Archives for posts with tag: Manchester United

Brands Are Ephemeral Assets (not quite part 2)

July 31, 2012 //
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As a follow-up to my previous post, Bloomberg just ran the story that the reason for Joel Ewanick’s ouster as CMO at General Motors was his sponsoring of the Manchester United jersey, and the terms (read: cost) of that agreement.

It makes total sense for GM to be on the chest of ManU players. Fantastic global exposure and a very good brand defense strategy.

The real issue, in my opinion, is not cost, but the fact that Ewanick chose Chevrolet as the mark to appear on the jerseys. He made the right move, then completely ruined it by pairing a crappy automobile brand (I’m excluding trucks) with a hugely successful global sports brand.

Great idea! Wrong brand!!!

The right move would have been to put the GM logo on the jersey. Whether or not you like GM’s products, it’s difficult to argue with the company’s success as a global automobile manufacturer. Yes the company has fallen on tough times recently (as has Manchester United!), but in advertising we don’t discuss finance, we exploit emotion.

The money allows Manchester United to continue shopping for global talent (while the Glazers suck the club dry for money), allowing the club to continue asserting itself in domestic and international competitions. And as ManU’s games are broadcast internationally—a huge viewership!—GM will receive valuable brand impressions in both established and emerging markets.

A win-win, if you know how to play it right.

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Categories Marketing

Brands Are Ephemeral Assets

July 29, 2012 //
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A while ago I wrote about soccer (i.e. football) and commercial sponsorships. A month later I learned that Manchester United was planning to go public on the New York Stock Exchange, which made Casillero del Diablo’s advertising that it was the “official wine partner” of Manchester United seem almost prescient. The company had apparently placed itself in a good position to ride the coat tails of ManU’s global media push.

What Casillero del Diablo didn’t count on was the Glazer family’s inability to comprehend where the actual financial value of ManU comes from: the consumers of the ManU product.

On Thursday, The Guardian posted “Manchester United’s New York setback exposes failings of Glazers plan,” by Stuart James. The piece nicely describes the IPO that the Glazers had planned, and how it would offer no value to buyers (you really wouldn’t be able to call them “investors” based on the terms proposed).

A first IPO had already failed in Asia, where a rabid fan base exists. Fans in Asia have committed suicide when they were not able to secure tickets for the team’s exhibition matches. All that  the Glazers seem to understand is that they are currently owners of an internationally valuable trademark, and that the next best place to exploit that would be the NYSE. But not many people in the U.S. care about the sport or that team in particular. NASCAR, on the other hand, would be a smash hit IPO.

What the Glazers do not understand is that a brand exists only in the mind of the customer/consumer. And that makes a brand ephemeral. The definition of ephemeral is “short-lived,” but we know there are hundred-year-old brands, and older. What ephemeral refers to is that as soon as you disenfranchise the consumer—the individual who gives your product or trademark brand status—this asset loses value.

Being ephemeral is worse than being intangible. Patents are intangible, but they have a guaranteed shelf-life. And the Glazers don’t seem to grasp that you cannot just milk a brand for revenue without also nurturing the brand consumer, which is the process that gives a brand longevity.

Customer satisfaction gives your brand life and keeps it alive.

(Innovation helps, too, but that’s based on “utility” which is unique to each consumer.)

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Categories Marketing