In the last episode we comparing the top kit manufacturers to drunk businessman at a strip club throwing cash around.

(See part 1 in the series here)

This time we’re looking at the sponsors and their leverage of the World Cup.

Unless we raid FIFA’s offices we will never know the exact numbers spent (speculation – here and here though!)
But let’s assume the rights to be associated with the World Cup don’t come cheap!

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Castrol:

Football is central to their marketing – check the site here

They had already created the new ‘Castrol Rankings‘ a fresh way to statistically assess the best players in the world (sort of like a Michelin move into judging restaurants): check!

Men watch football > …drive cars > …are probably 99.9% of the people who know and buy their motor oil: check!
They managed to get Cristiano Ronaldo (nice), and this is how they use him…

Maybe it’s me but..

CRon in fake conditions, playing fake opponents, saying a fake voiceover…fail!!

It either had to be an amazing piece of creative, or something with humour…a bland format mixed with a weak link to the product just doesn’t do the brand any favours!

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Sony

Sony is going to wow us all with…erm…3D

Here’s slightly suspicious sponsored amateur broadcast as proof!

It gets interesting from 1min 30secs..

Call me a cynical party pooper – but it says that Sony will be recording up to 25 of the games in 3D, offering viewers an illusion of depth on the screen which ought to make those replays all the more stunning.

Oh? Ok! Big fail!

I’m a football fanatic and I’m wondering how many recorded games I will watch solely for the purpose of experiencing Sony 3D? Pause for effect…none!

This isn’t like when they sold us HD at the last World Cup – that had tangible benefits, you could at the screen and see the improvement in picture quality (you still needed an HD set up to receive the broadcasts though..)

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Visa

Another ‘top tier’ FIFA sponsor that has to leverage soccer as much as possible to make their marketing strategy worthwhile.

The super bland mission statement is here;

“The power and passion of sport takes Visa’s name, reputation and commercial opportunities further than any other association.”

Really? How? Maybe one thing should be putting your logo all over a press background and on Landon Donovan’s collar at the World Cup draw?

I’m sure the awareness of Visa was strengthened by doing that!

Fail and fail!

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COME ON GUYS!!!

You must be able to come up with something better than that!

R