Adidas understands the rule of leverage and activation in sport sponsorship

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Adidas does tennis, golf, rugby, cricket, basketball and even European hockey. Its sister brand Reebok now gives it strong profile in North American football and hockey. But the German multinational has always been most defined by its roots in soccer.

It will bend to its competitors in other sports but in soccer, it is staunchly committed to never breaking against Nike, Nike-owned UMBRO and Puma.

That explains why Adidas will always do soccer "full out". It will never fall short when it comes to marketing soccer and its three stripes to the world. Adidas is not the world's largest soccer company -- and #2 shoe company across all sports -- by accident.

Its status as a multi-billion dollar brand has been finely-honed through a global marketing strategy featuring the full gamut of international, national and local deals across the full spectrum of advertising, television, internet, event and team sponsorships, personal endorsements, community investment and public relations.

There's no better example of that than Adidas' multilevel marketing around soccer at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

As a FIFA global partner, it has event exclusivity at the World Cup (and at the regional levels of UEFA, Conmebol, Concacaf, Africa and Asia). But it understands that event sponsorship typically delivers little more than signage and macro-level brand awareness. To make the most of its sponsorship investments, it gets that it needs to leverage its sponsorship with television and other advertising, engage customers through personal endorsements and activate by promoting and activating at the retail level.

The Star Wars-themed campaign, The Quest, is all about that: personally-leveraging its FIFA and World Cup sponsorships and activating sales on the strength of its personal endorsements. The Quest is about engaging fans through their personal connections with players such as Lionel Messi of Argentina, Kaka of Brazil, David Villa of Spain, Bastian Schweinsteiger of Germany and 18 other top internationals. Produced in association with George Lucas and Lucasfilm, its also about appealing to an audience outside of hard-core soccer, absolutely essential in building a brand and generating new sales.

What Adidas has invested in leveraging and activating its sponsorship rights in soccer will be considerably more than the sponsorships themselves. And by doing that, it is more likely to see a return on its massive World Cup investment and continue to grow on the world stage.

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Is Nike's "Write the Future" really this World Cup's Sports Illustrated cover jinx?

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Nike would suggest its Write the Future video campaign has been everything it set out to be -- creating a buzz on the Internet and in social media circles from its launch in May -- but that hasn't stopped pundits from suggesting it is the Sports Illustrated cover jinx of this 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

The talk is easy because every one of the primary players featured in Write the Future is out of action at the World Cup as the final four nations line up for their semifinals in Cape Town tonight (overwhelming local favourite Holland, ranked fourth in the FIFA world rankings, against cinderella Uruguay, #16) and Durban Wednesday (#2 ranked Spain and #6 Germany).

With Didier Drogba of Cote d'Ivoire, Franck Ribery of France and Fabio Cannavaro of Italy (all in the Group Stage) and Tim Howard and Landon Donovan of the US, Wayne Rooney of England and Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal (all in the Round of 16) on the sidelines after just 18 of 30 days of play, there's no doubt Nike's Write the Future could have benefitted from at least one or two of its heroes reaching the global media platform that is the final week of the World Cup, with at least two matches guaranteed for those four surviving teams.

Only Write the Future's Spanish stars -- Gerard Pique, Andres Iniesta and Cesc Fabregas -- are left standing in South Africa. Patrice Evra of France and Brazilian Thiago Silva had minor roles in the Internet campaign while Ronaldhino of Brazil and Theo Walcott of England did not even make the cut of their respective national teams (cursed before they even started?).

Upon further video review -- so to speak -- like any company marketing personal endorsements and guest spots, Nike was only playing the averages. Three of 14 Nike-sponsored athletes making the last week of the World Cup is 21.4%, actually not bad when one considers they had about 960 players to choose from going into South Africa and only 120 -- or 12.5% -- are still in contention for the big prize.

It's true the Spaniards giving Nike its one-fifth success rate to date were secondary to the starring roles played by the Drogbas, Rooneys and Ronaldos in Write the Future and it's also true that Spanish success means more to Adidas, which holds that country's national team shirt and gear rights.

Yet Adidas' own campaign, The Quest, has similar numbers, with four of its 22 players -- or 18.1% -- reaching the final four. It's just under 20% in success rate if you don't include the injured Michael Ballack of Germany, originally cast as one of Adidas' big three alongside Argentine superstar Lionel Messi and Kaka of Brazil.

Like Nike, Adidas saw many of its personal endorsements fall in the Group stage (including Yoann Gourcoff of France, Daniele de Rossi of Italy, Stanislav Sestak of Slovakia and Zlatko Dedic of Slovenia) and Round of 16 (Shunsuke Nakamura of Japan, Jozy Altidore of the US and Steven Gerrard of England).

Their big gun Messi -- understandably the front man among active players in The Quest campaign -- made it to the quarter-finals, leaving Adidas with strong vested interests in Germany and Spain in general and Bastian Schweinsteiger and David Villa in particular. Nike has more to gain with the Dutch advancing to the final, but Adidas will be pleased to see Surinamese-born Holland star Eljero Elia there as well, along with Adidas-endorsed Diego Forlan, who plays for Puma-sponsored Uruguay and has been an absolute stud in South Africa.

The bottom line is that any personal endorsement campaign carries performance risk. But Write the Future is no more a Sports Illustrated jinx than is The Quest. At least technically-speaking, in the 20% ballpark, they've actually both outperformed the law of averages that has only 12.5% of this World Cup's original rosters living to see the light of the final week.

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Brazil's quarter-final loss at the World Cup hurts both Nike and Adidas in the footwear wars

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Some of the best sport business storylines at mega events such as the biggest of them all, the FIFA World Cup, revolve around the marketing wars being fought out among many of the planet's most powerful brands.

At the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, there is arguably no more expensive battle - with no stakes higher - than in the shoe and apparel category.

It's on that front where both Adidas (the FIFA Global Partner, official World Cup event sponsor and official supplier to 12 of the 32 national teams in South Africa) and Nike (the sponsor of world #1 Brazil and eight other countries) have invested hundreds of millions in sponsorships, endorsements, television advertising, internet campaigns and retail activation.

Adidas spent $200 M US on the FIFA World Cup sponsorship alone, another $100 M US on national team rights and what I'd estimate as another $300 M or more in advertising. Between the two footwear giants, they're spending in the range of $1 B US in total marketing around their event campaigns.

Throw in Nike-owned UMBRO and its England sponsorship, along with Puma and its sponsorship of seven national teams -- including four African entries -- and the shoe wars are big business well into 10 figures.

Nike -- which leads the overall shoe business market share sweepstakes with around 38% to Adidas' 34% -- struck first and hard with its Write the Future video campaign while Adidas countered a few weeks closer to the month-long tournament with its Star Wars-themed hero series entitled The Quest.

They've both had wins and losses along the way but it would appear Nike's advertising investment has run the shorter course with every one of the primary individual players featured in Write the Future out of action at the World Cup...with the event's biggest week still to come.

When Brazil fell 2-1 in Friday's quarter-final against the Netherlands, both Nike and Adidas shared the grief. That's because Nike supplies the Brazilian national team, while Adidas sponsors one if its biggest stars; Kaka, a headliner in its global campaign around the World Cup.

Nike loses more directly as its marquee team is out before the final week for the second consecutive World Cup. The only consolation for the U.S. company is that Brazil's loss came at the hands of The Netherlands, with the Oranje also wearing Nike and giving the Swoosh one team in the final four (alongside Germany and Spain of Adidas and Uruguay of Puma).

Yet on the Brazil loss, Adidas is not unscathed, partly because it gives Nike a stronger European foothold in the Oranje. Adidas is hurt with The Quest star Kaka out and because its official World Cup presence and television signage could very well be seen by less eyeballs worldwide. Brazil draws more than just Brazilians to the World Cup party and what hurts World Cup ratings hurts Adidas as an official FIFA partner.

It's an interesting case study around sponsoring giants. Brazil is the world's #1 soccer team and as such, has the cache - both collectively and through its individual players - to attract more than one global brand in any one category.

When such a giant falls, it falls hard...and in a case like this, the giant takes more than one sponsor with it.

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French Open even more French than usual...on the sponsorship front

As one of the world's four Grand Slam tennis championships, the French Open has always had a special feel to it. The red claycourts at Roland Garros offer a distinctive look on domestic and worldwide television. Its timing and positioning as the unofficial start to summer in France and Europe (and throughout the northern hemisphere for that matter) gives every rendition a sense of renewal and optimism. More than anything, its setting in Paris makes it the most cosmopolitan of the Grand Slams and one of the more metropolitan of sports events in the world.

Yet this year, more than ever, there is a distinctly French and European feel to the presentation of the French Open.

That's because six of the Grand Slam tournament's 10 biggest sponsors are French brands. Two more are European classics. And only two are American.

The show stealer is BNP Paribas, the Paris-based, French national bank that has become synonymous with the French Open in particular and tennis in general. In addition to Roland Garros, BNP Paribas has links to the Paris Open indoor event, the Davis Cup world team tennis championships for men and, most interestingly, is in the second year of its title sponsorship of the popular Indian Wells ATP Tour event in California (its first major foray into North America).

At Roland Garros, BNP Paribas is not only marketing itself to French businesses and consumers, it is reaching out to new markets on all five continents, especially with a new english tagline centered around its mission to be a bank that's making a difference.

The same goes for most of the other five French brands associated with the French Open, especially automaker Peugeot, iconic tennis and sportswear designer Lacoste, mineral water Perrier and eyewear retailer Afflelou. French television network OrangeSport, a specialist in soccer, tennis and cycling, is likely more intent on consolidating its position within Europe, but nonetheless, as they watch French Open telecasts this week and next, many around the world will be at least asking: what is OrangeSport? 

Powerhouse brands such as Adidas of Germany and Longines of Switzerland round out the European roster at Roland Garros, while IBM and FedEx give the French Open show courts at least some U.S. corporate content.

Make no mistake, however. French brands are calling the French Open their own in the first year of the new decade. And they're doing so with pan-European and global ambitions.

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