberg (3%) and Nationwide (2%).
National Express did not resonate with any football fans.
Mark Cooper, a director at Van Communications, says:
“Traditionally sponsors want their marketing campaigns to make an impact before the start of the Tournament because, once the first ball has been kicked, then little gets in the way of the action on the pitch.
“Any brand not yet resonating with football fans has a very narrow window of opportunity left to them in which to get their act together and raise their profile.”
