Ad bonanza or advertising bozos?
I do wonder about the people who decide that it's worth sponsoring big sporting events like Euro 2004. Consider the evidence. For a start, the Big Stars who have been paid huge sums to appear in adverts, on the whole, have performed badly. And we've ended up with a final featuring the home nation and the rank outsiders.
Thierry Henry, for one, obviously plays better football in his living room and hallway than he does on the pitch, for his country. And anyway, that ad for Nike is not for one of the official sponsors, which helps confuse people.
I actually sneered when the Canon rep told us that they were doing a lot of Euro 2004 tie-ins, as official sponsor. I think their damp squib finger-football campaign is pathetic, and spurious tie-ins only serve to make companies look desperate. True, the photographers around the pitch during the games have been sporting some pretty big Canon lenses and wearing some fetching Canon vests, but I only noticed because I was wondering exactly what Canon hoped to be getting out of it.
Non-photographers probably think "photocopier" when they see the Canon logo, so they wouldn't connect sports/action photography with the brand. I noticed the Portugese director pulled up a few shots of "audience members" using Canon cameras. At half time last night you saw someone using a 300D SLR... but then after the break they did a similar close-up of someone using an Olympus digital camera. Whoops.
That kind of "slip" will keep the lawyers busy for months.
Nike, smartly, usually don't do "official" sponsorship, preferring instead to use guerilla tactics, piggybacking the event with ads, plastering their logos over shirts etc. I noticed one Dutch player, at the end of the penalty shootout, run over to a camera and lift his shirt to reveal the Nike swoosh on his white vest.
But, to quote a friend, it's all a big wash in the end, one brand on top of another brand, and all of them cancelling each other out. I did notice one of the official sponsors' logos was so badly designed that you couldn't read what it said, on the pitch-side billboards or on the interview wall post-match. I still don't know what it says.
Well done to that marketing department.
They'll talk about profiling, but profiling doesn't equal sales. Canon should be aware, the market for home printers is shrinking as people take more photos but view and share them in different ways. Sticking them on a DVD is more effective than putting them in an album. Why would you take 300 photos on a holiday, print them out, and then carefully put them in an album on a shelf? So little ads showing people printing stupid photos and sticking their fingers through them... huh? There's an adage often repeated around here, when they start to talk about brand profiling, it's just another way of admitting failure.
Sainsbury's: massive profile, association with Jamie Oliver, and slipped from #1 to #3 in terms of sales. Resignations, angry shareholders. Apple: massive profile, instantly recogniseable logo, but hardly a blip on the radar in terms of computer sales. Remember the Bladerunner effect: many of those companies whose logos are carefully placed in the film were defunct within a few years.
Advertising is voodoo. I've done analysis of ads I've placed. If they "work" it's never to sell the products you put on the page. You might as well print the company name and phone number. It's just a reassurance to some people that you're still in business, from the last time they ordered from you. I've done other ads that have "won" AdQ awards for reader response - but I can point to the phone records and say, actually, we got one call from that ad.
It's about targeting, it's about timing. The thing about football and sponsorship: it's always the same group that are being targeted, and I seriously doubt that this continual pursuit of the same group of 18-24 males is worth it in the long term. Look at the viewing figures:
Clue: they're shrinking. More importantly, these big figures for big games are twice those of the group stage games: even England drew only 10-12m viewers. There may be a lot of white vans with flags on them, but this doesn't translate into a massive TV audience - especially for games like Greece-Czech Republic. Anyway, I may be wrong, but your average flag-waving white van man isn't going to be too impressed by sports photographers with long lenses, or the odd audience member with a 300D.
Sport: it's just not that popular. Bring on the Olympics: a huge amount of hype and sponsorship and advertising; but the audience will be outside grilling sausages on the barbecue, or on holiday in Spain getting pissed.
Thierry Henry, for one, obviously plays better football in his living room and hallway than he does on the pitch, for his country. And anyway, that ad for Nike is not for one of the official sponsors, which helps confuse people.
According to the poll, nearly 60% of UK adults do not know any of Euro 2004's eight official sponsors, each of which have paid about £10m for the privilege.
I actually sneered when the Canon rep told us that they were doing a lot of Euro 2004 tie-ins, as official sponsor. I think their damp squib finger-football campaign is pathetic, and spurious tie-ins only serve to make companies look desperate. True, the photographers around the pitch during the games have been sporting some pretty big Canon lenses and wearing some fetching Canon vests, but I only noticed because I was wondering exactly what Canon hoped to be getting out of it.
Non-photographers probably think "photocopier" when they see the Canon logo, so they wouldn't connect sports/action photography with the brand. I noticed the Portugese director pulled up a few shots of "audience members" using Canon cameras. At half time last night you saw someone using a 300D SLR... but then after the break they did a similar close-up of someone using an Olympus digital camera. Whoops.
That kind of "slip" will keep the lawyers busy for months.
Nike, smartly, usually don't do "official" sponsorship, preferring instead to use guerilla tactics, piggybacking the event with ads, plastering their logos over shirts etc. I noticed one Dutch player, at the end of the penalty shootout, run over to a camera and lift his shirt to reveal the Nike swoosh on his white vest.
But, to quote a friend, it's all a big wash in the end, one brand on top of another brand, and all of them cancelling each other out. I did notice one of the official sponsors' logos was so badly designed that you couldn't read what it said, on the pitch-side billboards or on the interview wall post-match. I still don't know what it says.
Well done to that marketing department.
They'll talk about profiling, but profiling doesn't equal sales. Canon should be aware, the market for home printers is shrinking as people take more photos but view and share them in different ways. Sticking them on a DVD is more effective than putting them in an album. Why would you take 300 photos on a holiday, print them out, and then carefully put them in an album on a shelf? So little ads showing people printing stupid photos and sticking their fingers through them... huh? There's an adage often repeated around here, when they start to talk about brand profiling, it's just another way of admitting failure.
Sainsbury's: massive profile, association with Jamie Oliver, and slipped from #1 to #3 in terms of sales. Resignations, angry shareholders. Apple: massive profile, instantly recogniseable logo, but hardly a blip on the radar in terms of computer sales. Remember the Bladerunner effect: many of those companies whose logos are carefully placed in the film were defunct within a few years.
Advertising is voodoo. I've done analysis of ads I've placed. If they "work" it's never to sell the products you put on the page. You might as well print the company name and phone number. It's just a reassurance to some people that you're still in business, from the last time they ordered from you. I've done other ads that have "won" AdQ awards for reader response - but I can point to the phone records and say, actually, we got one call from that ad.
It's about targeting, it's about timing. The thing about football and sponsorship: it's always the same group that are being targeted, and I seriously doubt that this continual pursuit of the same group of 18-24 males is worth it in the long term. Look at the viewing figures:
- World Cup 90: England v Germany - 26.2m (BBC One & ITV)
- Euro 96: England v Germany - 23.8m (BBC One & ITV)
- World Cup 98: England v Argentina - 23.8m (ITV)
- Euro 2004: England v Portugal - 20.7m (BBC One, unofficial figures)
Clue: they're shrinking. More importantly, these big figures for big games are twice those of the group stage games: even England drew only 10-12m viewers. There may be a lot of white vans with flags on them, but this doesn't translate into a massive TV audience - especially for games like Greece-Czech Republic. Anyway, I may be wrong, but your average flag-waving white van man isn't going to be too impressed by sports photographers with long lenses, or the odd audience member with a 300D.
Sport: it's just not that popular. Bring on the Olympics: a huge amount of hype and sponsorship and advertising; but the audience will be outside grilling sausages on the barbecue, or on holiday in Spain getting pissed.
posted by Anonymous at
Friday, July 02, 2004
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