Brand battles extends to World Cup kits

US-based Nike has been backing winners as teams sporting its kit won five of their first six games.

After the first 12 World Cup matches, United States’ defeat by the Puma-clad Czech Republic was Nike’s only setback, with four other Nike-backed teams – Holland, Mexico, Portugal and Australia – taking victories.

Rival adidas had two victories and a draw in their teams’ first four matches. Puma’s sides have not fared as well.

Though it is sponsoring more teams in Germany than any other brand, Puma began with five straight defeats and only got into the win column when the Czechs and Italy took victories against the United States and Ghana.

It is not only global brands that are at the World Cup. Marathon was pleased by the performance of its only team, Ecuador, after an upset of Poland. Umbro, England’s kit supplier, started with a win and a draw, though Sweden surprisingly was held to a draw by adidas-sponsored Trinidad and Tobago.

All the companies involved, though, stressed that it was too early to draw any conclusions before every team had played a match.

Massimo Giunco, head of communications for Nike in Europe, says the company is doing well given that it is playing in the backyard of its two bigger rivals.

“The atmosphere is very positive for us but we still have four weeks to go,” he said. “It is sport, so you never know.”

Adidas sponsors referees’ kits and sports major ads in all the big German cities. But it has the fewest teams of the main companies, with six. But those include Argentina, France and Germany.

“For us it is all about quality and not quantity,” an official said.

Puma, based like Adidas in the tiny Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach, is sponsoring all five African sides and some other darkhorse teams. But Filip Trulsson, head of football marketing, argues that in spite of the results, Puma’s teams have been playing well.

“Ghana and Ivory Coast both met our expectations and played well,” he said. “Angola also had a good game. But we can't dictate the results.”

The tournament is a chance to showcase products, so more important is what happens off the pitch. Adidas has sold 15 million balls, far more than projected, and has raised its sales target for football this year to EUR 1.2 billion to match Nike. Puma sold out of its Ivory Coast top in Germany after their spirited defeat against Argentina, and its Grass Camo boots have been selling well.

Events such as adidas’ replica of Berlin’s Olympic Stadium in front of the Reichstag and Puma’s headquarters in Captain Moscow, a former communist hangout in the capital, are proving popular.

However, Nike is upset with the way FIFA has decided in what colours teams will play. Holland normally play in orange shirt and socks with white shorts, but in their first match they were all in orange.

“It is a problem in the sense that the original combination of colours is decided with the Federation and then we sell this to retailers,” Giunco said. “FIFA playing with the colours causes confusion and the way they decide is very arbitrary.”

Some industry executives say Nike believes FIFA is favouring official sponsor adidas over other brands. Adidas, FIFA and many other industry executives refute those claims, though other brands complain of tensions between them and FIFA on other issues.

“The kits were approved a few months ago in Zurich,” a FIFA spokesman said. “The exact colour combinations were communicated to the teams several weeks ago.”

The implication is that the teams could have complained then.

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