Passion, pride and emotion

English soccer fans breathed a collective sigh of relief in October when the national team qualified for the World Cup finals in Germany. At the last minute, a showdown with Poland was averted and memories of 1973 and ‘that goalkeeper’ were banished for another few years.

Now there is a return to club soccer for a few months with thoughts of international glory steadily re-emerging as the build up to next June continues.

If the fans were delighted that the team got through to the final stages, then so too were numerous companies involved in the promotional merchandise industry. The tournament offers a great opportunity to shift product and for customers to think up marketing ideas and gimmicks that reflect the excitement.

On paper it would seem to be an excellent vehicle to climb aboard. However, what is the reality? Does the World Cup present a genuine opportunity or would your customers simply think you’d jumped on a rather obvious bandwagon?
“It’s not jumping on the bandwagon,” says BTC Group’s Frank Murphy. “We’re in the age of firms having to seize every possible marketing opportunity and the World Cup offers one of the highest profile opportunities for this.”

This is echoed by David Fox of Inspire Promotions. He predicts a busy few months for manufacturers.“If you go back a couple of years you can see how the country was transfixed by Euro 2004,” he says. “With items such as car flags you could hardly walk down a street without seeing someone showing their support. The expectation is that the response will be much higher for the World Cup.”

Indeed, Fox is seeing healthy interest at the moment with plenty of orders already being taken and processed.

Both companies count among their clients a number of brands that, both Fox and Murphy think, will undoubtedly be doing something around the World Cup next summer.

The ideas would seem to be endless but there are a few obvious products that would fit nicely with the atmosphere the event will doubtless create. Stress balls and cushions provide something to help take the nerves of a penalty shoot-out away, beer holders will help cool the important refreshments while key rings and flags will provide their users with the opportunity of showing their support while you keep your brand on their horizon, even during the most exciting of matches.

“It’s of the moment and topical and if you can do something legal and harmless you have a great chance of associating your brand with the competition,” says Murphy.
Mention of the term ‘legal’ is important and Murphy is quick to offer advice to prospective buyers and, indeed, other manufacturers of promotional items.
“You have to be very careful with how you brand the products,” he says adding that anything that mentions the World Cup has to have been authorised by the tournament’s organiser.“Go through the official channels,” he says. “Check with the organising committee that what you are buying is officially sanctioned material, you can end up in trouble for distributing unapproved or pirated goods.”

For his part, David Fox, realising that copyright could be a problem, took steps to register Inspire’s own branding.“We have put the words ‘Come on England, Passion and Pride’ on a number of our items including wrist bands, car flags and the soon to be unveiled range of iPod covers,” he says. “This is how we hope the team performs.”Fox sees the cross of St George as an excellent canvas for companies to get their message across.“Purely in terms of its physicality the flag contains large areas which offer great space for maximum exposure,” he says. “Indeed, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that certain firms could use them jointly.”

Both Fox and Murphy agree that clients should be thinking now about how they are going to incorporate the tournament into their marketing campaigns.
“It’s no good sending people things in June, you should be thinking about getting products out from April and taking advantage of the build up,” says Fox. “Then, if the team does well you could be thinking about following up the initial items with something that celebrates the success. Who knows, if the team does very well indeed, some of the promotional merchandise could become collectable.”

An interesting thought, indeed, one that confirms a basic human psychology behind why the industry is predicting a busy few months. People like to be associated with success and it makes sense for companies to, in turn, try to associate themselves with this success. After all, it would be daft to associate yourself with failure.

Fox uses the example of last year’s Ashes series to make the point.
“Before the series, England was expected to lose heavily and there was comparatively little promotional activity going on,” he says. “However, look at what happened as soon as the team won.”

Although much of the country will probably be swept along by the excitement of the moment, the fact still remains that there will be a significant number left who have no interest in the football and who will not necessarily welcome a gift associated with it. Again, Murphy advises careful planning.

“I’m sure very few people would be offended by it but there will inevitably be those for whom it means nothing,” he says. “However, with everything a firm does nowadays there has to be strategic thinking and the gifts people send tend to be far more considered, you simply have to match the right gift to the appropriate person.”

It’s going to be a hectic few months but Murphy and Fox are not looking forward to putting their feet up and having a well earned rest come June. Instead they will be following England’s progress through the competition and getting ready to take the orders if the team comes away with a gold medal.

“After that of course there’ll be the Olympics,” says Fox. “And that is going to be an even bigger outpouring of passion, pride and emotion.”

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