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With the continuous improvement of social commercialization, commercial sponsorship is becoming more and more common. According to the statistics of international sponsored research institutions, the global sponsored expenditure of 174 billion dollars in 1998 increased to 22 billion dollars in 2000. Among all kinds of sponsorship, sports and art are the main sponsors. Among them, sports events account for about 75% to 80%, and art events account for about 10% to 15%. FIFA selected 15 international sponsors for this World Cup in Germany. In addition, the German World Cup Organizing Committee has six local sponsors, and these companies * * * paid more than 750 million euros in sponsorship fees, nearly 13 times higher than the 198 World Cup.

Soft advertisement with good effect

The huge investment is to raise the popularity of enterprises and products through sponsorship activities, open up commodity circulation channels and bring huge economic returns to enterprises. The reason why enterprises are keen on sponsoring sports competitions is because sports sponsorship is a kind of soft advertisement, which can play a subtle role in product sales, reduce people's resistance to commercial sponsorship, improve and strengthen the relationship between enterprises and the public, and bring good economic and social benefits to enterprises. According to a survey from the United States, 64% of the respondents are more willing to buy the products of sports sponsors, and 38% of the consumers of Coca-Cola Company buy their drinks mainly because Coca-Cola is the designated drink of the Olympic Games.

Generally speaking, sponsorship will increase brand awareness, make consumers have a friendly attitude towards enterprises, and finally achieve the purpose of expanding sales. For consumers, sponsorship is different from traditional advertising that focuses on product sales. Sponsorship can not bring specific knowledge of brands or products, but it can improve consumers' feelings for sponsoring enterprises. Trust, love and respect for sponsoring enterprises can stimulate consumers' desire to buy brands or products. As the most important content of sports marketing, sponsorship is to establish or improve the relationship between enterprises and consumers. The two sides have generated the same concern through sports, and the corporate image and brand thus created can of course be more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and it is not easy to be shaken, thus driving the improvement of performance.

As a traditional official sponsor of FIFA and the World Cup, Adidas provided uniforms for six participating teams in this year's World Cup. At present, the sales of the company's football products account for about 20% of Adidas' turnover. The president of Adidas said that they hope to increase the turnover of football products by 20% to 25% with the help of the 2006 World Cup effect, and achieve the sales target of 1, 65,438+billion US dollars.

Take advantage of the situation to show the spiritual connotation of the brand

Of course, sports marketing is not only carried out by sports-related product brands, but also sponsored by brands such as Samsung Electronics, Budweiser Beer and Nongfu Spring. This is because the biggest feature of sports marketing is public welfare. Sports is the universal language of human beings, which embodies the spiritual value of human beings. Therefore, products do not have to have the spiritual connotation of "sports" to sponsor sports. Among the 12 companies that sponsored the 2008 Olympic Games, most of their product images are not directly related to sports, such as Samsung Electronics, Xerox, Time Magazine, Panasonic, McDonald's and other big brands.

Nongfu Spring Company is a domestic company with sports industry as its marketing direction. With its sponsorship of 1998 French World Cup, 1999 45th World Table Tennis Championships and 2000 Olympic Games, Nongfu Spring brand gives people an impression that it is not just water, but has gradually become a symbol of various sportsmanship such as positivity, self-confidence, unity and hard work. Starting from this year, they launched the activity of "buying a bottle of Nongfu Spring and donating a penny to bid for the Olympic Games", thus enhancing the corporate brand. At the same time, it also conveyed that "the dream of Nongfu Spring is the same as that of China Sports, that is' Gold Medal and Health'".

Brand is a kind of relationship and link between products and consumers, which is established in the minds of consumers. It not only represents the product image, but also represents the market image of the enterprise, so an enterprise with a well-known brand can effectively improve its popularity and reputation and lay a solid foundation for its further development. One of the purposes of global sponsorship activities of multinational corporations is to strengthen the brand awareness of global consumers, and brand awareness is the basis for building brand loyalty.

In this century, the ultimate market competition is brand competition, and the future marketing is the competition of intangible brand assets across national boundaries. As a famous advertising research expert said: "The future marketing is a brand war, and the business community and investors will realize that the brand is the company's most valuable asset. Owning a market is far more important than owning a factory, and the only way to own a market is to have a brand with market advantages first. "

Choose sponsors carefully.

Before carrying out sports marketing, enterprises must have a good product base, correct product positioning and brand personality that is highly consistent with enterprise strategy. At the same time, brand development depends on brand long-term strategy and continuous brand building, and event sponsorship is only an auxiliary factor rather than a decisive condition for it. Whether it is used or not depends entirely on whether it is needed. If you just take a fancy to a certain point, you throw it in without thinking, and the result will only be a temporary increase in sales, which will not play much role in the long-term accumulation of brand value. If it does not conform to the brand positioning, it will disturb consumers' cognition of the brand.

Hu Gang, a brand expert, pointed out that sponsorship activities must combine the brand personality of enterprises with the spirit of activities, which is the focus that domestic enterprises often ignore. The sponsorship of most domestic enterprises often has nothing to do with their own development strategies, or blindly compares the sponsorship strategies of competitors, so we should be familiar with consumers. As everyone knows, this not only does not "target" the limited funds of enterprises, but also disperses the unified image of enterprises or brands in the minds of consumers, making consumers "unintelligible".

It is worth mentioning that domestic enterprises have attached importance to the promotion and promotion of sports marketing to brands. For example, Anta regards sports marketing as a magic weapon to build a first-class enterprise. Anta sponsored many top domestic events, from CBA professional league to national volleyball league, from CUBA to extreme sports, from the 10th National Games to table tennis super league. Anta can be seen everywhere in the top sports venues in China. After long-term shaping of professional events, Anta's professional image has been deeply rooted in people's hearts. From 20065438+0 to 2004, the comprehensive market share of Anta sports shoes ranked first in the industry for four consecutive years.

Anta chose CBA, not because of fame, but because of strategic considerations. Basketball in China is different from NBA, which does not emphasize heroes and myths, but emphasizes greater development through continuous efforts, which meets the requirements of Anta in brand spirit and cultural orientation, and this has also become the reason for Anta to provide sponsorship.

Nowadays, sports marketing has become a battleground for many multinational enterprises. For the vast number of enterprises in China, there is great room for development and a long way to go.