For sponsors, huge global exposure

By Paul Maidment

updated 3:44 p.m. ET June 8, 2006

NEW YORK - Embedding advertising in content is an advertiser's dream. Televised soccer offers an unparalleled opportunity. Two halves of 45 minutes of continuous play each game, extensive stadium signage and countless highlight replays let advertisers keep their names and logos in front of audiences for long periods.

Soccer's quadrennial World Cup gives sponsors the rare opportunity for global exposure on a huge scale. One billion people are expected to watch the title game of the 2006 tournament, July 9 in Berlin. The cumulative television audience for the final rounds, which are being played across Germany over the previous four weeks, is forecast to top 40 billion viewers in more than 200 countries.

Internationally known brands from Adidas to Yahoo! are paying handsomely to reach those eyeballs. Fifteen companies paid an average of $35 million to join the International Federation of Football Association's (FIFA) "partnership" program for sponsors of the 2006 tournament. Each company will spend at least as much again in support marketing and promotion.

All 15 sponsorships sold out a year ahead of the qualifying games that started two years ago. In addition, FIFA sold six Official Supplier sponsorships, which grant limited domestic marketing rights to companies in the host country, to Energie Baden-Württemberg, OBI, Hamburg-Mannheimer Versicherung, Postbank, ODDSET and Deutsche Bahn for $16.8 million each.

FIFA'S CORPORATE SPONSORS Click the links below for more details. Adidas Alfa-Romeo Avaya Bata Budweiser Canon Cinzano Coca-Cola Continental Deutsche Telekom Emirates Energizer Fuji Film Fuji Xerox Gillette Hyundai Iveco JVC Korea Telecom/NTT MasterCard McDonald's Metaxa Opel Philips R.J. Reynolds Seiko Snickers Toshiba Vini d'Italia Yahoo! Source: Forbes.com

The first World Cup to have an organized corporate sponsorship program was the 1982 tournament held in Spain. It is a measure of world soccer's growth as a marketing vehicle that the $19 million raised from all nine first-tier sponsors then would have bought barely half a sponsorship at this year's finals. Adjusting for inflation, total sponsorship dollars have more than quadrupled.

By the time of the 1998 Finals in France, the sponsor roster had swelled to 43. FIFA has since cut back, selling each product category exclusively and eliminating a secondary tier of sponsors, leaving just the 15 partners, plus official suppliers, licensees like retailer KarstadtQuelle, and broadcasters.

With that has come an active campaign on FIFA's part against non-sponsors seeking to cash in on the event by association, known as ambush or parasite marketing, something Adidas' archrival Nike has turned into an art form with its advertisements crammed full of World Cup stars. FIFA has launched legal actions around the world to protect its trademarks and copyright. That catches some counterfeiters, but savvy ambush marketers are careful to avoid infringing FIFA trademarks.

TV audiences make little distinction between brands that are official sponsors and those that are not, market research suggests. One explanation: sponsorship of professional soccer operates on several levels — competitions, national teams, clubs and individuals.

Adidas is FIFA's sports equipment partner, but Nike sponsors the U.S. and Brazilian national teams, among others, which will wear its uniforms throughout the tournament. Yet players on those teams may have personal endorsement contracts that would result in them wearing, say, boots made by Adidas or even a third company. Little wonder consumers get confused.

Of the original nine sponsors from 1982, only Coca-Cola, Fuji Film and Gillette have been ever present. Sponsors come and go for a variety of reasons. Some, such as Vini d'Italia (Italy, 1990) and KoreaTelecom and NTT (Japan and South Korea, 2002), are there as home team sponsors.

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