Sponsors suffer from England's EURO 2008 absence

EURO 2008 is not connecting with United Kingdom consumers, particularly because the English team did not qualify for the tournament.

Research firm Ipsos MORI said awareness is down from 2004. At the start of May, less than 5 percent of 600 respondents associated official sponsor Coca-Cola with the tournament, down from 14.5 percent from the same period four years ago.

Carlsberg, which calculates its UK sales will be down by GBP 15 million due to England's absence, has fallen among consumer awareness from 5.5 percent in 2004 to 1.5 percent presently. McDonald's awareness levels have slumped from 4.3 percent to 0.8 percent.

The survey found only adidas is having the same or better awareness than four years agi, up from 1.8 percent to 3.3 percent.

Like many events, some sponsors has virtually no awareness in England that they were backing the event. Others — mainly Nike, Heineken and O2 — were falsely imprinted on people as being a part of the tournament.

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.