More than half of the brands people associate with Euro 2016 are not even sponsoring the tournament

Antoine Antonio

Brands spend millions of dollars to become official sponsors of international soccer tournaments like Euro 2016.

However, many of the companies that people closely associate with Euro 2016 are not sponsors at all, according to a new report by online marketing firm RadiumOne.

When 1,000 British people with an interest in the tournament were asked to list the five brands they most closely associated with the soccer tournament, 9% of them said Nike.

However, the sports clothing brand is not even a sponsor.

MasterCard, Visa, Heineken, Barclays, and Budweiser — none of which are sponsors — were also in the top ten.

Non-sponsors outnumbered actual sponsors in the list of the ten most closely associated brands with Euro 2016 by six to four.

Coca-Cola (12%) and Adidas (11%) were the top two brands. Fortunately for Uefa's commercial team, both are actually official sponsors.

This will do little to console Orange, Hisense, and Hyundai — all of which are official sponsors of the tournament, but failed to get even 1% brand recognition.

“With only three weeks left until the tournament starts, sponsors still have much work to do to activate their investment in terms of consumer association,” Rupert Staines, RadiumOne’s European managing director, said in a press release.

Staines explained that companies like MasterCard, Heineken ,and Barclays benefit from the "'halo effect" of other soccer-related sponsorships.

See the full results of the study below:

Antoine Antonio

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