The benefits of investing in partnerships with the Olympics and World Cup, even for brands that aren’t endemic to sports, go beyond just monetary return on investment, according to a panel of sponsors discussing large global sporting events yesterday at the '14 CSE Sports Marketing Symposium. The panel, one of two devoted to the topic of large events, was moderated by McCune Sports CEO Scott McCune and featured Dow Chemical Dir of Sports Marketing Marko Blagovic, McDonalds Head of the FIFA World Cup Brian Goldstein, and A-B InBev Global Exec Eelco van der Noll. The panelists agreed that signing on to massive global sports events presents unique challenges, such as markets that are tough to penetrate, geo-political issues and logistical struggles. But each believes that the benefit outweighs the difficulties.
**On the benefit of partnering with global sports events:
Blagovic: “There are important [issues, such as] how do you engage the whole community when you operate in a different place? And how do you get more into the government markets, which is an important segment that we weren’t so successful in before, but the IOC partnership I think has opened so many doors for us.”
**Van der Noll: “(The World Cup) is the biggest drinking occasion in the world. It reaches every corner of the world. It allows us to activate beyond our global brand and catch up.”
**On strategy and ROI:
Goldstein: “We use this as an opportunity to not drive brand awareness, but to just look at it as an overall branding opportunity to let people see a different side of McDonalds and in many ways change their perception of what they think of the brand… When we do research after the fact and we look at our brand, it’s not about ROI. It’s really hard to define an ROI on something like that. It’s more about a return on our objectives for the changing perception, people trusting our brand and looking at our brand in a different way.”
**On non-partner brands and ambush:
Van der Noll: “We’re pretty relaxed about it. We don’t care about designations or official sponsors. It’s meaningless to consumers. There’s really not much you can do with it. I think (with) a property like FIFA – our properties are very involved in the sale of assets, rights opportunities that simply don’t come if you ambush. It also goes the other way. I think that consumers sort of understand and have an appreciation that there are bottom-feeders, for lack of a better word, and companies that really make a meaningful contribution to their experience of the World Cup.”
