FC Barcelona: Més que un club

Football Club Barcelona, also known as FC Barcelona, or Barça is one of the best Football (soccer) teams in the world. The club located in Barcelona, Spain is the New York Yankees of soccer. The entire world knows FC Barcelona; the club is synonymous with winning. The victories and endless trophies are a very big reason why they are so globally known. Consequently, this helps increase value of their brand along with other things they participate in.

Like every person and organization, they have strengths and weaknesses. As I stated before, FC Barcelona is a global brand, which is a strength that many organizations wish to have. They also have worldly known brands associated with them such as UNICEF, Nike, Qatar Airways (jersey sponsor), and Audi. Another strength that they have is their slogan that captures the hearts of many loyal Barcelona fans. The slogan “Més que un club” meaning “more than a club” reaches out to everyone. The deal with UNICEF is one that they are very proud of. They want the world to know of their social commitment, and their passion is to reach children. It shows that this club cares about things other than football. They pay UNICEF over 1.5 millions euros a year to be able to have their logo on their jerseys. Chief Marketing Officer, Lander Unzueta says that the “Més que un club” brand is their biggest asset. He also said that Barça is “all about loyalty and making the consumer feel part of the brand.” In addition, FC Barcelona stands out above other clubs in Europe because of the sports they have. They do not only have soccer, but they have thirteen other sports teams, five of those being professional sports competing in international competitions. This allows for a much bigger fan base, because although soccer is the most popular sport in the world, it is not everyone’s favorite sport. However, the club’s greatest strength and asset in my opinion is their numerous world-class players, in particular four-time consecutive Balon d’Or winner, Lionel Messi. Lionel Messi is arguably the best player in the world, meaning he has a huge amount of fans. Those fans support Messi, meaning they support FC Barcelona as well. The player has over seventy-two million likes on his facebook page meaning the FC Barcelona brand gets much exposure. FC Barcelona itself has only three million more likes than Messi on their own facebook page.

When it comes to weaknesses in marketing it is hard to think of some for FC Barcelona, as the CMO said, their goal is to increase the brand value, meaning they are trying the spread to other areas. Although they have signed a deal with the MLS to promote the FC Barcelona brand, it has not really kicked off. I have not seen any of it personally. Another area they should work on is trying to expand their brand more in places like the Middle East and Asian countries like India. Lastly, as a global power, FC Barcelona cannot make more revenues from ticketing because they sell out virtually every single game in their 98,000 plus capacity stadium. In that regard they are very limited to improvement. Even though they are expanding their stadium they will still reach a limit sooner or later with ticket sales.

Although Barcelona has done well to expand their brand, there are some opportunities where they can have a chance to improve. One opportunity that they are taking is the expansion of their brand to China. Former FC Barcelona president Sandro Rosell says that FC Barcelona is aiming to extract one euro per year from every Chinese citizen to access the club’s webpage with the goal of making 1.3 billion euros in one year because “Asian markets are the only way forward.” Rosell said, “of course we won’t get this but we aim towards such figures.” Regardless, if FC Barcelona can appeal to the Chinese market they will receive a lot profit from the website. However, one opportunity FC Barcelona should take advantage of is that they should do more preseason tours in Asia, Australia, and even Africa to gain more loyal fans. I feel if they do that, they will make greater profits because then they will have even more fans after playing in front of them. I know this from experience. I have been a Liverpool FC fan for a very long time now and I cannot put into words how much it meant to me to see them play in person, specifically my idol, Steven Gerrard on their preseason tour in Baltimore, Maryland. Although the game was of little importance because it was just a preseason scrimmage, I will never forget it and I will always be a Liverpool FC fan (even if they’re playing terrible right now).

Happy Chinese New Year from FC Barcelona:

For FC Barcelona to have a successful preseason in terms of expanding their brand, they need to do some research first. They need to see what type of social media outlet the population most responds to so they can start promoting the arrival of the team and the venues that they will play in. They need to see what is in style in the area to make souvenirs and merchandise that the people will buy. They also need to know the demographics of the areas they will be traveling to, to see at around how much they should price the tickets because each area is different. Investigating the average income would be a good idea. Age would not be a factor really for FC Barcelona because as they say, they don’t really have a specific target market; they target all soccer fans. They can be of “any age, race, gender, religion, or of any political view.” Their number one goal should be selling out stadiums, and by doing that they will have made the brand more popular because more people are witnessing it first hand. They should also get the players to do special appearances at shopping malls to interact with the fans. That memory will last a lifetime and they will love FC Barcelona even more.

Threats are everywhere. The biggest threats for FC Barcelona, in my opinion, are the other European powerhouses: FC Bayern Munich, Manchester United FC, Chelsea FC, Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Juventus, CF Real Madrid (their biggest rival), and many more. These are not only teams in Spain, but they are big teams throughout Europe. According to Barça’s CMO, their biggest challenge is to maintain their status at the top, the performances on the pitch affect that as well. Another threat they have is losing their star players to other rivals; for the most part Barça will recover and buy another star. However, if FC Barcelona loses Lionel Messi that will have a large effect on their brand, because he will take his fans to the next team he goes to. The Camp Nou, the stadium of FC Barcelona is one of the most famous venues in all of Europe and the rest of the world. It is also the largest soccer stadium in Europe with a capacity of over 98,000 and soon to be a capacity over 105,000. You see many stadiums giving up their naming rights to sponsors for a massive amount of money. Barça wants the name Camp Nou to remain so they see possible sponsors as a threat to keeping the name of the stadium that they value so much, because maybe one day an offer may come up that they cannot possibly turn down.

FC Barcelona is simply a world great when it comes to performances on the field, helping children and others in need, and also in brand image. They have many strengths that help them maintain their status at the top. However, they also have some weaknesses. If they can get China and other Asian countries behind them, they may just become the biggest club in world football. Visca el Barça. 

Sites used:

http://www.mbaskool.com/brandguide/sports-teams-and-events/644-barcelona-football-club.html

http://www.football-marketing.com/2011/12/30/fcbarcelona-china-internet-market/

The Power of Branding

 

The Predator Evolution

The adidas Predator: one of the most iconic soccer shoes in the soccer world today. The shoe, also known as “boot” in the United Kingdom was first presented in 1994. A former Liverpool FC player by the name of Craig Johnston designed the shoe after coaching at one of his practices; he realized the leather boot alone was not enough to get a proper grip on the ball. He realized what many marketers have to know, what the consumer needs! He went home, took the rubber off a table tennis racket, glued it on his shoe, tested it himself, and the idea of the Predator boot was born. He presented this to adidas, and the rest is history. When it comes to marketing the Predator, adidas has done a wonderful job. When the first Predator boot came out, the main focus was to inform people about the rubber fins that were on the front of the shoe. The rubber fins are what made their name, what put them on the map. It was like nothing anyone had ever seen so the boot itself was an attention grabber. The first slogan they used in their ad was “100% legal, 0% fair.” Ever since the Original Predator boot came out, to me, their main objective is to portray dominance and power when wearing the shoe. They are also always determined to let consumers know all the technological factors used in making the boot to help the athlete perform better.

In 1996 a new generation of the Predators came out, it still had the leather fins, but now the shoe had a tongue covering the laces to offer a smoother area for the ball. Again, to my knowledge this was new to a soccer shoe, just like the fins were in the Original Predator. Due to the fact that adidas had come up with something never used before, the slogan “Soccer re-invented” seemed appropriate in their ads with famously known players playing in a game absolutely dominating the other team while wearing what then was the Predator Touch. Also, in the end of professional matches it is common for players to exchange jerseys. In the commercial a player on the winning team went to exchange his shirt with the opponent and all the opponent did was point at the shoe, meaning he didn’t want his jersey, just the Predator Touch, to be able to play like the winners. In 1998, adidas released their first World Cup boot. Now players like David Beckham and one of the greatest players in the history of soccer, Zinedine Zidane wore the boot, making consumers everywhere want to own a pair even more.

Now in 2002, some two Predator generations later, the shoe began to introduce more colors other than their common red, black, and white shoe. These were the Predator Mania the “official boot of football maniacs, football never felt better.” So if you are someone that is obsessed with soccer, you need these shoes because as adidas said, “its our mania.” This made people feel more connected in the sense that other soccer fanatics felt the same way as well. Jumping to 2011, the commercial released for the AdiPower SL showed people playing in the streets to professionals playing in crowded arenas. Wearing these shoes will make you “own the game.” Now that social media has become a thing, a very big thing to be more precise, adidas took advantage of that to expand their marketing. In 2012 they introduced their first “hashtag” in the ad for the Predator LZ (leathal zones). The hashtag was “unleash.” Again, they were still trying to convey the message of dominance and power. Now to promote how great the shoe is, adidas brought back one of the world’s greatest players to ever play, Zinedine Zidane to give his own opinion of the shoe. Also, as I stated before, adidas likes to always let consumers know the technology that is put into the shoe. It is the first shoe with “lethal zones.” The shoe has five. How did they come up with this? Simple, they did research and interviewed world-class players that have a contract with adidas. These world-class players included the likes of David Beckham, Xavi Hernandez and Iker Casillas. They gave them a plain white shoe and a marker and told them to draw a circle around the areas they touch or use most when they have the ball. This was very interesting because it let consumers know that their favorite players helped designed the shoe they wanted. Now we come to the 2014 FIFA World Cup Predator edition, the Battle Pack. This was one of the few times the Predator was not marketed by itself; all the adidas boots were marketed at once. People questioned the odd design of the shoe; the answer adidas gave was that they wanted the shoe to stand out above all others, which, in my opinion, it did. Also, in a commercial, the reason behind the specific designs they picked for the Battle Pack series were that they are designs that tribes paint on their bodies and weapons when they go into battle, making the name of the edition “Battle Pack” appropriate. During the commercial one sees tribes getting ready for battle while the narrator says phrases like “hunt or be hunted, fear or be feared, and evolve or die” again portraying dominance and power. It was during this time that they’re most famous hashtag was introduced, “all in or nothing.” They say, “its the only way to live, the only way to play.” Quickly after the World Cup, they came out with a new edition, the Predator Instinct. The commercial involves the main man for the shoe, German World Cup 2014 champion, Mesut Özil. During the commercial he basically turns into a Predator and dominates with the ball at his feet with the segment closing with “instinct takes over.” This ad was very different because of all the computer editing, which made it turn out great. Now that the Predator is celebrating it’s twenty years of existence, they are bringing the old shoes back, but they are a little more modern. They brought Zinedine Zidane’s World Cup winning boots back making him say, “I will never wear another boot” in an interview. The series of these vintage Predators coming out is called the Predator Revenge series. Their slogan for this is, “an icon from the past, given a new life by the future.” In addition to this, they held an event at the Predator HQ in London, England. Steven Gerrard, Liverpool FC captain was at the event. They made a real life video game for fanatics to come and participate in. The game consisted of two zones to get through, and the participant’s soccer skills were needed to get through the levels. However, there was a twist, there were “predators” with laser guns like the ones used in laser tag. If the “predators” shot the participant’s shin or the ball, the participant was out. As you can see, the predator has changed during the years and so has the marketing of it. They went from just presenting the shoe, to making commercials with world-class players promoting the shoe, to using social media with hashtags and to throwing events for the shoe, like the real life video game. Although there has been much change in the shoe, they have always stuck to the principle of making the consumers aware of all the technology used to benefit the player on the field and portraying that the shoe is a symbol of dominance and power. Mesut Özil’s Predator Instinct Commercial: