Tennis – Third Set: Stella Loses The Match Point

Date Posted: 04 July 2008

The Lawn Tennis Association ended Stella Artois' 30-year-old sponsorship contract for the Queen's tournament in favor of a single, umbrella sponsor for all its activities. When the contract ended, the LTA decided not to renew it as they wish to attract more young people to tennis therefore a beer label will not be suitable for sponsoring the event anymore.

BrandIndex’s Corporate and Recommend scores show some uplift in the beginning of June for Stella Artois. Both Corporate and Recommend scores reach 12% on the 15th of June but drop back to 6% for the 22nd, after the Lawn Tennis Association’s decision to part from Stella.

There is an immediate recovery in the Recommend scores and only four days later the scores show the original 12%. Corporate scores however – the question wording for this measure is: Would you be proud/embarrassed to work for this company?- show some hesitation before recovering. The mindshare (bottom chart) show a good result for both measures through all June with a high value around 20-25%.

This decision of the LTA can change branding behaviour in the long run and might alter brands’ strategy in the future. If sporting events choose brands according to health, or, not to mention, environmental conscious principles; it will make brands re-think their current charity/environmental/health activity. This year’s biggest concern in the UK is the credit crunch, but last year it was the environment.

In this light, brands will have to move in above mentioned direction when the credit crunch ends, because the issues surrounding the environment will return and will be even more pressing than they were last year.

Agi Zabo, BrandIndex Research Executive

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