This document discusses Manchester United as both a successful football club and global brand. It outlines how Manchester United has built a brand value of £789 million through on-field success, legendary players, and a loyal worldwide fan base of 659 million supporters. A key part of Manchester United's brand strategy has been lucrative sponsorship deals, including a record £750 million deal with Adidas. This sponsorship demonstrates how the football club and brand are effectively managed and marketed to generate substantial revenues and further strengthen Manchester United's position as the world's most valuable football brand.

1. 08/02/2016
Brand
Management
Assignment Two
Principles of Marketing for Business
MK 2003
Chloe Welsby and Georgina Atkinson

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It is widely known that in the football world, to switch support to a different team is a
major taboo. Even though clubs swap players frequently, for a fan this is unthinkable
(Hawksley,2014). When growing up football fans often support the team of their
parents and this continues into adulthood. So is it a shock to anyone, that with the
history of Manchester United going back 138 years and the success of the team in the
time frame, has resulted in them currently having 659 million supporters worldwide.
The club has won twenty league titles, the most of any English club. Had legendary
players such as Ryan Giggs, Cristiano Ronaldo, David Beckham and are the first club
to achieve a “treble” which is to win the Premier League, the FA cup and the UEFA
Champions League (Bevan, 2013). When most people think of Manchester United the
see a successful football club that has a very loyal fan base, what they don’t realise it
is also a brand. In fact, Manchester United as a brand is currently worth £789 million,
which according to Brand Finance (2015). the leading international brand valuation
and strategy consultancy, makes Manchester United the most valuable football brand
in the world.
Brand Value
Brand Finance (2015), uses a wide range of factors to calculate both a club’s brand
value and brand rating. The brand rating reflects the image of the club, as the public
would perceive it. It also takes into account the reputation, heritage, on-pitch
performance, and how aware people are of them. That brand rating is then combined
with revenue, both current and projected, to estimate a brand value, which is of
particular interest to the marketing and sponsorship industries. Pope (1998) suggests
that business’s need to carefully examine what aspects of their brand image they wish

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to advance, prior to embarking on a sponsorship program. With Adidas and
Manchester United both being in the sporting industry, and both wanting to be the
leader in their fields, has resulted in Adidas offering Manchester United a £750m
sponsorship deal and a prospect of a three-year TV deal starting in 2016 estimated to
be worth more than £5bn in domestic rights alone (Gillooly,2015). This sponsorship
has already sent Adidas’s brand value rocketing by 63 per cent. This in turn has made
a significant impact on Adidas’s share price. Kinney & Bell (2003) concur that the
announcement of a new sponsorship deal, always raises the share price of the
sponsoring company. In November last year, Hall (2015), reported that shares in
Adidas jumped nearly 9 percent and sales accelerated by 17.7 percent, with net
earnings growing by 20 percent. As you can see this a clear advantage for Adidas’
sponsorship of Manchester United, as it has already helped them with their goal of
regaining market share from Nike (Martin,2014).
Brand Management
When you mention the words management and Manchester United, people
immediately think of names such as Sir Alex Ferguson or Louis Van Gaal. They do not
realise that the management of the team and brand, consist of much more than one
person. The effect of how the team in managed by Louis Van Gaal will impact the team
performance, but the way the team’s performance is marketed and advertised impacts
the brand. For example, according to European Football Statistics (2010) Manchester
United lost the FA Cup, Champions League and League Cup in 2010. A very
disappointing performance, resulted in dissatisfied fans. As a result, Manchester
United marketing team released a new pre-season campaign. This included a TV
advertisement showing the extra training the team had undergone to improve their

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performance, slogans such as “Code Red! New Season, New Battle, New Shirt” and
using the new social media platforms such as Facebook to reach their wider fan base.
The objectives of the campaign was to “inspire and enable their audience of
passionate, young footballers to kick off their pre-season early. And hard.” The result
of the campaign led to 1.7 million YouTube hits, 320,000 new fans on Facebook and
three lucky winners to train with the Manchester United team. Not only did this
campaign work by increasing the amount of followers on Facebook and fans for the
club, but Manchester United went on to win the Champions League and the League
Cup in 2011, showing how the brand performs exceptionally well on the marketing
platform, on the field and how both link together to produce a successful season.
Brand Culture
According to the Journal of brand strategy (Richelieu, 2014) when fans take ownership
of a sports brand, they create rituals and become ambassadors for thier team. This is
no different for Manchester United’s fans, according to an article posted by Manchester
United (2013) some fans would eat the same meals, wear the same clothes and some
even have a pre match prayer. Fans truly believe that without doing these rituals it will
lead to the clubs losing a match, reinforcing the need to attend matches or watch them
in certain ways.
For any football fan that has supported a team for the past forty years will have seen
a massive cultural change within football. In an interview by Tribal Football (2011), Sir
Alex Ferguson explains the cultural shift in football fans throughout the years. Using
an example of a photograph from a Manchester United vs Leeds United match in the
1960’s. He states that “in the photograph there’s absolute mayhem in the middle of the

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pitch, the players are fighting and in the background the fans did not have a bit of
emotion on their faces. See the culture of the fans today. They are over the fence,
screaming and bawling. It's a different time”. There has been a lot of discussion in
recent times over the cultural change in football. Some argue that this cultural shift has
had a positive effect and was a needed change to the football industry (Direct, 2010).
However, others state that people known as “football hooligans” have ruined the
experience for genuine fans and consequently, can also run the risk of destroying the
reputation of the teams they claim to support (Krøvel & Roksvold, 2012). For
Manchester United in particular, they need to control any affiliation with hooligan
organizations such as “The Red Army”, which is one of the largest hooligan firms in
the football industry, which support Manchester United (Scots Man, 2006). If the
actions of an organization such as The Red Army, reach the press this could have a
damaging effect on the Manchester United brand, if associated with them.
Position of the brand
When Manchester United decided to positon themselves as a brand, they made it very
clear their message of “relentless pursuit of excellence” would appear in every aspect
of the brand strategy (Business Case Studies,2010). The timing of Manchester United
making their fan base figures (659 million) public, was part of their brand strategy. As
it was the same time that the club was releasing its Initial Public Offering (IPO), to the
New York stock exchange and included the fan figures into their pitch’s to potential
investors (Prior, 2013). Therefore, it makes sense why that they have agreed to a
collaboration sponsorship with Adidas this year, which has resulted in the club
receiving a record breaking sponsorship deal off £750 million (Gillooly,2015). Even
though the club has benefited massively by receiving this sponsorship, Adidaswill also

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profit by having its logo on the uniform of the world’s best known and most visible
football club. According to Guy Masterman (2012) sponsorships can offer a great
platform for PR operations. Adidas and other sponsors can invite their best client’s to
football games, enabling it to strengthen business relationships in a more convivial
environment. Nike was Manchester United last main sponsor before Adidas and as
part of the new agreement, Manchester United has now taken ownership of the
commercial ventures previously operated by Nike, as a result it now retains 100% of
the profits from all commercial sales (Gillolly,2015). Now that Manchester United, is
fully responsible for the sales and marketing of their service, they will need to explore
their marketing mix and define what distinct them from their competitors to increase
their profit margin and sales forecast.
Marking Mix
In the Introduction to Integrated Communication Journal (2009) explains the marketing
mix as the development of connections by understanding the needs and wants of the
customers, satisfying those needs through product development, offering at a price,
making it available and developing an advertisement or promotion to generate interest.
These are known as the four P’s – Product, Price, Place and Promotions all of these
are a part of what is known as the marketing mix. Basic marketing is to generate a
campaign including all four elements to reach the target consumer market. Marketers
must be knowledgeable of the different problems that can occur with each element of
the mix and how to combine them to make an effective marketing campaign.
Firstly, the product that Manchester United offer is not only their merchandise they sell,
but having an exceptional team that wins matches to boost the customers experience

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at a game. Tsiotsou & Alexandris (2009) proposed that highly attached fans are more
likely to develop a positive image for their team sponsor, exhibit higher intention for
purchasing and recommending the sponsors product. The place is the surroundings
were the experience is shared whether it be at Old Trafford or away games at different
grounds, having different sections for better viewing i.e VIP areas. It also includes
Manchester United selling their merchandise across the world, through the team’s
website and other media platforms. For promoting themselves, they have decided to
use social media, with has resulted, in them gaining 68 million Facebook followers and
8.8 million Instagram followers. They have run successful marketing campaigns such
as the 2014 Front Row campaign that led to a collaboration with Google (MediaPoondi
, 2014 ). Last is price, this all depends on the success of the club and which league
they are currently playing in. As this reflects on the price they can charge for their
tickets and merchandise. For example if your team is in the Champions League the
average ticket price is £280 (Sheen, 2015), the Premier League average ticket price
is £30.68 (BBC, 2015) and for League One the average ticket price is £20.14 (BBC,
2015). Consequently, pressure for the team to perform well, is as important to the fans
as it is to the brand (Business Case Studies,2012).
Brand Image
According to the Journal of brand strategy (2014) a brand is either “a name, a word, a
sign, a drawing or a combination of all of the above.” As you can see this is why, one
of Manchester United biggest advantages as a brand, is their brand image. Even for
people who do not support football they recognised the logo and know the team
colours are red and white (Andrew D,2004). This has made it possible for the club to
expand into different sectors such as ownership of TV channels i.e. Manchester United

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Television (Campaign,1998) . People recognise the brand, and to associate yourself
with it gives business an advertising platform unlike any other. With an average of
12.3 million potential customer watching a premier league game (Pilger,2014) and the
opportunity to link your marketing campaignto Manchester United’s brand, for example
when Chevrolet casted the teams four main players in their 2014 TV advert (Rice,
2014). You can understand the attraction of why business are willing to spend millions
on sponsorship deals with Manchester United.
Social Media and TV engagement
Manchester United Football Club have multiple sponsorship's including Chevrolet,
DHL, Epson and Adidas. All of these sponsors benefit from advertising, TV coverage,
promotion of their corporate image and the potential of spectators as customers.
Dolphin (2003) concludes that sponsorship has a significant part to play in increasing
sales, enhancing corporate image and leveraging employee morale. Manchester
United football club has currently 256 million fans worldwide and 68 million Facebook
followers (Social Bakers, 2016). The launch of United's new Adidas kit is the fastest
football kit launch ever, as it has already generated over £1.5m in social media value
in its first three days of trading, according to figures compiled by sports industry
researcher and adviser Repucom (2015). The group's head of digital inUK and Ireland,
commented: "This was the big one for Adidas. They needed to show they made the
right decision following their world record deal to kit out Manchester United for the next
decade. Value generated through social media was always going to play a huge role
and the figures so far for the brand are encouraging”.

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There has been controversy over Manchester United decision, to switch sponsorship from
Nike to Adidas, claiming that they care more about money than loyalty (Crafton,2014).
The truth of the situation is, that with out the sponsorship deals, clubs like Manchester
United could not afford to pay thier player such high wages. Therefore, opening the
risk of players moving to another rival club. This would result in Manchester United
having a much inferior team and would put their ‘champions’ title under threat. If this
would continue they could disengage their fans and potentially lose them. As you can
see all these aspects are connected and the sponsorship money Manchester United
receive is an essential necessity. With Adidas offering such a large world breaking
amount and beneficial term for Manchester United such as retaining 100 percent off
all commercial ventures, you can see why the team jumped at the opportunity of a
sponsorship deal with Adidas.

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