The European Football Championships finals will take place in Germany, kicking off tonight in Munich and lasting a month.
Without a representative from the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland, the build-up here has been more muted than it would be with an Irish team, but it will still dominate the sporting conversation and deliver massive TV audiences.
The tournament is one of the biggest sponsorship opportunities on a global scale and has drawn a massive level of support.
It may be unlucky for some, but there are no fewer than 13 official global sponsors for the tournament, each with its own category exclusivity. These sponsors are preparing to unleash significant marketing campaigns in support of their sponsorship.
A number of the brands are very familiar in an Irish context, including Adidas, the official Atos, Booking.com, BYD, Coca-Cola, Hisense, Lidl, and Qatar Airways; others, perhaps less so, including AliExpress, AliPay, Betano, Engelbert Strauss, and Vivo.
Adidas is a regular at this party and will provide all the referee kits on the pitch, the official merchandise in the fan zones and online, and the kits for Germany, Spain, Italy, Scotland, Wales, Belgium, Hungary, and Sweden. The Belgium alternative kit is modelled on the outfits worn by Belgian comic legend Tintin, just in case you were wondering.
Lidl is the Official Fresh Food partner of the Championships and is hosting competitions and in-store promotions across Germany, some of which we may be seeing in Ireland as well.
Major football tournaments are a huge driver for the purchase of new TVs, and you can expect to see plenty of Hisense promotions in the likes of Curry’s and Harvey Norman. One of the benefits of the sponsorship is that Hisense is the only brand that will be able to use the logos and identity of the tournament.
This is equally true in the motor sector. Nissan and Hyundai have been big football backers in recent years, while BMW and Mercedes focus on Golf. However, BYD is a relatively new player in Europe that has grabbed the rights to these Championship finals.
Qatar Airways is the official Airline Partner, and Atos is the Official IT Partner.
Coca-Cola is running an ‘Endless Summer campaign linking its partnerships with the Euro 2024 Championships and the Olympic Games, where it has been a partner for 100 years.
The partnership with Booking.com has an obvious payback, with the accommodation booking service delivering one of the basic needs of those travelling to Germany from all across the continent.
VIVO is a Chinese smartphone manufacturer. AliExpress has David Beckham on board to help drive online shopping, and sister company AliPay is the official mobile payments provider, beating off more familiar competition in Visa and Mastercard.
Engelbert Strauss is a workwear manufacturer.
Perhaps the sponsor that has raised the most eyebrows this time around is Betano, the sports betting face of Greek Cypriot online gaming company Kairos Gaming.
While Bwin and Ladbrokes have been partners of UEFA in their club competitions, and betting companies remain highly visible across European Leagues in the club game, this is the first time that a major tournament has taken on a gambling partner.
Concerns have been raised by a number of civic society groups and charities dealing with the problem of gambling addiction but there has been no indication of UEFA backing down and withdrawing from this particular face-off.
The official partners are the only ones to be able to use the tournament’s identity, and this is also likely to restrict some of the TV partnership deals that other brands might have tried to implement.
It will not stop other brands with ‘skin in the game’ from muscling in via clever advertising and promotion.
The two activities most closely linked to a major tournament are probably beer and betting. This time around, there is no official beer partner, with Heineken content to stay in the space of European club football and no one else stepping up to fill their spot.
That means there may be fewer promotional campaigns expressly using the Euro as a means to encourage us to go to the pub to watch.
The betting companies will be active, though, and Paddy Power was quick to launch a promotional campaign allowing penalty shootout winners to travel on a charter plane to England’s game in Dusseldorf on the opening weekend.
Channelling their fellow experts in mischief marketing Ryanair, the brand has painted the charter plane under the banner of Paddy Power Fairlines and is putting itself up as a challenger as ‘Europe’s Favourite Airline.”
Whether Michael O’Leary takes the bait and gives them more publicity is up in the air at the time of writing, but as a winner of many of their sponsored horse races, he will at least be familiar with them and probably smiling at their cheek.
This article first appeared in The Business of Sport column we produce for Business Plus magazine in the latest issue
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