Too sponsor or not sponsor: the clash of NIKE and Adidas questions the need to sponsor at all.

28 June, 2010

By April Whittam, Editor Sponsorship Australasia newsletter 

Commercial managers everywhere must be biting their nails watching the sponsorship battles unfold at the FIFA World Cup. Ambush marketing is at its best as global apparel brands Adidas and Nike come head to head in a clash of the titans. Whilst Adidas is recognised as the official FIFA World Cup sponsor and leader in the soccer apparel industry globally ($1.8b revenue), rival brand Nike ($1.7b revenue) has charged ahead with a dramatic campaign that some in the industry are referring to as ‘commercial art’.
As analysis conducted by Nielson Co. between May and June found Nike was winning the battle with higher recall than any official sponsors. New York based Nielson said in an emailed statement, “savvy marketing can successfully connect a brand to a major event like the World Cup, without shelling out millions of pounds for exclusive sponsorship rights”.

“Sometimes we are doing the same thing,” said Adidas’s global PR manager, Erik Van Leeuwen, when asked about rivals using events like the World Cup to market their goods to Bloomsberg BusinessWeek. “It’s a thing that will go on and completely stopping it is undoable.” 

Charlie Brookes, head of corporate communications at Nike in the U.K also commented to Bloomsberg in saying that the event was a vital part of his company’s global sales campaign. 

“It’s the time when the world is focused on football and there’s so much energy around the sport,” he said. “So we’re always going to be communicating around the time of the World Cup.” 

This leads to the fundamental question – to sponsor or not sponsor. The battle between Adidas and Nike questions whether or not brands need to officially align with an event or just implement an effective marketing campaign. I can recall back to the 2003 Rugby World Cup with the Virgin Blue ambush against Qantas – like any mega-event, the sheer momentum of a global event does allow brands to include messaging and imagery on or around the subject matter.
I don’t believe the debate over ambush marketing and sponsorship rights will be solved in a day. But it will be interesting to see who fares better in their World-Cup related apparel sales. What will be more interesting is to see how the value of official sponsorships like this can be defended and policed against in the long term. Anyhow, I’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for any further Bavaria Beer Babes antics.