For football enthusiasts who watch, follow, and experience UEFA EURO matches, it’s not just about the outcome but also about their personal story of experiences and results. Whether they are football fans or not, marketing analysts focus on another story and result – the success of advertisers and how much they will leverage the tournament to gain public favor, build their brands, and capitalize on these sporting narratives to increase brand awareness, value, and purchase intent.
Advertisers don’t like to leave things to chance, but in football, there is always room for the unknown.
When it comes to football, especially major tournaments like EURO, there aren’t many scientific truths before the tournament. These conclusions are drawn after the tournament in analyses of sports results and business balances. However, there isn’t much time for analysis because new competitions follow quickly.
While football fans follow matches or check their social media platforms for live updates, multinational companies, and not only them, have placed their brands in front of a global audience glued to their screens, immersed in their tablets or mobile phones…
The media landscape for broadcasting tournaments is diverse and inclusive, ensuring extensive coverage across various platforms.
Several factors influence the prices of advertising slots during EURO. The participation of the national team, the timing of the ad during the match, and the tournament phase all play significant roles in determining ad prices. Understanding the timing and dynamics of each tournament phase is crucial for advertisers to maximize their reach and impact during this sporting and cultural event, ensuring maximum influence and value for their investment.
That’s why brands and organizations as diverse as Women’s Aid, EE, Asda, Solace, and the British Heart Foundation have chosen to leverage this high-profile international event to launch crucial campaigns. These campaigns have found a perfect platform to amplify their message by addressing pressing social issues such as domestic abuse, hate, loneliness among the elderly, and heart disease among the young through football.
“Big sporting events remain among the last bastions of appointment to view opportunities where nation upon nation come together at the moment. Broad audiences are receptive to the build-up, the event and the post-analysis are primed to be ‘on’ for any associated messaging,” Jungle Creations and The Wild CEO, Melissa Chapman explains. “If you can find an authentic way to be part of the conversation, you can get cut through for incredibly important messages, such as that of domestic violence through our ‘No More Injury Time’ campaign.
Simply put – large-scale international events such as the Euros are indispensable for essential public action campaigns like these, with the associated media frenzy providing an unparalleled opportunity for your message to be amplified.
Audiences emotionally connect with the familiarity of the shirt, the song, the icon – but instead of continuing down that familiar path, they are hijacked into a new narrative, albeit framed with a familiar, reassuring sporting backdrop. Well, ‘ambush marketing’ is nothing new, but what’s ‘new’ are the ways in which it is used.In influential marketing circles and across online platforms, Cristiano Ronaldo faces accusations of ‘ambush marketing’ during Euro 2024, with calls for penalties similar to those previously imposed on Niklas Bendtner.
Following his penalty miss against Slovenia, fitness company VHOOP, endorsed by CR7, shared data from a wearable device monitoring his heart rate, athletic performance, and sleep patterns. The data revealed that he ‘entered a flow state and dropped his heart rate’ during his initial shot for Portugal… and there was an observed increase in pulse rate and other metrics when Bernardo Silva scored the decisive penalty.
Ricardo Forte, the former head of global sponsorship for Visa and Coca-Cola, claims that Ronaldo broke UEFA rules. He posted on social media: ‘Cristiano and WHOOP is ambush marketing to Euro 2024. It is illegal and both the player and the company should be fined.’ He added: ‘The post is about a UEFA match, uses the names of the two national teams playing, score, and a player on the field. ‘They are implying an association with the event and that is illegal. Not having ‘a competitor as a sponsor’ isn’t a reason to tolerate infringements.’
There is something mystical about these summer football extravaganzas created by invisible creatives who designed and executed campaigns for thirteen ‘famous’ partners, five of which are giants from China: manufacturer of electric and hybrid vehicles BYD, fintech company Ant Group, AliExpress, Vivo, and Hisense. These companies plan to leverage their association with the championship to expand into new markets and strengthen their presence in existing ones. This tactic is tried and tested: namely, Hisense’s revenues from international markets jumped 83 percent after becoming a sponsor of EURO 2016, with sales increases on the European market rising by 35 percent.
