Scoring from the sidelines: advertising and the world cup

The FIFA World Cup, and the associated excitement around it, has been a tool for marketers almost as long as the competition has existed.  Since the 1982 FIFA has had official commercial partners, usually ‘global brands' - not surprisingly Coca-Cola has been the longest serving of these, supporting FIFA for every world cup since 1982. Some, such as McDonalds, came later, in their case from 1994 onwards.  Others, such as FujiFilm, supported the organisation and the world cup loyally, but not even the world cup was exposure enough to save them from decline - technological in the case of Fuji, which supported FIFA from 1982-2006.    For the 2014 tournament there are six ‘FIFA Partners’, eight ‘World Cup sponsors’ and six ’National Supporters’, brands better known in the home country.  

Increasingly, FIFA and national organisers have insisted that stadiums and other activities organised to coincide with the world cup are kept free of any advertising or marketing activity from non-sponsors. Before FIFA did this, television authorities insisted that advertising be kept away from the pitch area, where it might easily be seen on TV. This has meant that ambush marketing as a tactic has a long history associated with the tournament, going back at least to the 1966 competition when Swiss fans carried banners advertising Swiss co-operative stores at Hillsborough stadium, in Sheffield (Chisari, 2007).  More recently, at the 2006 world cup, 1,000 Dutch fans watched their country’s match against Ivory Coast in their underwear after organisers confiscated their orange trousers, which had the logo of a Dutch brewery on them (Anheiser Busch’s Budweiser was the official beer - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5091154.stm).

This world cup has already seen a stream marketing and advertising campaigns related to to the world cup.  One of the most tangental has been Listerine who seem to be claiming that their product can deal with the damage to football fans’ teeth caused by the FIFA World Cup. On the other hand, Kia’s campaign for the USA would seem entirely tangential to the product being sold.  More local businesses have also attempted to take advantage of the world cup for marketing purpose;

the Frenchgate shopping centre in Doncaster offers a ‘World Cup Lounge’, which they claim allows shoppers to ‘cheer on England’, although presumably the shopping centre was not open for England’s 11pm BST kick-off against Italy on Saturday.   Perhaps this oversight is why England didn’t win.

Have you seen any tangential, esoteric, or otherwise strange world cup related marketing or advertising?  Let us know by commenting below.  More on this as the tournament progresses...

What would your Brazilian nickname be?

To get into the Brazilian spirit, here is an entertaining website which allows you to generate Brazilian football names.  Just for fun, we 'Brazilled' a few famous management gurus:

Micheal Porter = Michea
Gary Hamel = Hamito
Peter Drucker = Druckinho
Stephen Linstead = Claudio Linsteito
Bill Cooke = Felix Cookardo
Jay Barney = Barnito
Michel Foucault = Foucaimo Pau
Peter Starbuck = Petisco






Try converting your own name here: http://www.minimalsworld.net/BrazilName/brazilian.shtml

Soccer Mad Boffins Comment on the FIFA 2014 World Cup in Brazil - Part 1

Football is never far from the headlines at the moment thanks to this year’s FIFA World Cup tournament in Brazil, and controversies surrounding the 2018 and 2022 competitions, to be hosted by Russia and Qatar respectively.

Academics in The York Management School, University of York, who have been conducting a pioneering management history research project of the 1966 FIFA World Cup believe that the game and its governing bodies could do well to heed the lessons of history.

Dr Kevin Tennent and Dr Alex Gillett, editors of the ‘Soccer Mad Boffins’ blog site, which will be launched this summer to coincide with the tournament in Brazil, identify that such controversies over the organisation of sports tournaments with international participation are not new for the sport.

According to Dr Tennent, “This is about cross-cultural management. How do cultural and language barriers effect the success – or otherwise – of tournaments like the FIFA World Cup?  We have seen innovations introduced as a result of such misunderstandings  -  the red and yellow card system was, for example, introduced as a consequence of problems of language and understanding during the 1966 FIFA World Cup when it was hosted in England.”

Dr Gillett adds: “We are told that we live in an increasingly globalised society, but as new ‘markets’ open up – or are opened – by industries including sport, the financial stakes as well as expectations, are raised.  This means that problems are closely scrutinised. Perhaps sport has never before been quite so under the microscope in terms of its accountability and transparency.  The question is, how will its governing bodies adapt?”

Dr Tennent and Dr Gillett’s year long study is supported by FIFA and the Centre International d’Etude du Sport in Switzerland through the João Havelange Scholarship scheme.  They are particularly interested in the organisation of the tournament in the years running up to 1966, the day to day management of the tournament itself, and the management of legacy after the tournament.