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!


Korean Tourism Organisation Partner with GB Taekwondo for 2014 18th December, 2013

The Korean Tourism Organisation (KTO) has been announced as the ‘Preferred Destination Partner’ for the Olympic gold-medal winning, GB Taekwondo for 2014. The year-long partnership will see KTO run a number of initiatives throughout the next year, starting with a presence at the inaugural World Taekwondo Grand Prix at Manchester Central between 13-15th December. The event, which saw 250 of the world’s top athletes compete for valuable qualification points ahead of Rio 2016, was used by KTO to launch a unique sports package that will take holiday-makers to places of sporting interest across Korea, including the T1 Stadium (the world’s first taekwondo specific complex).

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Ramy Salameh, PR Manager of the Korea Tourism Organisation said: “As ‘preferred destination partner’ we open a new chapter to an already long-standing relationship with GB Taekwondo. Korea’s national sport has grown to new heights in the UK thanks to London 2012 successes. Korea will open a new Taekwondo Park in 2014, which has already attracted interest from sports tour operators and will enable sports fans to visit the ‘home of Taekwondo”.

As Preferred Destination Partners KTO will run a number of joint promotions with the Manchester-based team in 2014; including utilizing athlete appearances to promote the launch of the T1 Stadium in Korea, offering travel promotions to GB Taekwondo’s database and further integration across GB Taekwondo communications.

Steve Flynn, GB Taekwondo Operations Director, commented: “We’re delighted to announce the Korean Tourism Organisation as our ‘Preferred Destination Partner’ for 2014. They have been really supportive of us over the years so we’re looking forward to further promoting Korea and its new purpose-built Taekwondo Park as a tourist destination to an ever growing taekwondo audience in the UK”

The World Taekwondo Grand Prix took place at Manchester Central on December 13-15, 2013.