#360Business: UCL & F1 are key to Nissan

Alam Khan - Reporter 07:56 08/12/2014
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  • Billion dollar drive: The Infiniti brand is thought to have yielded more than $1bn through it’s partnership with the Red Bull Formula One team in 2013.

    When Nissan teamed up with Red Bull Racing in 2011, it was the beginning of something special to help them become a driving force in sport.

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    Not only in terms of the success as the Formula One team racked up three constructors’ championships and the same in drivers’ titles for the indomitable Sebastian Vettel, but it brought the Japanese firm’s Infiniti brand to the fore.

    According to global research company Repucom, after Infiniti was named title partner in 2013 it became the first F1 team spon­sor to receive more than $1billion (Dh3.67bn) in a season in advertis­ing value.

    “If you take Infiniti at that time you could argue it was a great prod­uct and great brand, but no one really knew about it,” says Andreas Sigl, director for the Nis­san Motor Company’s global brand and sponsorship strategy and formerly global director of Infiniti Formula One.

    “We needed an immediate boost and global pres­ence and awareness – and that you are a serious premium perform­ance brand. Formula One gives you the global footprint, gives you the frequency of events, and clearly it stands for performance. If you look at Nissan more and more we are now globalising things.”

    And nothing reaches out more than sport, and in particular, football. By linking up with the City Football Group, Nissan has a presence at Premier League cham­pions Manchester City and beyond, including their ambitious women’s team and partner clubs in New York, Melbourne and Yokohama.

    But it is this season’s new spon­sorship of the UEFA Champions League that is expected to bring the most exposure and biggest dividends. For Sigl, Europe’s elite club competition could be regarded as a more prominent platform for brands than showpiece events, the World Cup and Olympics.

    “Depending on what numbers you believe and what your objec­tive is, it’s easily amongst the top three [of sporting sponsorships] and it could even be No1 if you look at frequency because the World Cup and Olympics is every four years,” said the German.

    “While it is called European as in UEFA, it goes way beyond that to the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Mexico and Latin America. For us, it ticks a lot of the boxes.

    “You have to look at where a brand or business is at a certain stage. We behave more overall as one brand, but we have to articu­late what we stand for and who we are. And to have a presence that is always there. We all know about Coca Cola and they are still out there today. You have to be in people’s lives and football allows us to do that.

    “There are few mechanisms to break through and get in front of people. As we are a volume brand we need a platform that talks to a lot of people and talks to people in an emotional way.

    “With the Champions League, you have frequency, the geographi­cal footprint and can argue it has the creme de la crème. It has the wow factor, that in one game, you see a lot of superstars.”

    And Nissan has teamed up with three of those too. Barcelona’s brilliant midfielder Andres Iniesta, Manchester City’s powerhouse Yaya Toure and Thiago Silva, the classy Paris Saint-Germain defender, are ambassadors and the embodiment of their ‘Engineers of Excitement’ slogan.

    “You want some of that image to rub off on us,” adds Sigl. 

    “Our promise is that we are engineers of excitement, and we want the think­ing man of football to appreciate the technique of Iniesta, Yaya and Silva. Maybe they are not the most obvious, tattooed, crazy guys but articulate and technical architects, and engineers of the game.

    “That’s our approach with mak­ing cars and we want to fit into the same image. The trick to this sponsorship is first to know what you want and have a strategy that you pursue, rather than sit on your couch and wait for sales people to come and sell something to you that is bringing you somewhere you don’t want to go.”

    Where Ford once stood for 22 years, Nissan have now aligned themselves with UEFA in an initial four-year deal.

    While Sigl is coy about the company’s financial input, sponsor packages are reported to be worth more than £45m (Dh258m) a year.

    He adds: “This is not a chair­man’s choice, where the boss believes in football and chooses it. It’s on us now to prove by acting and maximising what we do and measuring how much we are get­ting out of it.

    The Nissan Stadium in Japan.

    “The question is, either the opportunity cost because you would have spent it anyway on advertising or something, and more importantly, is it worth it, are you getting your return? We believe so. We are very profit driven and numbers driven and wouldn’t have done it for fun.

    “What you see now with the Champions League, UEFA are being very selective with their partners so it’s not too cluttered.

    “You have six partners and two suppliers. Once you are in it, you are in it. You don’t have a wallpaper with 32 brands. It’s exclusive and we are the exclusive automobile partner. Then there’s so many more levels of activation than just boards, like the ‘Goal of the Week’ and we have ambassadors and you can bring people alive. We are reaching out.”

    While the ‘Goal of the Week’ provides important interaction with fans, Sigl admits they want to be more involved with the compe­tition.

    “You want to have that excite­ment but you don’t want all the fireworks and then nothing,” he adds. “We still have to make sure we have excitement in years two, three, four and five. We want to come in and challenge conventions in the sport, within automotive partners and what we deliver to fans. So the trick is not to lose sight, but do things the Nissan way.”

    With the Infiniti agreement with Red Bull ending next year, there is talk they could move on now the team has lost its top spot, and its leading driver Vettel, who is joining Ferrari.

    As Infiniti’s director of perform­ance, Vettel offered his insight and input to help develop road cars, such as the FX50 Vettel edition SUV, the Q50 sedan and Eau Rouge performance version.

    Sigl says: “We are still covered with the [Red Bull] deal and we will look at it. But right now there is no change.

    “Unfortunately, Vettel is moving on, but we had a fantastic ride.”

    The ride, it seems, has only just begun for Nissan, though, as it revs up to make a greater impact. While there are various options to con­sider in the future, Sigl says a shirt deal of a football club is not in their immediate plans. But they may look at having players as regional ambassadors, including the Gulf.

    “It’s possible. In principle we have Max Meyer, someone in Ger­many for Germany,” he says.

    “We have the relationship with Manchester City and within City Football. We are on the women’s team shirts, boards, but you have to look at the whole package besides just being on a jersey.

    “Our primary focus is leagues, like the Champions League, and we have access to a club like City that allows us to experiment with things. But you also need people to make it emotional and real, such as Yaya, Andres, Silva and Max Meyer. That ticks the boxes.”

    And so too does having Usain Bolt as another of their ambas­sadors in the lead-up to the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

    “We call him our director of excitement,” adds Sigl. “He’s bigger than the sport, he’s bigger than one country. And, with the other ambassadors, he helps us connect through sport.”

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