Carlsberg stresses Premier League ties with digital push

Carlsberg is looking to ramp up the digital marketing activity around its sponsorship deals with Liverpool, Tottenham and Arsenal football clubs, after hailing the success of its Facebook and mobile campaigns during the Euro 2012 Championship.

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The decision comes as the Danish brewer, which is the official beer supplier for all Premier League three clubs, evaluates the seventh European Championship it has sponsored in a row after claiming that the global campaign “set new records” for the company.

Indeed, 3 million users worldwide downloaded the brand’s Euro 2012 app, which let users access exclusive content during the tournament, while its Facebook competition to get fans to undertake a series of football challenges to win tickets to the tournament is its biggest social media activation to date.

Speaking to Marketing Week, Michael Thompson, director of global consumer experience for Carlsberg Group, says the company has never used digital marketing on this scale before but is now planning to apply the strategies to “the broader football picture” through its exclusive marketing deals with Liverpool, Tottenham and Arsenal.

He adds: “On the digital side of things we’ve been stronger than we’ve ever been before with our Euro 2012 campaign. In terms of keeping the conversation going there’s definitely some stuff that we can bring across and use in our other sponsorships. So within football some of the digital work we can use with other sponsorships in the portfolio like Liverpool and Arsenal.

“There’s a legacy there in terms of us taking some of the existing work that we’ve done and translating it to some of our other properties.”

The digital drive is part of the brewer’s ambition to double last year’s annual profits of $962.3m (£621.3m) by 2015. It has previously stated that its sports deals are a key part of it engaging with drinkers in overseas markets as it looks to become the fastest growing global beer company.

Meanwhile, beer sales also exceeded expectations of Carlsberg during the tournament where sales were up 40% from 2008.

Carlsberg refused to say for definite whether it would bid for the 2016 championship, but confirmed that it would “sit down with UEFA and have discussions about the future” once it had completed its evaluation of this year’s sponsorship campaign.

Fellow sponsor Orange has said that is hoping that the success of its digital marketing during last month’s championship will help persuade the European football governing body to work with the company for a second time.

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