Sponsoring Euro 2016 – A Special Report

Euro 2016 has proven to be a major success, at least from a viewership stand point with records broken multiple times across multiple countries.

In Germany, ZDF set a record for a European tournament with 29.32 million viewers for the Euro 2016 semi-final match between France and Germany. 

French network TF1 had 19.23 million viewers watching France win 2-0 with a 68.8% share of the audience. 

All in all, a good time to have your brand pitch side at the European Championships. A bigger audience than ever before gives the opportunity of increased brand awareness – and to reach more more people than ever before.

iSportconnect spoke to Nazim Aliyev, Head of International Sponsorship at Socar, who were sponsoring the tournament for the first time. Socar are an Azerbaijani national oil company.

iSc – You’re sponsoring the European Championships for the first time, what was behind that decision?

NA: “It’s true our campaign which is to sit on the perimeter boards of European Championships, it’s our debut for Socar. It’s the first time we’re participating on a sport event like this. As a European energy campaign, we have achieved a role in the European economic development.

“Motivated by the European mission, we’re supporting a number of cultural and sport initiatives, so it was a natural step to show our interest in the European football family, with the highlight of the European football calendar.”

iSc: Who are Socar trying to speak to through this campaign? 

NA: “Azerbaijan is the source of our energy, we are involved in the upstream, midstream and downstream. We also have business units across Europe with Azerbaijan to Spain, where our business is spread, we have units in Switzerland, Romania, Greece, Georgia etc.

“Through this campaign with UEFA we are speaking to our end customers and business partners – as you might know starting from 2020, Azerbaijan and Socar will feed the new gas to the new European markets so we are preparing our debut in sport and in the energy business.”

iSc: Is this something now that you are looking to build upon in the future with UEFA?

NA: “The partnership ran very well for us, we are very satisfied. We will evaluate our partnership with UEFA and prepare the plan for the next step. But we are interested in partnering with UEFA for the next periods as well. The decision taken in 2013 was a strategic decision that would not only last for one season.”

iSc: Have you seen a lot of interest in the Socar brand due to the Euro sponsorship?

NA: “Football has a special role within sports sponsorship to Socar. Socar is not a new company, especially in Azerbaijan. We are a long-term partner of the Azerbaijan FA and a number of teams. We are also established in Georgia, exposure to European football is a key priority for us. We are looking to support football as the most popular form of sport. There are currently no plans for us to develop our sport partnerships in other sports.

iSc: Have you seen an increase in new business opportunities?

NA: The campaign isn’t about helping us establish new business it’s purely a marketing step for us. Supporting the Euros, with over 300 million people watching, we have a very good reach for our advertisement. The UEFA involvement is helping to create a better awareness of our brand and build a good foundation for the future markets where we are looking to build business in the future.

Nazim’s