2021 – the year of sports marketing

Teams from 32 countries competed in the Lidl-sponsored Handball World Championship, with representatives from 4 continents. American football is also becoming more popular around the world, attracting millions of spectators to the February 7th Super Bowl.

Handball is the post-COVID pioneered

January 13-31, 2021. the 27th IHF Handball World Championships were held in Egypt. Teams came from 32 countries, a huge atmosphere, quality handball and a big game of virus treatment took place. The Olympic Committee also sent an observer to gather experience for the summer games.

Lidl has been working with the organization for 5 years now and this is the third IHF World Championship it is sponsoring. Circumstances have changed since the 2017 French and 2019 German-Danish settlements. There, the show, broadcasts and fans were the focus. This year there were closed doors matches. Lidl’s sponsorship appearance was seen in the halls, on the floor stickers on the tracks, on media surfaces and on the jerseys of quite a few teams.

Hungarian peak

In Hungary, those interested could follow the matches on the M4 Sport channel, m4sport.hu and mediaklikk.hu. We also managed to set a new peak, because the France-Hungary match was the most watched handball broadcast in Hungary since the launch of M4 Sport. The meeting was followed by 438 thousand spectators (live, as a guest or with a time shift) on M4 Sport and 28 thousand online on m4sport.hu and mediaklikk.hu. 10.4% of TV viewers chose this broadcast and 817,000 joined the match for at least a minute. The Hungarian team finished in the prestigious 5th place behind Denmark, Sweden, Spain and France.

Absent brands?

The Super Bowl is the final of the major American football league, the NFL. In the US, the event is almost a national holiday, followed by millions. This year, the 55th Super Bowl will be held in Tampa, Florida on Sunday, February 7th.

The previous weeks had already been filled with loud media noise, with enticing and mysterious advertisements and announcements shaking the mood. Traditional advertisers like Hyundai, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Audi, Budweiser have announced that they will opt out of advertising at the event, while still joining the Super Bowl in a broader sense with their social media appearances. At the same time, companies advertised their other brands in the grand final or appeared in sponsorship to attract more than 100 million consumers.

Budweiser published the video “Bigger Picture” to explain the background of its decision to use its released resources to promote the COVID-19 vaccine. The video was very well received on social media, is referred to as an advertisement for the Budweiser Super Bowl with record access. The other 4 brands of the brand owner, AB InBev, on the other hand, are advertised in the Super Bowl.

Participants

Frito-Lay ’s Cheetos aims to build anticipation for its Super Bowl ad and new product with the teaser spot of the introduction of the Cheetos Crunch Pop Mix snack mashup. The teaser stars actor Ashton Kutcher.  Frito-Lay also will air a spot for Doritos and a “portfolio campaign” for its entire lineup of brands. Parent company PepsiCo will also run an ad for Mtn Dew soda. The soda giant will have a dominant presence again as the name sponsor of the halftime show featuring singer The Weeknd.

However, the event is shaping up to be an important platform for newcomers — especially digitally focused companies that have benefited from the pandemic — to shore up gains made in 2020 and plot a path forward for another uncertain year. Fiverr the freelance services provider is one of them. Amid high unemployment levels due to the pandemic, online job site Indeed has decided to run its first-ever Super Bowl commercial too.

Participating major brands including Cadillac, Jeep, General Motors, Toyota, Skechers, T-mobile, Amazon, Procter & Gamble, Huggies, M&M’s will capture the attention of viewers with humor, storytelling and celebrities.

Star parade

Many well-known personalities appear in these special advertisements. Eddie Murphy is advertising Amazon Studios’ Coming2America film. Amazon brings a new Alexa voice-controlled assistant device to life with Michael B. Jordan.

Uber Eat evokes the movie Wayne’s World with the original Wayne and Garth starring.

An advertisement promoting garden tools rounds out a real star party, including the protagonist of Grease. True, already hairless and bearded, but John Travolta still knows the legendary dance now with his daughter Ella.