Adidas won the World Cup?

No, not another 2014 FIFA World Cup surprise, but a valid question. As one of the major sponsors of this global event, was the return on investment received what Adidas was expecting as one of the official sponsors, after having spent huge amounts of money?

Speculation is rife that FIFA's World Cup partners pay a hefty price for the privilege to be so closely affiliated with the event – apparently $1.5 billion revenues are taken to be associated as some form of World Cup Sponsor.

Gauteng-based media monitoring company, ROi, who has been reporting to the South African media on World Cup statistics during the event, generated an insightful study that contains the editorial mention of these brands in relation to this event. 

“It is surprising how little editorial coverage there is from each of the sponsors given the massive fee there is to be associated with this world event,” says ROi Managing Director, Tonya Khoury. “I do recognise that media publicity is not the only benefit a company like Adidas will get from such a sponsorship, but I was surprised that it was so low.”

The study, which does not include logo exposure or advertising in relation to the brands, focused on media mention of the various brands on millions of global social networks and 60,000 global online newspapers.

“As could be expected Adidas was the most exposed brand in the editorial space. With almost one third of the coverage against other sponsors, Adidas’ #allin campaign was a massive success,” says Khoury.

Another factor for the sponsor’s success is “largely attributed to the fact that Adidas was the main sponsor of the two teams playing in the final. They are also the sponsor of arguably the best football player in the tournament, Lionel Messi. To add to this 46 goals have been scored by players wearing the adizero F50, including three of the World Cup’s top scorers: James Rodriguez of Colombia, Thomas Muller of Germany and then of course Messi.

“The official soccer ball has also been a success. Brazuca, under the @brazuca Twitter handle, it gained more than 2.75 million followers during the tournament (more than 3.25 million overall), making it the fastest growing profile of the World Cup,” she adds.

When isolating the data set into “Partners” only, Adidas and Sony accounted for over 50% of the editorial coverage. Adidas was the most talked about brand during the tournament across all social channels, like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr and attracted more than 5 million new followers across these social platforms - more than any other sports brand.

“A company like Adidas was planning to generate €2 billion (about 28 billion Rand) in football related revenue this year and one wonders whether they have received adequate return on investment to achieve this. They have definitely achieved more than the other sponsors and they have gained valuable publicity, but I am seriously questioning whether they have received enough,” Khoury concludes.  

FOR MORE INFORMATION: 

Tonya Khoury                                        Tel: 073 874 5377E-mail: tonyahkhoury@gmail.comTwitter: @tonyaroi / @roiafricaFacebook:                                            Facebook.com/roiafrica