Red Cards on and off the pitch

MARKETING: The World Cup is big business, and Fifa has been zealously protecting the tournament sponsors, going so far as to pursue non-licensed marketers through the courts

WHILE SOUTH AFRICA is basking in the global coverage of its hosting of the World Cup, Grant Abrahamse is plotting his revenge against the organiser, Fifa, soccer’s governing body.

The Cape Town businessman spent the past five years embroiled in a legal fight with Zurich-based Fifa, which accused him of violating its patent rights by marketing a commemorative key-ring holder. The case, scheduled to come to court in November, has cost him €52,400 so far in legal fees.

“I’ve done everything legally,” Abrahamse says. “No one’s benefited from the World Cup except Fifa. They are actually worse than the Mafia. They should get their just rewards. I’m going to pursue it. We are going to go for costs and damages when we win this case.” Fifa has spent nearly a billion euro on staging the event.

Abrahamse is up against one the world’s most powerful sporting bodies intent on protecting the rights of broadcasters and sponsors such as Adidas and Coca-Cola, which paid €2.6 billion to be associated with the World Cup.

Fifa lawyers have filed 2,519 other cases globally against parties it accuses of so-called ambush marketing. In only one instance did they have to go to court to get redress, forcing wholesaler Metcash Trading Africa to stop selling 2010 lollipops.

“You are in or you are out,” Fifa secretary-general Jerome Valcke told reporters in Johannesburg on April 8th. “If you are out, you have to respect the rights of others. We can send people to jail if they try and profit from the World Cup when they have no right to do so.”

Organisers expect that by the end of the month-long tournament it will have drawn a global television audience of billions and acres of press coverage.

“You couldn’t have a better platform to build awareness,” says Roger Sinclair, a marketing professor and partner at Prophet Brand Strategy, which offers marketing advice. Companies will exploit any opportunity to “ride on the back of the tournament by ambush marketing. It will be difficult given how tightly Fifa guards its brand.”

“Fifa has been very helpful in terms of responding and calling out companies that are trying to use something that they haven’t paid for,” says Scott McCune, vice-president of integrated marketing at Coca-Cola. The contract with soccer’s governing body is the company’s largest marketing programme.

Fifa has produced thousands of words to copyright the World Cup name, including several permutations used to describe the tournament. It obtained similar protection for the last World Cup in Germany in 2006, when 3,200 infringement cases were filed.

South African budget airline Kulula.com, which advertised itself as the “Unofficial National Carrier of the You-Know-What,” found out first-hand how all-encompassing Fifa’s rights are when it was pressured into dropping the slogan. Kulula is owned by Comair, a British Airways franchise.

Fifa’s response was “over the top and heavy handed,” Heidi Brauer, the airline’s marketing director, said in an interview last month. “It’s has left a foul taste in people’s mouths. If I could ask Fifa one question I’d ask them: ‘How can you sleep at night?’ ”

Kulula’s decision to drop the slogan and change it to “the sporting event that can’t be mentioned” is “the best proof that those guys recognised they did something they shouldn’t have,” according to Thierry Weil, Fifa’s marketing director. “We allow everybody to make business around the World Cup. We just do not allow companies, and mainly it’s just the bigger companies,” from portraying themselves as part of the event.

Sponsors recognise that the event’s profile means companies will always try to exploit the World Cup whether they are official partners or not.

Adidas is providing the ball, outfitting the referees and the ball boys, and its branding will be festooned across the 10 stadiums used for the competition. Rival Nike isn’t an official partner.

Yet, Nike’s “Write the Future” campaign features stars such as England’s Wayne Rooney and the world’s most expensive player, Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, and is being broadcast to homes across the planet. The advertisement had more than 14 million views on the YouTube website.

An analysis of online blogs, message boards and social networking sites carried out by the Nielsen Company between May 6th and June 7th found Nike was more frequently linked to the World Cup than any official sponsors. Carlsberg beer attracted four times as many mentions in English language messages relating to the tournament than official sponsor Budweiser, the study found.

“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,” New York-based Nielsen said.

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

The sports companies are competing for soccer sales. Adidas is the world leader with €1.45 billion in revenue to Nike’s €1.37 billion.

Charlie Brookes, head of corporate communications at Nike in Britain, said 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.”

– Bloomberg