Chinese firms are arriving!

Last week, the chinese firm Lenovo (the company wich bought the IBM branch dedicated to laptops) annouced that they have chosen Barcelone FC and its strongest player Ronaldinho to represent the brand during the next season. Most of all they want to use the image of this club in order to promote their products in europe and south america. Indeed, since they bought a branch of IBM they need to fight against an bad image due to the "made in China". However, the quality is the same than before… just the name has changes. It's probably why they want to sponsor one of the biggest football club in the world. As an example, Samsung did the same some years ago by sponsoring big sport events such as the Olympic games and the Fifa World Cup … and even if the link is not the only one, Samsung is nowadays considered as one of the best brand in the electronic market (unless it is a Corean firm). . Then it's possible to say that People will assist to another big match next year between Barcelone FC (Lenovo) and the Real Madrid (Siemens), that is to say between two giants of the electronic systems!

Team Lagardère

Sometimes, big companies have big values/ethics which make them investing in sports in order to get a better image, but not with a direct impact on sales. That’s what tries to do Arnault Lagardère with “team largardère”, a association of companies such as Subaru, Le Coq Sportif and Sony.That kind of marketing is really efficient too because it permits detecting future stars at the very beginning, and help them developing their potential. Then, one can guess that those companies would get a strong advantage to contract with those sportsmen. But it is a long term project which could permit to compete with the American training methods, and then winning more medals during international competitions.This association provides a real support at different levels in order to improve athletes’ performances (see below).
If you want more information, click on this link: www.teamlagardere.com

Why so much money in sport?

Some people are used to say that companies should not invest so much money in sport because the real nature of sport is pleasure. However, nowadays it is not only a pleasure but also another kind of spectacle. Indeed, some people go to the theatre twice a month, some others go to the stadium in order to assist to a football match. And, each time, companies invest huge amounts of money, even if in the case of soccer it is often more than in any other sport! But here again it can be added that it is because soccer aims more people than any other sport. Thanks to Television there is potential market of 2 or 3 billion of people. So, it is quite easy to understand that a worldwide brand just cannot abandon this mean of communication. Moreover, as there is a lot of competition in order to become the exclusive partner of a club, companies have to make the better offer. One can remember that Canal Plus paid 600 million of euros in order to get the broadcasts’ exclusivity (for the French league) during the next three years. The global strategy of the company will then be determined by this choice! In this example Canal Plus will try to attract new subscriber. And, the more subscribers they will get, more the advertisers will have to pay.In a word I would say that thanks to the globalization some sports are maybe less authentic than in the past, however they are certainly more spectacular!

The Airness’ wager

Malamine Koné, the Airness’ chief executive officer, founded this sports brand seven years ago in
France. He is now one of the main African entrepreneurs who succeed in
France. However his success is not common. Indeed he is a real self-made-man because only six years after the establishment of the company some specialists say that he earns around one million euros per month. But, it is maybe more.Airness built a strategy based on the development of contracts with a big potential. So this bet sometimes works and sometimes not. However, when it works the profit is so big. For example Airness contracted with Djibril Cissé and Didier Drogba for a little bit more than 150 000 euros. Compared to the total amount they now received with their new sponsors (Nike, Adidas…) one can understand that it has been a very good deal for Airness in term of image.It can also be mentioned that Malamine Koné is for the moment only focusing his strategy on the most popular sport in the world … soccer! As its company is growing very fast since a couple of years he is now contracting we the national leagues (Mali, …) and team of the French league (LFP) with some clubs that have a good future. For example, he signed with “Le Stade Rennais” his first contract with a professional club for only 250000 euros each year. Since then Lens, Nantes and
Valenciennes (A club which is going to play in L1, next year thanks to its first place in L2) are some of the clubs which contracted with him.

Market survey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=908562001982)

Executive summary 

This market survey aims at finding out if the people feel concerned by sports advertisements. In order to do that, I have chosen to understand what motivates people to buy that kind of articles, for example: do they buy sports items only for practice or also for fashion? In a word this survey will permit us to better understand the impact of famous sportsmen can have on an international audience. 

IntroductionThis report will look at: - The trendy sports (in particular in the ESCLe Havre)

                                                       -Sport and ethics

                                                       -Sport and business 

Findings

1. This marketing survey found that a lot of people are used to practicing a sport (more than 70 % of the interviewees). The strange thing is that soccer is not the most popular sport in our school as handball seems to be more practiced (30 % against 25 %). However only 22 people answered, so the sample is maybe not large enough.
2. The second part of this study permits to show that 85% of the people think that sportsmen have a strong role in or society, because in a way they guarantee strong values such as respect and group cohesion. However when one asks people what they think of some sportsmen, one  can see that the ones who belong to the star system (i.e.”the jet set”) such as David Beckham are not well regarded. On the other end, Tiger Woods and Zinedine Zidane have a strong image and can influence people positively. It can also be added that even if Lance Armstrong is a role model for having defeated a cancer (that is to say a symbol of self sacrifice), he has a very bad image because of drugs accusations in the “Tour de France”.
3. The third part shows that sportsmen can influence somebody purchasing choices’. For example, if an ad is done with a respectful man, you’ll be inclined to choose this product more than another one which might nevertheless be similar (and cheaper!). The results have shown that the annual average budget is less that 100 € for sports equipment (82 % of the answers). But an interesting fact is that 88 % of the people buy at least one pair of shoes each year. And only 23.5 % buy team shirts.

Conclusion

Thanks to the results of this survey one can easily understand that advertising campaigns using sportsmen can strongly influence our choices. Moreover, it seems that people not only buy sport items for practicing but also for fashion (i.e. shoes and T-shirts)! A fact which enlarges the potential market.  

Recommendations

We should discuss the results of this survey in class as soon as possible in order to make a decision about what exactly is a good advertising campaign. Indeed, it seems that people do not know on what a campaign has to be firstly focused on: product, slogan, values of the company or characters used? Maybe would it be possible to find a mix of those ideas.

The new Nike advertising campaign: Joga Bonita

People often say that sportsmen are too much paid for what they do. However, without them, some famous brands could sell each time more articles. In its last advertising campaign which started in March, Nike put the accent on the fair game (respect of the rules) and the beauty of soccer using some of the most spectacular players, and above all the Brazilian Ronaldinho. They also took Eric Cantona (even if he was sometimes “fool” when he played with Manchester United) and he plays the role of a referee by saying what is good or not and what should be done in order to see a real spectacle.With this campaign Nike clearly bet on
Brazil to win the FIFA World Cup which will start in June. And as it is the case during each big sport event, a match will take place between the two main brands: Nike Vs Adidas. For example, in 1998 Adidas won unless they were the outsider (ndrl: France won); then in 2002, Nike won (Brazil beat
Germany in Final). A surprise is it possible; I mean can Puma win the World Cup? One never knows, because in sport everything is possible!Then if you want to see why Nike invests a lot on the Brazilian team and if you also want to understand why Ronaldinho earns more than 20 million euros thanks to the advertisement campaigns he does, go on www.nikefootball.com.Then, let’s see at the end of the summer if the new range Soga Bonita (it sounds Brazilian, isn’t it? ) will be profitable.

Zidane is retiring!

Last week Zinedine Zidane announced during a press conference that he is going to put an end to his career at the end of the FIFA World Cup which will take place in
Germany in June and July. All French people were concerned by this announcement. However it can be a good thing for him to leave the professional soccer team ending with a competition with the national team.However, the shame is that he will not have the possibility to flee from the media. Indeed he still has many contracts to be honoured. For example the one with Danone is a nine years contract. And, for the moment, only three years have been done. Then, one can guess that it will be the same with
Orange, Canal+… Moreover maybe is he going to signed new contracts with sport brands such as Eric Cantona in the new Nike advertising campaign? One does not know what will be Zidane’s future, but he will surely be part of  our eceryday life!

TP’s success

Tony Parker is getting each time better on the floors of the National Basketball Association (www.nba.com) since he arrived to the San Antonio Spurs in 2003. As a consequence its performances are published in some famous French newspapers as “L’Equipe” and “Le Monde”. So it is easy to understand that lots of famous international brands want to sign contracts with him.However one can easily guess that his agent is obliged to negotiate with the brands fitting the best with Parker’s image. That’s to say, he must define a strategy which will permit the player to earn money thanks to its image. But the image must be managed properly and not used with too many products.Recently, he advertised for Kellogg’s, Powerade and a new video game (NBA 2006). Then, it can be added that his agent tries to focus the traditional media on TP. I mean, he wants them to make articles, for the book he wrote, for his love relationship with the actress Eva Longoria; So, thanks to that one can understand than far more people hear about TP, and not only Basketball fans’.