What do Budweiser, Uber and Pepsi have in common? Aside from being brand names you can easily recognize, their parent companies are constantly competing outside of their industries for the right to sponsor music festivals. Budweiser is not only the king of beers; it is also the king of concerts, particularly in the United States, but this privileged sponsorship position is being angled by Uber, the tech startup that provides personal transportation by means of a smartphone app. In fact, Uber took over Pepsi’s spot as the second major sponsor of American music festivals as early as 2017.
If you think about it, Uber, Pepsi and Budweiser can be directly related to music festivals. Instead of driving to or from a festival and dealing with nightmarish parking scenarios, you and your friends can share Uber rides. In the midst of the summer, an outdoor music festival can feel more refreshing with cold glasses of Budweiser or Pepsi. Things get a little stranger when you see Salesforce, a cloud-based provider of customer relationship management software, as the main sponsor of the Lollapalooza festival. At any rate, these are examples of successful sponsorship deals, and here are a few more we can learn from:
Qatar Airways – Futbol Club Barcelona
For a few years, one of the most exciting professional soccer clubs in the world was sponsored by a luxury airline from the Middle East. In 2013, Qatar Airways was aggressively looking for global exposure for the purpose of providing international flights in markets beyond the Middle East, and FC Barcelona was their first-class ticket to success. One interesting detail about this sponsorship agreement is that the airline promised a $6 million bonus if the club won the UEFA Champions League tournament.
Inride – Washington Spirit
Thanks to the amazing performance of the United States National Women’s Team in the 2019 FIFA World Cup, professional women’s soccer is sizzling in metro areas where fans can root for local clubs such as the Washington Spirit, which is part of inride’s new sponsorship agreement. The key here is the timing of inride, a car subscription service based in Maryland, in pursuing the deal, which was announced a few weeks after Team USA returned from France with the World Cup.
Adidas – David Beckham
This sponsorship agreement is of historical significance because it was signed with a lifetime clause. In 2003, promising an English Premier League player $160.8 million for lifetime representation was unheard of, but the Adidas marketing scouts knew that they were onto something not just in terms of Beckham’s amazing skills on the pitch but also because of his potential to cause cultural impact. It is important to remember that Beckham would later marry Victoria Adams, better known as Posh Spice from the wildly successful musical group The Spice Girls, and he is currently leading an effort to launch a Major League Soccer franchise in Miami, a city that is bound to attract millions of fans from across the South Florida area.
