General Motors Chief Marketing Officer Joel Ewanick said today that soccer – the kind played with a round ball – has a much larger global fan base than American football and a new five-year marketing deal with global soccer powerhouse Manchester United will boost Chevrolet’s global sales.
The NFL has about 400 million fans, Ewanick said, compared with about 3.5 billion fans of soccer. Of those, about 669 million people are fans of Manchester United, which is part of the England's globally followed Premier League.
“As we look around the world and …we found a really great partner in Manchester United,” Ewanick said today at GM's global headquarters in Detroit. “Manchester United is one of the most popular sport franchisees in the world.”
Chevrolet's sponsorship deal with the team includes advertising in Manchester United's stadium, specially designed seats for the players on the sidelines with the Chevrolet logo and numerous global marketing opportunities with the team’s players.
The agreement also includes the creation of the Chevrolet China Cup as part of the Manchester United 2012 Tour. The Chevrolet China Cup, scheduled for July, will feature matches in Shanghai and another Chinese city.
Globally, Chevrolet sold 4.77 million vehicles in 2011 and expects to sell more than 5 million this year. To grow Chevrolet needs to boost its advertising in markets like China and Brazil, Ewanick said.
Only about one-third of GM’s global marketing budget, estimated at about $4.5 billion, is spent in the U.S., Ewanick said.
The announcement of the deal with Manchester United comes on the heels of news earlier this month that General Motors has decided not to advertise in the Super Bowl this year and will stop advertising on Facebook.
Ewanick said both decisions were driven by a careful evaluation of where General Motors can most effectively allocate its advertising dollars.
One week after the Super Bowl, Ewanick said he attended a soccer game in Liverpool, England, that drew a television audience twice the size of that for the Super Bowl.
“And that was just a league match,” Ewanick said.
Observers have said GM’s decision about the Super Bowl seems very early, and could be a negotiating tactic. Today, Ewanick said that is not the case.
“We’re done. We really are reapplying those dollars and they know that,” Ewanick said of CBS, which has the broadcast rights for the 2013 Super Bowl. “We could always change our mind. But right now, the door is shut.”
Ewanick said the television audience for the Super Bowl isn’t growing, but GM was being asked to pay significantly more for air time.
That doesn’t mean GM is pulling back on its relationship with the NFL in general. Ewanick said he believes that GM is the largest advertiser during NFL games and plans to increase its presence during this year’s playoff games.
“We are not spending less here,” Ewanick said.
When it comes to Facebook, Ewanick said he views the social media giant as an effective way to talk to customers, employees and car enthusiasts on the company’s brand pages.
However, he said research shows that people find advertisements on Facebook to be an annoying interruption.
“What we hear from customers, they say it is a little bit distracting,” Ewanick said.
GM also said today it has entered a three-year partnership with the One World Futbol Project, creators of the One World Futbol.
The organization manufactures soccer balls that it distributes to children in impoverished countries around the world. Many of those children play soccer with improvised soccer balls made of plastic bags, rubber, leaves or other material bound together by twine.
This ball is designed to survive games played on rough fields and is able to reinflate when it is crushed.
GM’s sponsorship will result in 1.5 million virtually indestructible footballs being donated to youth in war-stricken zones, refugee camps, disaster areas and other disadvantaged communities around the world.
“Today is more than just about sponsorship or partnership. It is about passion, it is about responsibility, it is about heroic potential,” said Lisa Tarver, cofounder and COO of One World Futbol. “Without a ball, there is no game.”
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