28/07/2015

Le Tour De France’s Quirky Contradictions Reflected In Antithetical Activation/Ads

Tour de France owner The Amaury Sport Organisation’s (ASO) claims that its flagship property is the world’s third biggest sporting event – after FIFA’s World Cup and the IOC’s Olympic Games.

 

ASO’s event statistics say that the 2014 edition was seen live from the roadside by 15 million fans and a staggering 1.4bn watched on television or via a livestream. If those numbers are right, it certainly makes Le Tour the planet’s premier annual sports event.

 

And yet the world’s greatest bike race is something of a conundrum of a property for many sponsorship marketers. It is simultaneously old school and high-tech, traditional and cutting edge. It is also global and yet it is very, very French. It is family-friendly and yet headlines are so often dominated by its recent doping history. And its sponsorship activation is equally antithetical.

 

While some teams, such as Team Sky, market with contemporary sophistication (see case study), others like Giant-Alpecin run adverts that could have aired in the 1970s (see case study).

 

Race sponsor Skoda’s integrated activation programme is a fine example of a strategic, modern, multi-phase global campaign (see case study), while cycling sports equipment brand Oakley’s Tour marketing is contemporary and cool (see case study).

 

Yet many French brands still simply hurl cheap freebies to fans from badly painted, ancient 2CVs.

 

The property’s own marketing is equally contradictory. While the ASO’s digital Tour platforms are cutting edge (from real-time microsites, to multiple mobile apps and the latest social platforms), the biggest, most successful part of the Tour’s marketing is the eclectic, unsophisticated ‘Caravane Publicitaire’.

 

Indeed, a recent TNS survey by found that 47% of all live, roadside Tour De France spectators come primarily to see the publicity caravan (and not the race).

 

Click here to continue reading our full ASO 2015 Tour De France case study…



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