World Cup Marketing Campaign Korean Style – money in the bank!

The whole world (except for the English-speaking part of the U.S. population, who still view soccer as a minority sport) was glued to TV sets, computers and radios, following the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.

One of the competing teams is South Korea that co-hosted the previous event in 2002, generating a $260 million profit for FIFA.
The 2002 competition gave a timely boost to South Korea's growing economy.
Korea spent $2.5 billion on new stadiums, most of them in rural areas far from the capital Seoul, thus boosting the local construction industry.

Its participation in the World Cup 2006 is a big deal in South Korea and its banks found a way to leverage this by expanding their customer base.
They offer new and existing customers gifts and higher interest rates for new time depositors during the FIFA World Cup.
This World Cup marketing campaign will last until the tournament ends early July 2006.

Banks and card firms have been capitalizing on the World Cup through aggressive marketing, offering airplane tickets to Germany to new customers, as well as incentives to purchasers of its new time-deposit products.
As the World Cup unfolds, their marketing is also going into full gear.

Shinhan Bank has launched the sale of special time deposit products offering 1% point higher interest rates than ordinary time deposits.
For new depositors, the bank will hold a lottery to offer air conditioners, digital cameras and other gifts.
It also plans to give a 60% discount in currency exchange rates to those who have tickets to World Cup games in Germany.

Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) will hold an event to offer gifts to those who guess the right scores for Korea's games against France and Switzerland beforehand.
Hana Bank plans to exempt service fees for Internet banking for those who buy its stock price index-linked deposits until the end of June 2006.
To quote a KEB official:
“The World Cup is an opportunity for savers to have more interest income.
It also provides banks an opportunity to attract more customers.
That is good for both banks and customers.”
If the Korean team progresses to the next rounds, the bank will offer higher interest rates for some time deposits.
It also promised to offer 10% points higher rates for some deposits if Korea wins the tournament.
If midfielder Lee Young-pyo, the bank’s ad model, scores or sets up a goal during the tournament, the bank will offer 1% point higher interest rate to 200 selected depositors.

Woori Bank will offer 0.2 percentage point higher interest rate to purchasers of its one-year time deposit whenever Park Ji-sung scores.

Card firms have offered tickets to World Cup games and free nights at famous tourist attractions in Germany to winners of lotteries.
They also plan to launch new credit cards giving discounts for football and other sports games.

No matter how the World Cup will end for the teams –the Korean banks are already winners!

Ambush marketing and the FIFA World Cup 2006

Ambush (or guerilla) marketing occurs when one brand pays to become an official sponsor of an event (most often athletic) and another competing brand attempts to cleverly connect itself with the event, without paying the sponsorship fee and, more frustratingly, without breaking any laws.
Ambush marketing is as undeniably effective as it is damaging, attracting consumers at the expense of competitors, all the while undermining an event’s integrity and, most importantly, its ability to attract future sponsors.
An example is Nike that searched for creative ways to make a link to the World Cup vs. Adidas taht paid for sponsorship.

It is no surprise that ambush marketing techniques are at their utmost when the stakes are highest.
Stakes are never higher than at galactic sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup 2006.
As a result, ambush marketing has evolved into a combative art form.

The clash of free expression and commercial rights has become more critical as sports and business become increasingly intertwined, with total global spending on corporate sponsorships expected to reach $34 billion this year.
The official World Cup 2006 sponsors paid a whopping €30 million to €50 million, or $38 million to $63 million, for rights to associate with the games.
The rights the sponsors got are based on IP (Intellectual Property) principles.

To prevent ambush marketing, FIFA established a Rights Protection Programme (RPP) that involves a wide range of initiatives including a global trademark registration program, the worldwide appointment of legal experts, and collaboration with customs and police authorities in all key regions of the world.
So far, more than 1,200 cases in 65 countries have been pursued in connection with the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ and more than 850 have already been successfully closed.
Most of the cases were settled out of court with only 150 needing court litigation.

However, unlike piracy or counterfeiting, ambush marketing cases are rarely actionable, especially if the ambushers know what they are doing.

Marketers of unofficial World Cup goods are careful to avoid anything that would open themselves up to a FIFA legal challenge.
They simply include footballs, pitches, goalposts and football phrases -- all of it in the public domain and not subject to any trademark laws -- in the hope that the World Cup euphoria taking hold of Germany will make their products irresistible.

Take the German airline Lufthansa.
Its advertisements featured German and Brazilian soccer athletes, along with a seasonal soccer logo swoosh, LH2006, which just might lead people to suspect certain connections.
Lufthansa emphasized that they were not associating with the World Cup and that they took care not to use the trademark, FIFA World Cup 2006.

And if done cleverly, the alternative advertisements can have an even stronger impact than the officially sponsored publicity.
The Swiss Tourist Board, promoting the Alps, is a good example.
Since May, the Board televised advertisements in France, Germany and Italy.
They feature a cow-milking “Mr. Switzerland” and other handsome men trying to entice soccer widows to leave their sports-obsessed men behind.
“Dear girls, why not escape this summer's World Cup to a country where men spend less time on football, and more time on you?” the advertisement croons while showing images of a strapping farmhand, a sexy train conductor, a fit mountain climber, a dapper ferryman and a brawny lumberjack.

During the World Cup, Tom Houseman, head of legal affairs at FIFA Marketing and Television, was waging a war to prevent goodwill being eroded by trademark infringement, illegal tickets sales and ambush marketing, working across jurisdictions to police the infringements of FIFA’s IP –not an easy task.

To quote Adidas America spokesperson Travis Gonzolez:
“If everyone throws up their logos, it’s all-out war.”