31 Mar 10

FMCG brands score own goal by dropping Scotland from World Cup coverage

By Paul Philips & Sean Japp

When Holland dashed Scotland’s hopes of a place in the World Cup finals last September, speculation began as to the impact on the Scottish economy of the national team’s absence from the tournament.

Pub chains lamented the loss of the potential surge in trade that usually accompanies such major sporting events, and sportswear manufacturers and retailers saw their hopes of a recession-busting sales uplift dissipate.

This assumption – that Scots would no longer be engaged by the World Cup – appears also to have been made by many advertisers in the FMCG sector. Kinetic, WPP’s poster planning specialists, have advised MediaCom that many alcohol and food brands have booked point-of-sale poster activity, in proximity to the key supermarket chains, on an England-only basis leading up to and during the World Cup. The assumption being, of course, that only fans of those teams still in the tournament will be getting the beers and pizzas in.

History shows this strategy to be extremely short-sighted. A higher percentage of Scots than English watched every game in the 2006 World Cup Finals and in the 2008 Euro Finals …despite the fact that Scotland did not qualify! What’s more, 86% of Scottish women, traditionally the household’s main shopper, tuned in to the 2006 World Cup at least once – 64% of them did so 4 times or more.

This would seem to suggest that those England-focussed brands are missing a trick. However, this does create opportunities for less blinkered brands: the regional focus of other brands makes available a number of Scotland-only supermarket poster packages across the World Cup period at relatively low-cost – ideal for any budget-strapped brands wishing to test the impact of point-of sale promotion on sales in-store.

Given that the English packages were no doubt bought at a premium, the failure of many FMCG brands to include Scotland as an ‘add-on’ seems myopic.

An own goal, perhaps?