- With the sponsorship UniCredit has achieved results that are in line with or well above expectations in terms of brand awareness, image and propensity to buy.
- After the sponsorship prolongation UniCredit will have the right to produce the "Official UEFA Champions League Match Coin" during the next cycle from season 2012/ 13 to season 2014/ 15.
- In September and October this year's UEFA Champions League Trophy Tour presented by UniCredit will visit nine cities in Italy.
Just three years after the start of the UniCredit UEFA Champions League sponsorship the results show that the master brand UniCredit and the local bank brands of the Group benefitted from a considerable boost in terms of awareness and perception as one of Europe's leading banks.
The Group wide sponsorship awareness of UniCredit brands doubled on an aided level and tripled on a spontaneous level between November 2009 and November 2011. As a result, UniCredit headed to a tied second place in aided sponsorship awareness of UniCredit Group brands compared to the five other UEFA Champions League sponsors. For example, the percentage of people in Germany who know UniCredit and/ or HypoVereinsbank as sponsor of the UEFA Champions League increased by 35% on an aided level and by 160% on a spontaneous level from November 2009 until November 2011.
Market research figures show similar positive results in terms of brand awareness throughout all countries.
For example in Germany the ratio of people that are spontaneously aware of UniCredit as banking brand is twice as high among those aware of UniCredit's UEFA Champions League sponsorship, than among all people asked. For HypoVereinsbank the ratio among those aware of the sponsorship is higher by 27.5%.
"The results achieved until today are all in line with the expectations, and some well above, in terms of brand image, propensity to buy as well as engagement of customers and employees in all the Group's main markets", states Federico Ghizzoni, Chief Executive Officer of UniCredit. "Thanks to the intensive activation throughout all markets, again this season we assume to generate over three billion contacts."
One significant example of a comprehensive activation is displayed in the German market, one of the four countries which actively participate in the "We Will Fix It" online-driven campaign leading up to the UEFA Champions League Final. Under the overall sponsorship claim "Life, like football, is full of ups and downs. We're there for both" the campaign aims at helping football-fans and non-fans manage life and the UEFA Champions League in an entertaining way, turning downs into ups, when life and football collide. "This campaign is an excellent idea as it involves football fans and also those who are not really into it", underlines Luís Figo, Official UniCredit Ambassador for the UEFA Champions League and team manager of the "Fix It Squad", a team of recruited UniCredit employees that help to fix the life-football-dilemmas.
For the UEFA Champions League Final in Munich HypoVereinsbank therefore came up with yet another highlight for football fans and non-fans: between the 30th April and 16th May a branded hot air balloon flew over the city of Munich. Whoever correctly tipped where the balloon would be located on 16th May on www.we-will-fix-it.de could win tickets to the Final or a trip for a weekend away for all those who aren't into the game.
Many other ticket promotions via radio, in HypoVereinsbank branches and online offered the many fans from across Europe further chances to get to the biggest match of the year. A very special activation was the "Take a Ticket interactive game" that could be played in five selected HypoVereinsbank branches in Munich between the 30th April and 16th May 2012. It invited anyone interested to virtually play football as a striker or as a goalkeeper with a simple TV screen and the body tracking technology that enabled the players to use their own bodies to control the figures on the screen. This promotion in the context of the UniCredit campaign "We Will Fix It" gave participants the chance of winning 5 pairs of tickets to the UEFA Champions League Final. The game is also set up at the UEFA Champions Village and Festival to be played by eager football-enthusiasts. The "Take a Ticket interactive game" is one of the first times ever this technology is used for commercial purposes. In total, in these days HypoVereinsbank registered more than 30,000 participants during these activities.
Outlook upcoming season
The positive results of the past seasons reconfirm UniCredit's decision to prolong the original three-season sponsorship deal to season 2014/ 15 and to further leverage the sponsorship, especially the additional rights that have been secured. Among others, the right of using the new designation "Official Bank of the UEFA Champions League" creates a close link between the sponsorship and UniCredit's core business as a financial institution. So does the newly negotiated right to produce the "Official UEFA Champions League Match Coin provided by UniCredit" which will be used by the referee for the official coin toss before every match and will be joined by the "Official Coin Collection".
Next to these new rights, preparations for one of the most important Europe wide sole and exclusive rights, the UEFA Champions League Trophy Tour presented by UniCredit, is as in the past seasons running at full speed. After having visited 48 cities in 13 countries between 2009 and 2011, bringing the trophy itself and the UEFA Champions League spirit to over 320,000 football fans, the tour in autumn 2012 will travel through Italy with main events in Milan, Turin, Bologna, Naples, Palermo and its grand finale in Rome. Stop-over events in Verona, Venice and Florence will round off this exclusive tour - aiming to surpass bench marks of the past years with an average ROI of 398%.
More information about the official sponsorship is available at www.unicredit.eu/champions.