Geoff Hare, University of Newcastle, England

The 1998 World Cup was a key marketing moment for international companies, especially those in the sport and leisure sector. The press presented France '98 as a private competition between Adidas and Nike, even before their two key sponsored teams met in the final. The article looks at their marketing strategies; evaluates the successes and failures of their campaigns, pointing out some unpredictable pitfalls when much depends on chance; finally, it focuses on tensions in corporate marketing strategies involving sport: firstly, between spreading manufacturing to Third World low-labour-cost sites and use of 'humanitarian' advertising themes, and, secondly, between managing the random elements of sporting success and encroaching on sport's traditional self-governance and autonomy.

In the 1990s football is sexy, not only in western Europe, but across practically the whole world. As the most prominent of world sports, it has been described as the dominant cultural form of the decade, just as rock music dominated the Sixties and Seventies (Jacques, 1997). Unlike some other cultural phenomena, football's ability to export itself is not limited by linguistic barriers, nor by overly complex rules or unavoidably expensive equipment. It can be played barefoot in the dustbowls of Africa and on beaches in Brazil, just as happily as in a school playground in Britain. As such, it has become extraordinarily attractive as a marketing tool to companies operating in the new global economy. The high point of football's global marketing capacity is the World Cup held every four years, and in 1998, in France.

The commercial attractiveness of the World Cup is based on its ability to attract global mass television audiences, which it does to remarkable effect. The cumulative television audience for the 64 matches in June-July 1998 was nearly 40 billion. The final was watched by 1.7 billion viewers world-wide. Income from corporate sources amounted to over half the turnover of the French Organising Committee (CFO): 2.42 billion francs (£240 million). Official merchandising reached 8 billion francs (£800 million). The going-rate for European television rights covering the next two World Cups is £1.12 billion. FIFA, the sport's governing body, has predicted that once the final sums are done the total revenue from the 1998 tournament will be £20 billion.

Sport marketing literature makes the distinction between marketing of sport and marketing through sport, although the two are increasingly interlinked through sponsors. Promotional licensing associated with sport has been increasingly used by companies as part of their communications process. This can include special event sponsorship and/or sponsorship of a competing team. Many manufacturing and services sector brands with no obvious 'natural' connection with sport were represented among the companies buying exclusive rights to official advertising and the France 98 logo, and indeed even more brands exploited the event through various kinds of ambush marketing. A company such as Mastercard, with no necessary links to sport as part of its ordinary business activities, has recognised the force of television and football to reach young men especially, with whom they have been keen, as official sponsors of Euro '96 and France '98, to raise brand awareness and establish brand loyalty (Harverson, 1998).

However, in terms of marketing a product through the World Cup, the most 'natural' sector, the one most closely associated with football, is the retailing of sport and leisure clothing. Marketing a product or a brand through a major global event like the Olympics or the World Cup poses its sponsors the following problems. The organisers allow only one company per sector to buy into the event as official sponsor. Other companies can still associate themselves with a star competitor or a competing team and use ambush marketing to link themselves in the public mind with the event. A further issue is that, unlike other consumer products, since the sport product is inherently inconsistent and unpredictable, the sponsoring company has little or no control over the product or its sponsored star's or team's performance in the event. There is therefore, every reason to buy into several competing teams in order to increase the likelihood of exposure in the final stages of a special event. There is a further temptation to attempt to influence the sporting side of the product. Finally, just as the attractiveness and popularity of a sporting competition is dependent on there being a significant element of uncertainty about the outcome (i.e. a competition dominated by a single competing team that always wins soon becomes boring - this has happened at different times in the French football league), so too might it suit a sponsor to be portrayed as being in competition with another company in the same sector.

Slack (1998) addressed the idea that 'the commercial trends that are occurring in sport are far too important and wide ranging to be accepted unquestioningly' and called for academics 'to develop a critique of these practices'. He pointed out that while this had occurred in the broader field of policy and organisational studies, it had not happened to the same extent in sport. The present case study, while not claiming to extend the theoretical parameters, aims to provide to English speakers some evidence hitherto mostly available in French that may be used in Slack's context. It examines the use of the World Cup by two leading sports goods manufacturers, Adidas and Nike, whose involvement was portrayed in the press as the alternative World Cup competition. This theme came to dominate press coverage of the marketing side of the competition as the final was contested between teams they sponsored, France, the hosts, and Brazil, the cup holders and favourites. After looking at the importance of the sector in France, the article will evaluate the marketing strategy and campaigns of Adidas and Nike. This will involve pointing out some of the unpredictable pitfalls inevitably encountered when so much depends on the bounce of a ball, unexpected injury, or a referee's red card. Finally, it will focus on two tensions in the strategies of companies using sports marketing: the first of these potential conflicts is between, on the one hand, advertising themes that suggest humanitarian intent in bringing football to the world's poorest children and, on the other, the search for cost reduction by spreading manufacturing to Third World low-labour-cost sites that may be difficult to control. The second thin line that firms tread is in attempting to contain the randomness of sporting success while avoiding being seen to encroach on sport's traditional self-governance and autonomy, which can be damaging to their brand image.

Sport and leisure retail has been one of the fastest growing sectors since the early 1990s. In France, the number of sports shops has doubled in 25 years and their number of employees has doubled in the last ten. Two major chains dominate the French market: Décathlon and Go Sport, selling both sports equipment and sportswear. The growth of sportswear is partly explained by the fact that grass-roots sports activity has increased in France (one third of French people claim to practice a sport once a week), but sportswear as comfort and as fashion is just as important as a sales factor. French households spent more on sports goods in 1995 than any other Europeans (1170 francs = £120). In the five years up to 1997 turnover of the sport and leisure sector rose by 20%, whereas sales of other non-food specialist retail sectors rose by only 10%. Only the Do-it-Yourself sector did better. The turnover of sports shops in 1996 was 24.8 billion francs (£2.6bn), of which the more functional items usable for non-sporting activity (track-suits, polo shirts, trainers etc.) represented about 20 billion francs (£2.1bn).

In view of the buoyancy of the sport and leisurewear sector, and the significance of the fashion sales side of it where branding is important, Adidas and Nike, the two fastest growing manufacturers and with Reebok the biggest players on the world stage, could not afford to neglect the Coupe du Monde band wagon as a marketing opportunity to maintain or increase their market share. Their strategies and campaigns may have been different, since their earlier development has been different and they come from different cultures, but they share common expansionist aims and identify each other as a major rival. Adidas dominates the European market, especially in football, Nike's strength is in America and in athletics and basketball. Adidas needs to expand into the American market (where it has only a 6% market share); to expand in Europe Nike needs to conquer the football-related products market (it has 10% of world market share). Football is after all the sport that counts outside America and has a £3 billion market for brands. The press's presentation of the World Cup as a duel between Nike and Adidas arguably suited the ambitions of both, to the detriment of Reebok and others. Just as in the previous 20 years, Adidas bought exclusive official sponsorship rights from FIFA and the CFO in their sector, and was also official kit supplier to the French national team, whereas Nike resorted to ambush marketing, in addition to sponsoring the kit of a number of competing teams, including favourites Brazil. While Nike could not use any logos or even any references to the Coupe du Monde/France 98, they were able to advertise using footballing themes, and feature prominent international players from club teams they sponsor.

Competition between the two companies took various forms, but recurrent advertising themes of (immigrant or Third-World) children reflect the fact that the market that is important is youngsters who are not yet brand loyal. On the ground, in Paris, Nike welcomed 450,000 visitors to its 7800m² Nike Park costing $7 million (£4.2m) in the appropriately modernistic setting of La Défense's business tower blocks including the newest major French architectural triumph, the Grande Arche. Free entry to the Park and participation in its large number of football activities attracted mainly pre-teenage children. It was set in attractive and safe surroundings that forced children and adults to exit via a sales tent that stocked shirts, boots, and other Nike equipment, part of the profits from which were donated to local football causes. Two convoys of trailers, Land-Rovers and Austin Minis took Nike's "swoosh" logo and its "Tour de foot" playground to 70 or so French provincial towns during the 33 days of the finals, offering football workshops, skills practice and a chance to play in five-a-side against some Nigerian under-17 internationals on the artificial turf pitch they rolled out. Conscious of the importance of the youth market, they handed out fliers advertising their arrival outside local schools (Epinay, 1998; Fatsis, 1998).

Adidas set up a Football Village in Paris (800,000 visitors), more centrally than Nike, across the river from the Eiffel Tower at the Trocadéro, that had a number of Foot Locker sale points for strips and other football-related items. It seemed, to the author at least, much less fun than the Nike Park, but its main attraction was comfortable banked seating in front of a big screen showing all the games, and at other times of the day for viewing an international four-a-side children's football competition sponsored by Adidas, as part of its "grassroots" programme. Adidas was also present with events on the other nine host sites. They also kitted out the CFO's 15,300 volunteer helpers in the ten host towns.

The television and press advertising of each company exploited the teams and individual star players that each sponsored. Each company started the tournament with six sides wearing its kit. There were other sportswear competitors on view of course: Puma (sponsoring Austria, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Iran, Morocco, Tunisia - none surviving the First round Group stage), Kappa (two attractive newcomers Jamaica and South Africa - idem), Umbro (England, Norway, Scotland - all exiting before the quarter-finals), Reebok (Chile, Colombia, Paraguay - idem), and Lotto (the dark-horse semi-finalist Croatia). Adidas and Nike were indisputably the two front-runners. For the Adidas stable, Spain was ignominiously and unexpectedly eliminated in the first round, while their other strongly-fancied teams Argentina, France, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Germany (who had already won three World Cups for Adidas) all progressed. In addition to South Korea and the USA, Nike had thoroughbreds in Brazil and Holland (who met in the semi-final), plus Nigeria (reaching the second round) and Italy (quarter-final). Nike also sponsors Russia, Slovakia, Poland, and Portugal none of whom qualified for the finals. The effectiveness of this sponsorship is difficult to gauge exactly. The Financial Times devised a complex system of points regarding the exposure that success in the Finals brought to each company. It showed Adidas and Nike staying fairly much neck-and-neck with Nike leading by a nose until Brazil fell at the final hurdle, leaving Adidas as outright winners. What is easier to assert is the communications success represented by constant press coverage of the sponsoring companies in terms of an alternative competition - this sporting metaphor concentrated more interest and attention on them than if it had not been used.

That Adidas and Nike saw each other as their main competitor was obvious in that they tried to ambush the success of the other company's sponsored national teams. One competitive ploy was to exploit the fact that a player as an individual or through his club can be under contract to one company while his national team can be under contract to another. Hence Adidas's advertising included Kluivert of Holland whose national strip is Nike and Nike advertising featured Ba and Vieira of France, whose national kit is Adidas.

The importance of France 98 and of soccer in general to Nike and Adidas is visible from the amounts spent in sponsorship and marketing. The cost of television advertising by Adidas was reported as 120 million francs (£12.5m) (Epinay, 1998). Nike spent well over $40 million (£24m) on its World Cup campaign, more than it has spent on any single event before - at a time when it is doing less well: for the first time in 13 years, in July 1998, it reported a quarterly loss. Nike is world market leader in sports shoes and trainers (turnover of £5.5 billion in 1997-98), but the market for sports clothes is bigger (£20 billion). Nike adapted its technique of concentrating marketing around the single dominant athlete in a given sport (e.g. Michael Jordan in basketball) by signing up the dominant team in world football (Brazil) and featuring its best player (Ronaldo) in its advertising. In football, shirts are more important advertising vehicles than footwear, and clubs and national federations control shirt advertising rights. Nike's December 1996 contract paying the Brazilian Football Federation $200 million (£120m) over ten years dwarfs its still considerable $25 million (£15m) over five years to Italy. The $120 million (£72m) contract with the USA team over 8 years reflects not so much the importance of the US team in world football, but the importance of the American market to Nike, who has to be seen to be supporting its national team.

In so far as the other World Cup was taking place on the back of the soccer competition, there was no doubt who emerged victorious. France's victory on the pitch marked another major step in the success story of Adidas under the guidance of Robert Louis-Dreyfus, who acquired his stake in the company for a reputed £200m from the discredited French entrepreneur-politician Bernard Tapie and bankers Crédit Lyonnais in April 1993. At the time, the company was making losses of more than £60m a year. It was turned around by Louis-Dreyfus, partly by sub-contracting and delocalising production, and doubling advertising and promotional expenditure - targeting the 12-20 year olds (trend setters in sports wear) and sports players. Part of his business strategy was high-profile sports sponsorship. Both the Atlanta Olympics and the Euro 96 football championships showed off the Adidas brand. The victorious German team all wore Adidas products at soccer's Euro 96, as did no fewer than 220 Olympic medallists in Atlanta the same year. He continued the strategy in autumn 1996, when he signed another high-profile marketing agreement to sponsor the 1998 World Cup, thus putting the Adidas name on billboards inside the stadia. A quite separate agreement had been struck by Adidas-France as kit sponsor to the French international team. In the meantime, like Tapie before him, he became President of Olympique de Marseille football club. During 1996 sales soared by 75 per cent to £1.7 billion and profits surged by 50 per cent to £160m. 1997 saw jumps of 42% in sales and 47% in profits, enabling the purchase of the French winter-sports equipment company Salomon, which offered a complementary range of goods and sales outlets. First quarter results in 1998 brought a 58% rise in sales, meaning a rise of 23% in pre-tax profits. Louis- Dreyfus turned his original personal stake into millions when the company was floated in 1995 while retaining effective control and a significant stake in the company (Jim Levi, 1997; Lagoutte, 1998; Gautier, 1998).

Advertising during the World Cup by the two kit companies did not go entirely smoothly. Three of the four stars featured on Adidas's international TV advertising campaign were all sent off and missed games: Kluivert (Holland), Zidane (France), and Beckham (England). The other, Del Piero (Italy), started the first two games on the bench. Adidas's French campaign, built around the slogan attributed to national team coach Aimé Jacquet, "La victoire est en nous" ("Victory is inside us"), deliberately featured multi-ethnic stars: Trezeguet (South American family connections), Karembeu (Oceania), Zidane (North Africa/Arab world), Desailly (Black Africa), Blanc and Barthez (Europe). Again three were sent off, but the choice of goalkeeper Barthez was, fortuitously, an especially inspired telegenic one (Amalou, 1998b). He turned out to be the French female viewer's favourite, as more and more women became interested in France's continuing success. Adidas added in various up-to-the-minute messages to the TV ads (not easy logistically), as France progressed through the rounds, e.g. "Maintenant tout est possible" ("Now anything is possible") after beating Italy, "Merci d'avoir cru en nous" ("Thanks for believing in us") just after the qualification for the final. On the eve of the match its advertisement in L'Equipe, with a picture of key defender Laurent Blanc, generally thought to be unfairly suspended for the final - a Croatian opponent had exaggerated a push making it look like a punch in the face - urged the French team to "Do it for him" ("Faites-le pour lui").

Nike too was less than completely successful in its choice of featured players. Within a theme of helping poor immigrant or Third World children to play soccer, they used the image of French international Ibrahim Ba (of AC Milan) on various bill-board sites in France (including huge paintings on buildings), but he was not retained in the final French squad of 22 announced three weeks before the start of the competition. The most talked about problem for Nike came not just from the result of the Final, but from the circumstances of Brazil's defeat which cast a shadow over an otherwise bright advertising campaign. Having made wonderboy Ronaldo their central theme, Nike must have expected him to make a bigger impression than he did, especially in the final. Not only was he adored in Brazil, but well known in Europe, having played for clubs in Spain (Barcelona) and Italy (Inter Milan) in his short career. The lively "Airport" and "Beach Boys" television adverts in which he was the centre of attention were an undoubted success. However, Nike had to field awkward press questions about whether or not they had exerted pressure on the Brazilian team management, either directly or through the Nike-sponsored Brazilian Federation, to force an unfit star onto the pitch in the final. The team selection as initially reported to the press did not contain Ronaldo's name since he had been rushed to a local clinic following some still unexplained stress attack or fit. Despite denials on all sides, press speculation certainly constituted bad publicity at the end (cf. Montclos, 1998). A whiff of scandal for one, as Le Monde put it, apotheosis for the other, as the Adidas slogan was projected onto the Arc de Triomphe on victory night and the victorious team paraded the cup the next day wearing Adidas T-shirts (Amalou, 1998c).

The financial stranglehold of one or two major kit manufacturers over international soccer as shown in the success of Adidas and Nike has raised ethical issues that have needed careful communications management by the companies. While Brazil remains the jewel in Nike's crown, the contract that associates Nike with 50 demonstration or friendly matches by the national team has been criticised as taking too much control out of the hands of the Brazilian soccer authorities. FIFA was sufficiently concerned that in May 1998 they set up a working party to look into the "growing interference of sportswear manufacturers in the organisation of international friendly matches". Le Monde also reported official concern about the influence of companies on sport's integrity. Whereas the Brazilian newspaper Folha de San Paolo alleged Nike had initiated 24 international friendly matches played by the Brazilian national team in 1997, Nike responded that it had asked for only four matches. In conscious contrast, Adidas were not slow to try to exploit their longer term connections with international football by portraying themselves as having the interests of sport more at heart. A spokesman was reported as saying: "We want players and teams to maintain the integrity of their own programmes" (Amalou, 1998c; Fatsis, 1998).

Adidas' and Nike's success is based on exploiting the global economy, both in terms of selling world-wide and in delocalising to low-cost labour countries for manufacture, but this too has occasionally conflicted with their advertising image, which needs to take account of the fashion sales factor. Their brand image is associated with health, fitness, success, and the star system. Unlike Tapie, who cultivated personal publicity, Louis-Dreyfus does not court the limelight - the press have only rarely taken an interest in him personally, except for example when he reputedly dated Kim Bassinger. Concerned to keep control of the perception of their brand image, Adidas announced they were cancelling out-sourcing of balls to China after reports linked them with prison labour (Financial Times 2.7.98). Nike dropped its so-called fascist-style posters featuring Eric Cantona from its Fun Park after complaints from a French anti-racist group. They consisted of stark 1930s style graphics, a dictator-like image of Cantona, and slogans like "Young people of the world, football is calling you, come and join us!" (Financial Times 16.6.98, 14).

Other news stories revealing certain economic realities of the global sportswear industry came onto inside pages of the more serious press during the World Cup. What may be interpreted as structural exploitation of Third World labour force by both Adidas and Nike was reported by Le Monde. Replica shirts on sale for 400 francs by Go Sport (Nantes) were made in San Salvador where workers are paid less than 1 franc per item by a Taiwanese firm that had delocalised its operation to San Salvador where labour is cheaper. Both Nike and Adidas, reports Le Monde, used this workshop (since September and December 1997 respectively). Paying Ronaldo £600,000 per annum to promote Nike products, and £120 million over ten years to be associated with the Brazilian national team, is possible at the cost of using, according to a Salvadorian trades unionist, low-paid, 12-30 year-old women, with various abuses of the International Labour Organisation norms for working hours and conditions. Nike promised to look into it, and argued that it was not easy to see where their responsibility stopped and that of local regulation began. Le Monde reported Nike employed only twenty supervisory staff to check up on their 343 factories world wide (Amalou, 1998a).

While it is difficult to evaluate from the outside the relative success of Adidas and Nike's use of the World Cup for marketing purposes, it is possible to make a few observations. Firstly, neither could afford not to be involved, since they are quite openly in competition with each other in the same market. Secondly, in so far as the companies colluded in the press presentation of their involvement as an alternative World Cup, then Adidas quite clearly emerged the victor on points (particularly for the important French market) since they were associated with the winners, France. Thirdly, the case study points up the difficulties of planning and managing the time constraints and other choices in designing campaigns, when informed guess-work may fail to anticipate the loss of form of a player, his exclusion from the first team or even from the whole squad, or when the element of chance intervenes in the form of the bad bounce of a ball, an injury, or a flash of temper leading to a sending off, the side-lining of a key advertising face and the possible elimination of a sponsored team (Adidas's David Beckham is merely one case in point). Use of sponsored teams as opposed to single players would seem to be less susceptible to the random nature of sporting success, although the financial dependency of the Brazilian Federation on Nike and the terms of the sponsorship contract that allow the sponsor to dictate where and when the national team play some of its games comes close to infringing the sport's traditional self-governance and the original values of sport being played for its own sake. When the tension between sporting values and the company's attempts to control the random variables of their investment leads to bad publicity, then the company may have miscalculated its target public's attachment to certain values in their support of football. Finally, in similar vein, while the razzmatazz and on-pitch excitement of the World Cup tends to obscure interest in where, and in what conditions, merchandising is manufactured, stories alleging exploitation of Third-World sweated labour in the press can only constitute bad publicity. This damage to the brand image is not necessarily compensated for by advertisements that present Nike or Adidas as sporting philanthropists bringing fulfilment and hope of achievement and social advancement through football (à la Zidane) to poor immigrant children living in French overspill estates or African villages. It would be naive however too to suppose that such bad publicity, if it is at all managed for damage limitation, stops many people buying replica football shirts or trainers in the euphoria of sporting success. Certainly the demand for Nike and Adidas brands in France 98 offers no evidence to support such idealism.

While Adidas enjoyed the more prominent newspaper headlines telling the world they had won their final over Nike, it is perhaps ironic that Adidas-France had underestimated the demand for French replica shirts and were unable to satisfy it in the days leading up to the final. Increasing public interest in the progress of les Bleus towards the Final had an enormous effect on demand. Sales of the official Adidas Tricolore ball, not cheap at 490 francs (£51), took off after the victory over Paraguay taking France into the quarter-final, and increased thereafter match on match until they sold out. The Hexagone chain sold out of the official French Adidas replica shirt (adult size) (250,000 sold at 349 francs or £37 each), and could not get any more from suppliers, who also seem to have underestimated support for the success of the team. In the first half of the tournament Brazil shirts were reportedly selling well in France, then after the victory over Italy in the quarter-final the trend was reversed, with the number 10 Zidane shirt proving most popular. On the day before the final, the big Décathlon sportswear store in central Paris sold a whole consignment of 600 French shirts (Hacot & Baccuzat, 1998). In the aftermath of the final, Adidas reportedly planned to use one of the tried and tested techniques of marketing football shirts, by bringing out a new design of strip to relaunch demand following the victory. This new national team shirt features the addition of a star representing victory (Hacot, 1998). Its market will of course be not only those who could not find a shirt before France's victory, but also some of those who could and indeed had bought one.

The prominence of football's World Cup means it can lead the way for the rest of football and indeed the rest of professional sport in various ways - not only on the field in terms of interpretations of the laws (the tackle from behind for example in 1998) but also off the field. In particular, the way that world football has been developed though links with global commerce is beginning to challenge the essential autonomy of sport as a social practice. It poses the question as to whether football is being subsumed as a part of the marketing and public relations of multinational companies such as Adidas, Nike and Coca-Cola. An area that needs constant vigilance is the relationship between the regulatory bodies of the sport and the sponsoring companies, in so far as the existence of a corps of regulators who legislate and exercise sanctions in the name of the autonomy of the sport, outside (or above) civil law, is at the heart of modern sport's autonomy. The independence of sport's governing bodies has of course been under attack not only from commerce, but also from politics and the state, or rather from supra-national organisations such as the European parliament, the European Court of Justice and the European Commission (in the Bosman ruling, to give one important example). Will sport have to embrace the demands of one of these masters to protect it from the other? Kidd (1988a, 302), cited by Slack (1998) pointed out how the expectations of corporations have 'become so commanding that they, in effect, have blocked the expression of the older, humanistic amateur based aspirations of Olympism and other similar values.' The French approach hitherto has been to rely on the state's recognition of the public service mission of sport to guarantee sporting values. In the English-speaking world football has sought its independence through making clubs specific kinds of business organisations, which are now all the more open to developments in the direction of commercial, profit-making companies. Further case studies of the relations between commercial sponsors and sports clubs or national or international sports governing bodies or sports events are needed to measure how far sport's autonomy and its values are being eroded. In particular, cross-national comparative studies taking into account different national traditions and regulatory frameworks will be especially instructive in assessing where sport's peculiar values are preserving their integrity.

The author would like to acknowledge help from the Institut Français d'Ecosse and the French Embassy in London towards costs incurred in the research done for this article.

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Copyright sociology of sport online, 1999