A study by retail sales consultancy Sellex has found that there is only a minimal difference in consumer recognition between official Euro 2024 sponsors and non-sponsors.
The study revealed that 28% correctly recognised Coca-Cola Zero as an official sponsor, while 23% mistakenly believed Pepsi Max held the same status. Similarly, 31% identified Adidas as a sponsor, but 30% incorrectly attributed sponsorship to Nike, a non-sponsor.
In the same vein, Visit Qatar was correctly identified by 17%, but 25% mistakenly associated sponsorship with Emirates Airlines.
Furthermore, respondents also mistook Budweiser (22%), Samsung (21%) and bet365 (15%) as sponsors, while correctly identifying other official sponsors such as Booking.com (14%), Lidl (14%), Hisense (11%), BYD (6%) and Alipay (5%).
`Over a quarter (26%) admitted uncertainty regarding the official sponsor status of the mentioned brands.
These results indicate a decline in the percentage of respondents correctly identifying Euro 2024 sponsors as age increases, especially among those who responded with “I don’t know”, signifying a lack of brand recognition amongst football fans.
Nevertheless, the findings call into question how effectively sponsorships are being activated and the value for money in terms of consumer and shopper engagement.
Speaking on this hypothesis, Anthony Carr, Managing Director of Sellex, commented: “You would be hard pushed in stores to know, for example, which brands are sponsors of the tournament, versus sponsors of the England Team, versus a brand that has simply negotiated great space in advance of the consumption occasions that the tournament creates.
“We continually see patchy execution and availability across many brands, regardless of their status. Unfortunately, execution of sponsorship like this is a great example of failed strategy-to-execution for so many brands.”
The study’s implications prompted Carr to offer his insights into addressing the challenges unearthed.
Carr concluded: “For those sponsoring and having secured the best space they can in-store, they need to ensure that KPIs between Sales and Marketing are genuinely shared and aligned.
“Monitor store inventory in the days ahead of the promotional go-live, measure the RoI very forensically, capture learnings for post-evaluation, and be ready to talk openly with retail partners about what worked and didn’t work for the category and brand.
“Make sure you are working cross functionally to ensure that the “vision of success” is delivered. This might all sound like common sense, but you would be amazed at the number of businesses who still don’t do it.”
