The marketing website BrandRepublic.com recently ran an article about the question whether or not beer brand advertising will suffer at the Fifa World Cups in Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022. In the article two experts give their view on the situation, both concluding that beer sponsorship will shift its attention from around the football field itself, to social channels and the broadcasting of the game.
Since the legal restrictions on alcohol advertising have recently been strengthened in Russia, alcohol producers are worried about their advertising options during the 2018 Russian Fifa World Cup. Anthony Marcou, sports brand marketing consultant at Sports Revolution, underlines that Russia spans nine time zones, which means that there’s a very big area where alcohol marketing is as good as prohibited. Both Marcou and Tove Okunniwa, sports marketing consultant at MEC ACCESS, stress that alcohol advertising is traditionally the biggest category of advertising around World Cups.
Both experts agree that while beer producers are worried over the restricted possibilities for advertising, there are multiple ways that they can still market their products. Marcou predicts the use of technology that ‘digitally replaces the pitchside billboard advertising in the live TV broadcast’. In this way broadcasters and producers can tailor the composition of billboards around the football field to suit the possibilities of each region individually. Both experts also expect to see more alcohol marketing through social media and mobile media. All these possibilities have one thing in common: That producers have to become more flexible in the way they market their product.
Read the full article at BrandRepublic.com