Lassa Tyres has launched its first global TV advertising campaign on Eurosport. The 20-second commercial will air across 54 European countries starting from 1 December for a period of one month. It will be followed by the main advertisement campaign which will start as of January 2016 and last till May 2016.
Lassa Tyres’ first tyre dealer meeting for specialists in the Barcelona region was held on Saturday 21 November at the Camp Nou, coinciding with the Real Madrid – FC Barcelona the football match. Lassa Tyres invited 100 dealers to the game via Barcelona regional distributor, Comercial Rojas.
Top-level football has become a sponsorship favourite for tyre makers, with Nexen’s partnership with Manchester City and Yokohama’s sponsorship of the Chelsea home shirt just two of the agreements announced in the second half of 2015, But the Goodyear name has been absent from such dealings for quite a while. This is now set to change following yesterday’s signing of a platinum sponsorship partnership with high-profile German club FC Bayern Munich.
The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd. is to launch the “BluEarth-A AE50 Chelsea FC Edition” featuring the Chelsea Football Club logo on the sidewall. Following the product’s release in Japan on 29 October, the tyre will be launched gradually in Europe, Asia and South America, with approaches varying from country to country. According to Yokohama, the Chelsea tyre will be available in three sizes: 225/45R17 94W, 205/55R16 91V and 195/65R15 91H.
Toyo Tires has announced that is has decided to renew its UK partnership with Leicester City Football Club into the 2015 and 2016 season. The partnership of Toyo Tires and Leicester City Football Club will see the Japanese company continue its commercial presence at the King Power stadium, while the distinctive blue branding will also be visible on the Foxes’ first team training wear.
Coinciding with the start of the 2015/16 European football season, various tyre manufacturers have continued the step up in sponsorship involvement with some of Europe’s biggest clubs. Continuing the trend Tyres & Accessories observed last year, bigger, broader deals are expanding tyres’ role in football, and increasing the prominence of brands outside the traditional premium names.
It started two years ago with just two markets – India and the UK – and by the start of 2015, Apollo Tyres’ association with Manchester United Football Club covered 69 countries in Asia, Europe and parts of Africa. The tyre maker now reports that it has extended its relationship with Manchester United even further; it now includes the whole of Africa, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Brunei.
A renewal of Maxxis’ sponsorship contract with Liverpool FC reconfirms “both parties’ belief in their dynamic pairing,” the tyre maker states. The new commercial deal, which continues the six year old partnership with the football club, runs until the end of the 2016/17 season and ensures that Maxxis will continue to be highly visible pitchside at Anfield stadium.
Japanese tyre maker Falken Tyre is intensifying its strategic use of football as a platform for sales and marketing, and for the new season has secured perimeter advertising packages at various clubs playing in the German Bundesliga, Spain’s Primera División, the Italian Serie A and France’s Ligue 1.
German football club Borussia Dortmund (BVB) and Hankook Tire have extended their ‘champion partner’ contract until 2018. The partners’ continued collaboration was announced following BVB’s first home game of the season on 15 August.
As of yesterday, Nexen Tire is Manchester City FC’s official tyre partner. Nexen Tire president Ho-Chan Kang and Manchester City FC CEO Ferran Soriano signed the partnership documents during a ceremony held at the City Football Academy in Manchester. Amongst the attendees witnessing the start of the new agreement were Omar Berrada, the club’s football marketing director, plus a number of Nexen Tire and Manchester City executives. Several players were also present.
Toyo Tire & Rubber’s tyre sales subsidiary in Russia has concluded a sponsorship agreement with Russian Premier League football club FC Zenit Saint Petersburg (ф.К. Зенит). Toyo Tire Rus LLC will sponsor the team for three seasons, with the contract running from August 2015 to July 2018.
Chelsea Football Club unveiled its 2015/16 home kit today, and the fruits of Yokohama Rubber’s £40 million a year deal with the club are clear for all to see – for the first time ever, the familiar blue Chelsea shirt bears the Yokohama Tyres logo.
Falken Tyre Europe has entered into sponsorship agreement with German football club FC Ingolstadt 04. The team has been promoted to the premier Bundesliga league for the 2015/2016 season after winning the country’s second-division league last year, and Falken says the new two-season partnership will serve as the “spearhead of a strategic sales sponsoring programme in the football sector” that will see it participate in further advertising and hospitality campaigns with European clubs.
The most noticeable feature of Italian football club F.C. Internazionale Milano’s newly-unveiled away kit is that the Pirelli name doesn’t appear on the shirt. Its absence brings to mind comments Pirelli CEO Marco Tronchetti Provera made when Inter stood before the Europa League exit in May, however the tyre maker remains closely linked to the new kit – the Pirelli name has made room on the away shirt for Driver, the company’s network of independent tyre dealers.
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