Skip to main content

Nike Scored the last Goal, not Spain!

Image
By
Based on preliminary reports the 2010 World Cup, which was hosted by South Africa was a success - in viewership, merchandise and even tourism. The point of today's commentary is not to talk about the cup's success, but about the who really scored the last goal.
As I came across the attached email I began to think what an amazing job Nike had done through out the world cup in order to ambush Adidas marketing. Sure, after Adidas noticed Nike's approach) and well known strategic point of view (i.e. Olympics in Barcelona) they took it to FIFA and pretty much said, "we are paying you millions of dollars to be the "World Cup" sponsor, make sure its known. Any how, so as the month long tournament progressed, there were more mentions of the soccer ball, and the importance of its sponsors.
With all of the above said, I have a couple of comments to close with (thought starters if you will)?
  1. It is usually said "no publicity is bad publicity." Can Adidas really say this? I mean, there was a constant reiteration from the narrators on the constant discontent the players were with the Jubulani.
  2. Should we as sport's fans be annoyed that a corporation was trying to alter the game by changing the most essential item of the game itself, the ball? I would like to remind them that soccer is not all about goals - its about the constant strategic struggle between two teams driven by goals and pride - it is not basketball (though I love this sport as well)
  3. If you were Adidas, what would you have done to stop/control Nike's big audacious goal to claim the top spot of 'the' world cup sponsor?
Finally, and going back to the title of this post, how can you compete against a company that very intelligently launched an insightful spot full of pop culture references? More over, a spot that rhetorically asked/suggested the public to write the future. Or even better, a company that without buying air time in the middle of the game gets constantly viewed because they sponsor the teams, and most importantly, the shoes? After all, who would have thought that having such an advanced technology (TV specific) would play to Nike's benefit with the amazing zoom-ins when scoring and/sliding...
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Necessary Brand Extension?

By
As the yogurt wars continue to strengthen, brands are needing to find a stronger point of differentiation and go after stronger niches. While reading something online a couple of days ago, the above ad came up and left me thinking; is this right? Let me begin by saying that I love yogurt and in fact have it for breakfast most often than not. To be quite frank, I have never being a big fan of Yoplait - it's too sweet for my taste. This could very well be the fact that I grew up in Mexico, where yogurt is sour, so in my mind, the more sour it is the more natural. So you might be wondering what brand of yogurt I buy - well it is actually Greek, Fage, and I have to say that I love it. With that said, and given my inquisitive nature, I began asking people if they would buy the Yoplait Greek. Interestingly enough, of those who are currently buying some sort of Greek yogurt, not necessarily Fage said that they wouldn't buy it. Those who consumer Yoplait said that they would definitely...
Post a Comment
Read more

Consultants: Saving a business but killing your own

By
As I was waiting on gate D3 in the New York LaGuardia airport, and while waiting for a colleague to get her boarding pass out, I couldn’t help but seeing the guy that you see in the picture. Ok, so far, well you’re probably thinking, well, he looks pretty normal, well dressed, sorry, let me rephrase that, is wearing a suit and tie. Now what caught my attention was when he moved to adjust his place on the 50” seat, you could see his gut just coming out… badly! Please understand that it is not that I am super fit, I mean I like to exercise, and I would do it more if I could. Going back to my observation, immediately after thinking “oh man, that guys is pretty chubby, I thought, well, it must be from all of the crap there has to eat at the airports. I decided to observe a couple more people and see if I saw the following trend: 1. Does he look like a business man? a. Based on the attire. I know that many people whom are business man don’t travel with a suit and tie, bu...
Post a Comment
Read more

We Are Nomads Connected to the World via the Net

By
I was just thinking of the power of the internet and social networking. Just thinking about your life and where you currently are, is this where you are from? Is this where you were born? It seems as if we are constantly moving in order to conquer different things, in order to achieve what we see as our goals. So back to the purpose of this post, social networking. How has the internet changed the way we you life and friends? I mean you can practically move to wherever in the world you want and still have "friends"... or cant you? Has your human contact declined, have you even noticed if it had?
Post a Comment
Read more