Football Sponsorship in Brazil Grows Up 23rd January, 2014

With Brazil becoming ever more present in global sponsorship discussions due to securing the upcoming World Cup and Olympics, sponsorship professionals abroad need to be aware of this growing market.  Specifically how Brazilian brands have previously been choosing sponsorship rights to how those rights are being activated in South America.  More importantly, with Brazil acting as the next global stage for some of the largest global brands – understanding their desire and ability to become more strategic in their approach to create more sustainability in sponsorship beyond the upcoming events.

Football in Brazil remains the sport that receives the majority of sponsorship investment and therefore would be expected to be the industry leaders in terms of activation and strategy.  However,  football still remains poorly activated as an engagement platform by both football clubs and brands.  More surprising is that the tactics used within football are not substantially more advanced than many of the other sponsorship platforms such as art and culture which retain a fraction of investment.

Valuation within this market seems to be the key downfall for rights owners – specifically within football clubs in terms of their property rights and additional commercial assets outside of kit deals.  For brands; it is largely due to poorly planned activation strategies.  Many of the deals are tactical in nature, which extrapolates the problem of long-term vision and the necessary time to truly derive value from the assets purchase.  Unfortunately the combination results in a lack of value for the audience, the brands and the clubs themselves – undeniably reducing the true value these partnerships can generate in Brazil.

It seems that in the most part, Brazil is heavily afflicted by a cultural problem that affects not only football, but sponsorship as an industry in the South American market.  Many brands in Brazil still purchase sponsorship and invest in properties within the same principals and frameworks as their media buys – making tactical as well as individual preferences based solely on the need to generate brand exposure with very little strategic insight.  As an industry, Brazil is missing real-world experience in activating strategies that really connect brands to their audiences and tend to play it safe opting for more traditional activation through media advertising.

However the desire to start utilising sponsorship’s ability to harness online engagement and experiential is growing ever apparent.  The next coming months will be telling – watch this space!