Each month, over the course of a week we look in detail at how one of the members of the Sport for Business community has activated a sponsorship property, going behind the scenes to discover the why, the how and the what of some of Ireland’s and the world’s biggest sports sponsorship deals and their coming to life…
We were in Milan this past weekend as ‘behind the curtain’ guests of Nissan as they prepared for making their sponsorship work as hard as possible at the Champions’ League Final between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid.
In this first of a five part series we sat down with European Head of Marketing Jean Pierre Diernaz to discover how Nissan set out to ‘own’ the excitement of football, the role that sponsorship plays in the overall marketing picture and what his views are on the broadcasting numbers in the UK.
SfB: Nissan made it’s major investment in football in order to shift consumer feeling from aware but indifferent to excited about the brand, that is a major step, how did you target how to make it?
JPD: Football is huge, it is everywhere, but we wanted to be different so we chose to want to own the excitement of football. The end game is that in a couple of years we wanted people to see that the one brand which was associated to the excitement of before the game, during the game and after the game was Nissan.
“That is kind of a cool ambition I gave to the team. Everything we do we have to deliver excitement, that is in a physical sense, in the digital world, in everything we do.”
“We receive innovation from our engineers. We transform that innovation into something that the consumer understands and feels. We transform it into excitement, that is the one thing. Everything else is secondary. Excitement is the one word that everything is judged against.”
SfB: The Champions League is home to a number of major brands, all of whom are part of a bigger family of sponsors of football, how do you stand out?
JPD: This is critical. We are pleased to be at this top table but we have to make our mark in the eyes of the consumer. It is a major investment and a major ambition but in two years already it is working. We have moved from 72 to 49 on the Interbrand list of global brands, the first time for Nissan inside the top 50 and that is driven by how we have injected excitement and relevance into the innovation coming from our engineers.
“The GT-R is our Supercar, it has a place here at the Champions’ League but it is in our other brands that we have sought to place the same excitement.”
“The Champions’ League Trophy will be brought to the San Siro by a Nissan Leaf that has been half cut away to reveal how the inside of an electric vehicle works.”
“We have periscoped the journey from the Plaza il Duomo to the stadium and it is a way that we look to do something different, something memorable, something that will excite people when they see and shift their mind from Nissan as another brand in football to the brand that brings them excitement in the game.”
SfB: You’ve even sought to capture the science behind that excitement.
JPD: “Yes with excitement being at the centre of what we do but something that was not easily defined, being of the heart rather than the head, we chose to question and see what emerged.”
“We have a strong relationship in the UK as a major market and a manufacturing country. We went to Loughborough University, known for its sporting excellence and we asked, how do you define excitement?”
“They saw this as an exciting challenge themselves and together we have created an algorithm that gives us a starting point. This first year there are six parameters, a complex start but one we will build upon in the coming years.”
“The quarter final between Bayern Munich and Juventus was the highest scoring game of the season so far with a rank of 92.4. Anyone who saw it was thrilled but now we have a way to capture and compare. It is something that football fans like, especially in the digital age and it is a winner for us.”
“In ten years everything will be connected. The internet of things is an immense capability and we are enabled now to measure things that were previously thought to be beyond us.”
“We have used this as a conversation with our engineers and it is a good way that we are bringing 16,000 of the best engineers in the world into the idea of excitement and everybody in the company is working together in one direction, from many starting points.”
“The next stage is we might go from six points to 25 points. It gets better all the time.”
SfB: Digital is important now more than ever but television is still a main driver. The viewing figures for some matches in England this year especially were down low, perhaps with the new contract and BT Sport having exclusivity, has this been a concern being different to what you signed up to?
JPD: “The answer is yes but we can manage it. The UK is a major country for us and football is super important so it is a shame not to have the strong broadcast numbers.
“Do I wish that the Final was on Sky Sports, yes but we deal with it.”
“We have been very open with UEFA about this. They have acknowledged it. With Digital growing so fast though there are ways in which we can compensate.”
“We are looking at how we can create new digital platforms to compensate.”
SfB: The sponsorship is worth tens of millions each year. How important is sponsorship and its value within the overall marketing budget.
JPD: “The answer is two fold. One way to look at sponsorship is a comparison to the equivalent media value and to determine a comparative return on your investment. This is complex because you have to work in 35 million fans on Facebook and social media around a game.”
“The second way is to move people’s awareness of the brand in a consistent manner. Familiarity with multiple messages is so important. I can move from innovation through electric vehicles at the start of the season, through quality and the family approach mid season through to the GT-R and performance at the end.”
“The Champions’ League gives us this in a way that nothing else can. Even the Olympic Games or the Euro’s do not have the same engagement over such a period of time.”
“It is very exciting to be involved.”
As we finished the interview we asked was Jean Pierre a football fan himself. His rapid answer was that yes he was and his team was Real Madrid. Nissan were not a sponsor in 2014 when they last won the title but he was genuinely excited that in this second year of an initial four year deal that they were back at the top table.
It proved to be an exciting night in more ways than he could have imagined in that personal as well as professional way.
Join us through the week as we look in greater detail at the elements that make up the activation of the sponsorship and how it relates to Ireland…
Monday: Interview with Nissan Head of Marketing, Jean Pierre Diernaz
Thursday: Match Day Activation
