For obvious reasons, Motorsports such as: NASCAR or F1 have always been one of the major division of branding that Carmakers have focused on but it is recently taking a turn as soccer is starting to turn into a market for major car manufacturers in the world for them to promote their products.
A few days ago Nissan and Manchester City announced a partnership, in the same fashion as Manchester United and Chevrolet have been doing for the past years. The official jersey of Manchester United will display a very large logo of the carmaker Chevrolet and it seems like Nissan is doing the same way with Manchester City.
This is a trend that has recently started to take a boost as more and more brands in the world of automotive are beginning to use soccer as a way to promote their respective products. Hyundai took a gamble as they went on to sponsor the recently concluded World Cup while Fiat-Chrysler went on a venture of their own with the Italian side Juventus.
Nissan, Manchester United and all the other carmakers that have taken a leap into the world of soccer are betting that these sponsorships and connections will increase their respective sales of their cars which is a viable and wise method of further boosting the sales of their corresponding automotive considering the amount of attention that a club like Manchester United or Manchester City attract in the Premier League.
The deals that are made between the clubs and the automotive brands usually are usually worth around $500m and it’s safe to say that Nissan, Chevrolet and the other rest of them have seriously viewed soccer as a healthy and positive media to promote their products.
Some time ago, the CEO of the German automobile brand: Opel expressed his satisfaction to the public after reaching an agreement with Manchester United as he said:
‘’We will keep the Chevrolet logo on the shirts for the whole of the deal because we can get 300m Chinese viewers watching Manchester United every week The appetite for English football is huge there, and growing.”
Soccer is now turning into a channel for brands to bet on as a way to display their products to the public.
