For years the auto industry has been asking: how long before the Vauxhall marque becomes Opel? Maybe the question now needs rephrasing: how long before Opel becomes Chevrolet?
Certainly Opel becoming – in the fullness of time – Chevrolet would be one logical outcome of the sponsorship deal its owner, General Motors, has just struck with British Premier League football club Manchester United.
But that’s just a side-light on a global marketing communications strategy that actually has very little to do with Europe, where Chevrolet accounts for only 1.5% of total car sales. Symbolically, the sponsorship agreement between GM and Manchester United has been inked in Shanghai. Recent research by Kantar found that over half of Man U’s estimated 659 million fans worldwide are to be found in emerging markets, such as the BRICS. That is exactly where GM is targeting most growth for its prime brand, Chevrolet.
All very fine, you may say. But isn’t this just another example of fame-hungry GM global marketing supremo Joel Ewanick grabbing the headlines? And a costly one too, which may not eventually stack up. After all, what traction does a British football club – even one whose brand has achieved substantial recognition in the rest of the world – have in the market where Chevy currently sells most of its 4.76 million units a year? Not that much really (despite Kantar’s projection of a 35 million Man U following in the USA – who are these people?).
Some might go even further and claim Ewanick and GM are actually being unpatriotic. What this sponsorship deal is really about is cocking a snook at America’s prime sport, baseball: Ewanick has personally decided that Super Bowl ads are too expensive (at $3.4m for 30 seconds prime time, a not unreasonable point of view) and he’s perversely made his point by concluding a deal with a sport that cannot have any discernible uplift on US sales in the immediate future. Nor is this an inexpensive gesture. Recent sponsorships deals with Man U have not exactly cost peanuts. In 2010, for example, the club struck an agreement with insurance firm Aon worth £80m ($125m) over 4 years.
There may of course be a grain of truth in these objections. Ewanick’s behaviour is clearly tactical as well as strategic in intent. It is designed, at one level, to bring the Super Bowl ratecard (and let’s throw in the Facebook ratecard while we’re there) to heel by demonstrating there is a marcoms alternative. But a tactic is exactly what it is. My betting is he cannot afford to boycott either platform in the longer run.
Posted by stuartsmithsblog 
