2010 World Cup: Strategy Review
Derek Carstens
Derek Carstens
A mixed and lively group of academics, students and business men were both entertained and informed by Derek Carstens, one of South Africa’s leading marketing and advertising specialists, at another Business Forum presentation held during the last semester of the year.
Carstens, Brand Director of several companies in the First National Bank group, has been particularly and intimately involved in FNB’s association with the 2010 World Cup as one of its major sponsors (a few weeks after his Grahamstown presentation he was seconded by FNB to the 2010 Local Organising Committee).
“How do we get a return on a massive, R400 million, investment?”, he asked. “My company wants to make money from this; it is not a donation from our Corporate Social Investment budget. It is a commercial, marketing decision”.
“It has been estimated”, Carstens related, “that the spectator spend for this event is going to top R9,8billion. 2,78 million tickets will be sold, 1 million only in this country. The government will reap massive tax revenue in its turn and we want some of it, too!”
Carstens said that his company had engaged in extensive market research before the decision to participate was made, discovering in the process that a significant percent age of FNB’s defined market “would do business with a company which sponsors the World Cup”.
There has been a great deal of beneficial engagement, Carstens notes, between his company and the other international cosponsors – a valuable spin-off.
Carstens explained the processes through which a company such as his makes the most of a massive sponsorship, admitting that, if it is to be fully exploited, the up-front payment is merely the beginning. He presented some of the promotional material which has been produced and defined some of the objectives. “We wish to replace Awareness with Experience”, he said, “and we are succeeding in this. We are perceived as an innovative and attractive organisation and, in a further example of beneficial and deliberate spin-off, we have developed an enhanced sense of pride in our own staff – people want to work for an exciting company!”
Audience
