Philips - World Cup activation

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Philips has been changing dramatically as a brand over the last few years : internal culture change programmes have been reinforcing a ‘one Philips’ mentality, which looks for synergy and opportunity between traditional business area divisions ; and ‘sense and simplicity’ has become a mantra to guide the business in its approach to product development and consumer relations.

So, as much as anything else, the task was to maximise the opportunity of the World Cup to serve as a vehicle to communicate these two messages, internally and externally.

Shaping the sponsorship to communicate ‘one Philips’ was tricky, given that the sponsorship rights only covered two of Philips’ five divisions. By far the largest opportunity for Philips was for Consumer Electronics : for the first time, the FIFA™ World Cup was broadcast in HD, high definition, so the World Cup represents a huge opportunity for TV sales. Philips lights 50% of the world’s major stadia, so every evening match was a showcase for this division.

But a careful assessment of our rights, and an understanding of Toshiba’s business needs, enabled us to recommend a rights’ swap, ceding to Toshiba the right to promote laptop TV viewing in exchange for global semiconductor rights which it was not able to activate. The path was then cleared for Philips’ semiconductors to provide the chip solution for FIFA ticketing.

Long discussions with FIFA also proved fruitful, Without any formal additional rights, FIFA were persuaded to allow Philips Medical Systems to offer defibrillators to the 12 stadia and all competing teams, with the support of FIFA’s official medical committee.

Our role changed throughout the course of the build-up to the World Cup, moving from strategic appraisal and recommendation to activation. Sense and simplicity and the brand pillar of ‘designed around you’ become the success criteria for every guest touchpoint. To facilitate the management of tickets for guests and for Philips, we organised the tender for, and appointed a German agency to develop a web portal to administer all hospitality - and all the tickets.

Instead of posting out tickets, with the associated problems of wastage and loss, we negotiated with FIFA the special right to create our own Ticket Point next to FIFA’s own Ticketing Centre. This had two advantages : it created a unique, easy and safe pick-up point, making guests feel very special. It also enabled us to monitor ticket uptake : in the case of unused tickets, Philips staff in the vicinity were on standby, enabling us to minimise ticket wastage.

FIFA hospitality is very efficient – but like all of FIFA’s support, for obvious reasons, it offers a very limited package – which most brands appear to accept. Given the importance of brand messaging for Philips, the standard package was not an option. ‘Brand experience’ is in danger of becoming commoditised as a term. For us, an experience of brand is a great deal more than field marketing – by our definition, it is an accurate embodiment of brand values in a format designed to produce genuine engagement.

To create this within Philips hospitality, we sourced creative support from an independent designer who had worked for Imagination and Live to take full advantage of our only free space – the staircase – to create an immersive experience which temporarily removed guests emotionally from the World Cup environment – to a sensory journey delivered by invisible Philips technology. Brand imagery was chosen for the walls, but applied in a way which enhanced, rather than detracted from the relaxed feeling for guests. With extra sound, lights and ten top of the range 42” Ambilight TVs, the result was a hospitality unit in our three selected locations that was always the last to close, and which even the FIFA team described as ‘the tent that rocks’.

The third major element of the programme was evaluation : in previous World Cups, very little evaluation had taken place, leaving Philips activations slightly adrift. As 2006 was effectively Philips’ last year as a World Cup sponsor, it was felt that a full evaluation framework would be unnecessary. But the use of tickets became the primary focal point, with business cases being assessed vertically by each division before allocation, with subsequent follow up against anticipated benefits, an incentivised feedback mechanism for every activation using the FIFA World Cup™ logo, and a very brief pre and post event online survey for all guests. The results are not in – but knowing we will have results is a major step forward!

This case study is not to overstate our role. Our client, Philips’ Head of Sponsorship, Andy Knee was exceptional in pursuing best practice, and sure-footed enough in his understanding of Philips’ commercial dynamics to use our drive for perfection to push the limits of traditional sponsorship. Most of the negotiation with FIFA was managed directly by Andy, with strategic support in the shape of evaluation, analysis and recommendation. In other words, our relationship with Andy enabled him to make most advantage of our strengths. We’ re sorry this sponsorship has had to end!