On June 9 at the new Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany and Costa Rica will kick off the first match of 18th World Cup finals. Over the following month, a further 30 teams will play 63 matches generating an estimated cumulative TV audience of 35 billion viewers. The finals will create global superstars out of players and access households from Paraguay to Angola, France to Australia.

Understandably, such penetration is highly sought after - fifteen companies have each stumped up a reported $40 million to become headline sponsors and will all spend more again to promote their involvement through advertising, websites, promotions, and more. FIFA, the organizer, says the fee guarantees hospitality rights, 500 tickets per match, designation, accreditation, category exclusivity, media exposure, broadcast rights, internet, on screen credits, rotation boards and public viewing rights. It will also assist with ambush marketing protection and develop "artmarks" (new designs based jointly upon the official logo and their specific product category) and composite logos.

For the fifth World Cup in succession Mastercard will be among the sponsors. John Stuart, the company's senior vice president for global sponsorships, will be tasked with making business sense from such huge numbers.

He will need to be on his game. The World Cup accounts for 25% of Mastercard's sports sponsorship spend and the fee is expected to triple for 2010 as FIFA slashes top-tier sponsors from 15 to six (the same number as the European Champions League). The time-table for signing deals has also changed: FIFA usually gets going post-event, this time it's looking to get things moving earlier.

"The price of the most successful sponsorships has only one direction," says Stuart. "If you're going the other way then something's going wrong."

He says even with the dramatic increase in cost the reduction in numbers could be beneficial, delivering less clutter and more concentration.

"One of real secrets to sponsorship success besides buying the right property, is sticking with it, consistency," he says. "Because each time around you get better and better at making it work. You could justify an increase in cost because you're better at working it."

Establishing the means to monitor value will be a crucial part of Stuart's summer. With sponsorship becoming an increasingly significant part of most marketers' plans, how Mastercard and its 14 co-sponsors do this with the world's biggest (and most expensive) event will closely watched by many.

"I can only speak for our structure, it would be different for the other sponsors, but we sign as a mutual company," explains Stuart. "We have 23,000 partners and we can exploit the property through each and every one of them. If the way we use the property isn't going to help us grow the business, then we're not going to get their support."

For Mastercard, the business benefits of sponsorship, he says, are three-fold: revenue-driving, brand awareness and hospitality. The emphasis of each component will flex according to the nature of the event.

The Mastercard Championship golf event in Hawaii in January may do little for brand awareness (TV coverage is limited) but is a highly sought after ticket for hospitality. The World Cup, with its global audience, is about brand awareness and revenue driving.

"Brand awareness is crucial," he says. "Right now the World Cup is a business building initiative. Revenue driving is the key to justifying it."

The World Cup property will be put to many uses. In first instance, tickets bought online must be purchased with a Mastercard or a banker's draft, pushing acquisition and usage. Member banks will then be able to tailor products using the World Cup logos and collateral. There will be two tiers of cards: the first, a full on credit card with football related loyalty benefits; the second, a more general picture-led World Cup 2006 card that can be linked to a particular club or player. Pele, Mastercard's "official spokesman", is a popular choice.

"We realize most wallets have more than one card and we need to be top-of-wallet," explains Stuart. "How do you get your card favored?"

The company issued two million branded cards through Japan/Korea 2002, more are expected this time around.

For most consumers, Mastercard users or not, the most high-profile indication of a sponsors involvement in the World Cup will be the above-the-line work. Produced by McCann-Erickson and linked to the brand's 'Priceless' theme, this summer's effort, named 'Fever', will centre on fans' emotions during a match. It will be applied across media, and offer regional content tweaks for different markets.

"There is nothing better than football for 'Priceless'", says Stuart. "The world understands football."

What will be new this time, he continues, is the use of the internet.

"With France 98 it wasn't a power house. Today we have live web casts, broadband, and the public could only buy tickets online. This is a powerful statement," he says. "Consider all the branding and entertainment you can now do online. The fifa.com site had over two billion hits in 2002; it's going to be double that this time."

He says the Mastercard site, linked to fifa.com, had 850 million hits, and will ramp up its content Pele will be wheeled out again to provide a column. Stuart admits, in the open online environment, there will be a challenge in standing out.

"All the main sites have their edge," he suggests. "Mastercard has a challenge as we're not an athletic brand. We're a piece of plastic. So how do we become integrated into fabric of the game?"

The first thing, he says, is for fans to tune in "sympathetically" to the brand, something that requires long-term involvement: "You need to have fans recognize your involvement in the package. If you can provide a benefit while being relevant, then they'll change behavior. That won't happen in a static presentation."

"For instance, we have a tap and go product that could apply to tickets. Or we can talk about online security. You can get to more concrete product features later down the line. It's a sequence of sell there.
 
The first thing to understand is that customers won't go for something inappropriate. We have to make the connection that we're really part of the game."

Foul play
Just as the business of sports sponsorship has grown, so too has the practice of ambush marketing. Why shell out big money to have your logo splashed around an event, when unofficial efforts can generate as much publicity? The battles between Coca-Cola and Pepsi and Adidas and Nike are the legend. Expect more of the same this summer.

Stuart says Mastercard flat out refuses to get into ambush marketing, though he may be trying to  be a little too angelic. When Visa sponsored the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002, MasterCard ran an advertising campaign saying 'You don't need a Visa to get into Salt Lake City'. It infuriated its rival and associated MasterCard with the event at a fraction of the cost of being an official sponsor.

"It's a waste of time and resources," he argues. "We have huge properties, we need every bit of resource to work them properly. If you divert some of that to ambushing your competitor, then you're not doing all you can to make the most of your event."

What he will say is that some events are too good to ignore. In the US, the NFL tied up with a rival for 10 years, Mastercard signed a separate deal with individual clubs to work in stadia and locally. "It worked well as a revenue-driver. You can do a lot with the club and the fans. Each stadium is a business site with opportunity for high card usage."

Sealing off any event from all possible spoilers is unrealistic. "People will always nibble around the edges," he says. "You have to make a trade off. We don't invest enough to buy every property."

Football and golf are the two areas of focus for Mastercard, sealing off a mass-market and a high net worth demographic. Local markets are also given funds to work with more relevant content rugby in New Zealand, ice hockey in Canada and, most recently, extreme sports in the US, but there is only so much to go round.

China has yet to go big on golf (though more than a thousand new courses are planned) and missed out World Cup qualification. Basketball is China's number one sport.

"For some reason FIFA didn't organize the draw quite right so we missed out on the 300 million viewers who watched in 2002," says Stuart with a smile. A joke, but with $100m riding on the next tournament, it is one said through gritted teeth.

Curriculum vitae
John Stuart has led Mastercard's worldwide sponsorship marketing activities since 2001. In 2005, he relocated to Mastercard's European headquarters in Brussels where he directly oversees the FIFA World Cup sponsorship, coordinates Mastercard's global soccer investment and manages Mastercard's international golf sponsorships.

Previously he has been deputy general manager, head of communications for Mastercard's European region, serving for four years on the company's executive committee and responsible for all corporate marketing, communication, branding and sponsorship activities including Champion's League and European Championship Soccer.

Prior to this, Stuart spent 15 years with American Express in several posts, including general manager of Northern Europe. In his early career he was a consultant for Touche Ross in their European practice.

© Gulf Marketing Review 2006

 

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