Germany's Adidas eyes Euro supremacy

Words: Ronan Shields

Source: Adidas

Adidas has raised its earnings forecast for this year to €1.6bn based on the back of an Euro 2012 boost as both Germany and Greece bear its iconic three strips in this evening’s Quarter Final.

The sportswear giant’s football unit believes that its marketing activity is set to yield record dividends for a single year, with earlier sales forecasts coming in at €1.5bn.

Speaking yesterday at a conference hosted in Warsaw, Adidas’ global CEO Herbert Hainer said the boost in sales, including the shipment of over 1m Germany replica tops, meant it was set to be the most successful year yet for the European sportswear brand.

The increasing challenge of Nike in the football sector has prompted the sportswear giant to up its marketing and sponsorship activity and UEFA’s Euro 2012 tournament has been a focal point ahead of this year's Olympics.

Recently this has included Adidas sponsoring the official match balls of UEFA’s Euro 2012 and the launch of the brand’s first football-themed Tumblr website as the tournament began.

Adidas is using its Tumblr page, which is a micro-blogging site similar to Twitter but with more of an emphasis on multimedia content, to upload content featuring its products and brand ambassadors, see below.

As the tournament progresses the German sports giant is also using other digital media outlets as part of its digital media activity during the tournament.

This includes the use of the Twitter hash tag #unleash as six of the original 16 tournament finalists, including tonight’s Quarter Finalists Germany and Greece, wore Adidas-branded kits.

Of course, there is an irony that German-based Adidas’ brand should emblazon the shirts of both tonight’s contestants given the ongoing economic woes of Greece and the friction this is causing with Germany in the political arena.

In fact, when looking at the football jerseys of all the P.I.I.G.s nations (Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Greece) in the Euro economic zone. Only Portugal (Nike) and Ireland (Umbro) sport jerseys manufactured by non-German brands, Puma makes Italy’s kit.

But with Nike, Umbro’s current parent company, looking to sell-off its Manchester-based brand that could soon change. Who says 'it’s only a game'?

Ronaldo fronts Nike social activity as Portugal kicks-off Quarter Final showdown

Source: Nike

Words: Ronan Shields

Nike’s football is often keen to leverage the game’s international sporting tournaments to bolster its social marketing efforts and today Cristiano Ronaldo is at the centre of its activity.

This comes as the Portuguese side, captained by Ronaldo himself, prepares to kick off against the Czech Republic in the UEFA tournament’s first Quarter Final game. 

As arguably Nike’s most high profile brand ambassador, Ronaldo’s visage fronts the latest Facebook and social media campaign from Nike Football, dubbed ‘Power your Nation’.

Source: Nike

 Facebook users are encouraged to upload pictures of themselves taking part in football action with the campaign also running with the slogan ‘My Time is Now’.

Nike is also encouraging Twitter users to participate in its social campaign by tweeting their sporting achievements using the hashtag #makeitcount, which is also emblazoned on much of the outdoor activity, see image left. 

All of this continues from the sportswear brand's multi-million campaign launched ahead of the tournament with a viral video featuring its top brand sponsors, including Ronaldo and France's Frank Ribery, see video at bottom of page.  

This follows on from Sagres, the foremost Portuguese branded lager, running a ‘We are a Beautiful Nation’ campaign where it encouraged users to submit photos of themselves to its Facebook page, see below.

Source: Sagres

The eventual winning entrant being flown to last weekend’s game between Portugal and Denmark in Ukraine.

Earlier in the year, Total Digital Football reviewed the Ronaldo-branded mobile app. 

Wayne Rooney social portal launches as England return looms

Source: Official Wayne Rooney

Words: Ronan Shields

Just as Wayne Rooney prepares to re-enter the England-fold against Ukraine this evening, he has launched an official website to aggregate his social media feeds.

The site, imaginatively named Official Wayne Rooney, combines the star’s Facebook, Twitter and YouTube feeds so users can trace the posts on each forum in a chronological order.  

For instance, yesterday the England and Manchester United star used the website to comment on his widely expected return to the England starting line-up as his national side prepare to line-up against Ukraine in the side's final group game of the UEFA championship, see below.

The site also contains a timeline featuring highlights of the player’s career such as his first team debuts, even those dating back to his youth whenever he was a mascot for his boyhood club Everton aged ten.

The site was created by digital agency Lightmaker, which was also behind a number of Manchester United sites, and in a Q&A attributed to Rooney, the striker said it was meant to bring him closer to fans, see below.

"I want it to be the place where my fans and partners can see what’s really happening in my world. There will be some big things happening on the site to mark the 10^th anniversary of my Premier League debut on 17 August and lots more to come after that…"

– Wayne Rooney 

In the interview, Rooney goes on to say the website, which has been optimised to be used on desktop and mobile devices, will be a place where fans can see what’s really going on in his world.


However, in a world where footballers have become brands in themselves, the more cynical elements within the Total Digital Football’s team can’t help but wonder if this is another exercise in PR control.

Source: Wayne Rooney's Twitter feed

After all having a central hub for all Rooney’s user-generated content gives the player’s PR team a perfect opportunity to vet said content before it becomes publicly available. Although, we can never be certain. 

Let’s face it in the days when the press have limited access to top-flight footballers a single tweet from a high profile player, such as Rooney, Rio Ferdinand or the ever-provocative Joey Barton, can be enough to generate acres of media coverage.

Total Digital Football has documented this phenomena before with Joey Barton's end-of-season Twitter rant still ranking as one of the most popular posts ever to have been published on this blog. 

Given the fact that Rooney is prone to the occasional outburst of temper, this seems like a sensible move from the player’s own brand management team, remember the below verbal attack on a certain section of England supporters post England's 2010 FIFA World Cup 2010 game against Algeria?

Wayne Rooney's verbal attack on fans

Source: YouTube

Uefa looking to exploit American market during the Euro's.

In recent years, viewing figures for televised sports have suffered a downward trend. The causes for this are two-fold: the proliferation of televised sport and sport channels, and the shift from free-to-air to pay-TV. Particularly during the global financial crisis of 2008, the collapse in advertising revenue made it difficult for free-to-air channels to compete with high-bidding pay-TV channels.

However, fear not! Football is as popular as ever and more so: The live cumulative average audience for the 2010 World Cup was Eight-billion, and each game at Euro 2012 is expected to draw an average world-wide audience of 150million viewers.

If such figures stack up, it will make Euro 2012 a ratings spectacular equal to, or greater, than if each match were a Champion’s League Final; a match which is already more popular than the NFL Super Bowl.

FIFA’s average earnings per match in South Africa was $56.7million while the same for matches in Poland and Ukraine is set to be $51.6million. Perhaps this reflects the widely held view that if the FIFA World Cup has the most prestige attached, then the UEFA European Cup has the better quality.

‘We would never claim to be bigger than the World Cup… But you can see in certain territories, if your own national team is doing well you get some very good numbers,’ said David Taylor, chief executive of UEFA Events. ‘You can see it is mega… when we are talking to sponsors and others, they are interested in the wider global impact.’

Kick-off times in South Africa were tailored to suit the Asian market, and this year UEFA has made sure that America can enjoy Euro 2012, with kick-off times conglomerating around their early afternoon. In 1998, the USA was ranked 23rd in the world’s largest football markets, but has now grown to 7th in 2010. Clearly, UEFA is hoping to tap into the potential growth areas away from the traditional football-loving but saturated South American and European markets.

Traditionally, the two most watched teams at the World Cup have been Brazil and England. Brazil are anticipated for playing attractive ‘samba’ style football, while England benefits from the ‘home of football’ moniker and the global appeal of the Premier League. Alas, Brazil will not be featuring at Euro 2012, but the team who had the largest average audience after Brazil in South Africa - Germany, will be. The diversity in their team, which boosted interest from nations like Ghana, Poland and Turkey, contributed to their appeal.

So with England set to kick off a few hours away, we can expect a massive audience for the kick off against France from across the world.

By Art Bugmann

Glick makes move to Manchester City

As we all know Manchester City may have missed out on Eden Hazard this week with the precocious Belgian talent deciding to move to the European Champions Chelsea for a reported £32 million pound fee.

 However away from the football field they have pulled out a real coup by securing Tom Glick from Derby County to the newly created role of chief commercial and operating officer.  Glick has worked his way up through up various teams in the USA climaxing in a role as chief Marketing Officer for the New Jersey Nets basketball team. It’s not the first time Manchester City has headhunted from another team. Omar Barreda was taken from Barcelona last summer and is currently serving as the clubs Partnerships & Senior Sales Manager.

The benefit for City is that they now have a capable individual who has had extensive experience in the states, another key market for the new Premier League champions. City in recent months have signed strategic sponsorship agreements across the World with Nike , Foursquare Software company MLJ & telecoms provider Etisalat.

This flurry of sponsorship activity would seem to suggest that the club’s strategy is to accrue as much money before the UEFA financial Fair play rules kick into effect in 2013. All of which means that City could no longer spend more than they earn, especially after losing a record £197 million last year.

With Glick moving to City he will be expected to generate further income streams backed on the prestige of the clubs first Premier League title. So with a potential summer of big spending on players, the men from Abu Dhabi will be hoping the signing of Glick will be of significance on a commercial level for the club. 

UEFA ramps up presence ahead of Champions League final with big digital push .

UEFA are upping  brand presence over the next few days with the Champions league final & Champions Festival is taken to a larger global audience than ever before through digital activity,including live streaming of the final for the first time.

During the free four-day football celebration leading up to the UEFA Champions League final, UEFA will use key digital platforms such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Foursquare as well as a free Android smartphone application to share unique content from the UEFA Champions Festival in Munich with fans around the world.

In a world-first for UEFA, the Ultimate Champions match will be streamed live across UEFA.com, Google+ and YouTube. The match will feature European footballing legends such as Cafu, Fabio Cannavaro, Patrick Vieira, Samuel Eto’o, Gianfranco Zola and Roy Makaay. This follows Youtube streaming live games of the Copa America back in 2011.  

In addition, UEFA is launching a groundbreaking global Foursquare campaign. This global activation will engage fans at the festival and around the world. Additionally, fans can ‘check in’ anywhere they are watching the 2012 UEFA Champions League final by using the phrase ‘UEFA Champions League’ as a shout and can unlock the official Foursquare UEFA Champions League final badge.

Alexandre Fourtoy, UEFA’s Director of Communications, said:  “This is going to be a true digital festival. Our goal is to engage fans in Munich, as well as those around the world, in the UEFA Champions League final festivities by using a range of digital platforms that are easy to use and interact with. We hope that the new Foursquare activation coupled with Google+ hangouts will bring the finals of the UEFA Champions League to life for those fans who can’t attend the event.”

The UEFA Champions Festival takes place in Munich’s Olympiapark from 16-19 May and features a host of activities that are free for all to enjoy. UEFA Have already kicked off proceedings via the organizations official Youtube channel (see above) and the official UEFA public viewing of the UEFA Champions League final which kicks off on Saturday.

UEFA has teamed up with Google+ (see above) to engage fans with numerous interactive activities throughout this four-day festival, including giant photo booths with a direct link to Google+, enabling fans to share photos with their friends. In addition, ex-Chelsea FC defenders Graeme Le Saux and Celestine Babayaro will both be dropping in for Google+ hangouts.

This digital campaign will ensure that the estimated 60,000 fans attending the festival, as well as the millions of UEFA Champions League fans around the world, can interact with the events and share experiences online.

Follow @UEFA.COM on Twitter to get involved. UEFA will also be tweeting daily from the festival using #championsfestival along with #championsleague to share the festivities.

Champion's League trophy to go on tour for Heineken adverts.

Heineken the official beer of the Champion's league is taking the famous trophy across the world and secretly filming fan's reactions as part of a brand new viral marketing campaign. 

The Dutch beer has been linked as premium sponsor with the Champions League since 1994 and  last May signed up with Uefa till 2015. Speaking on the deal last year Alexis Nasard, chief commercial officer at Heineken, said: 

"The UEFA Champions League is one of the world's premier sporting competitions with unrivaled international reach and professional standards. This makes it a perfect match for Heineken, the world's most international premium beer brand.The sponsorship plays an important role in fueling the continued growth of the Heineken brand around the globe."

The beer has also linked up with a number of former players as brand ambassadors. Edwin Van der Sar, former Chelsea midfielder Ruud Gullit and Dutch international Ronald de Boer will be travelling with the trophy at various stages of the tour. 

You can watch an exclusive clip of the advert here .