Wc Sponsors Failing To Resonate With Fans
A new study has shown that despite spending millions on sponsoring the FIFA World Cup, most brands are failing to connect with football fans.
The study, commissioned amongst 1,143 football fans shows that unprompted awareness of Coca-Cola (32%), adidas (19%) and McDonald’s (14%) is strong.
But the remaining official FIFA partners and sponsors have failed to get onto the fans’ radar.
The study, conducted 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.
However, a 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.
Nike (18%) tops the list of sports brands – beating many by investing in official ‘partner’ and ‘sponsor’ status.
The study also highlights that awareness of the England team’s official brands is not high with kit supplier Umbro prompting an awareness score of 4%, followed by Carlsberg (3%) and Nationwide (2%) whilst National Express did not resonate with any football fans.
