LG Electronics is trading soccer for cricket this summer. The local team for the Korean powerhouse has confirmed it will not be continuing its sponsorship of SBS’s A-League coverage and will instead be launching a substantial campaign around the 2015 Cricket World Cup.
Held throughout Australia and New Zealand over six weeks, between 14 February and 29 March 2015, the Cricket World Cup is set to be watched by millions of Australians and billions of earthlings, as it brings together the 10 test playing nations, along with Ireland, Afghanistan, Scotland and the United Arab Emirates.
LG is one of the global partners of this tournament, along with Castrol, MoneyGram, Indian pay TV company Star Sports, Reebok, Hyundai, Reliance and Pepsi. Sometimes when these big tournaments roll around, the local offices don’t invest any money in promoting these global arrangement, and they tend to fizzle out without many people noticing. Examples include Sony’s sponsorship of multiple soccer tournaments, BlackBerry’s sponsorship of Formula 1 and Nikon’s partnership with the Champions League.
That won’t be the case with this sponsorship, however, as LG Electronics Australia has plans to leverage the Cricket World Cup through advertising, public relations, corporate hospitality and social media activity. This will promote its range of home entertainment, IT and appliance ranges to a cricket-hungry audience during a period of relative sporting calm in Australia. Sources say one of the main reasons LG is excited for this opportunity is because there is very little other sport on during February and March to distract viewers from the Cricket World Cup.
Matches will be played in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, Hobart and Canberra in Australia; along with New Zealand cities Auckland, Hamilton, Napier, Wellington, Nelson, Dunedin and Christchurch. Channel Nine will be broadcasting all of Australia’s fixtures, along with other marquee match-ups, while Fox Sports will be showing every match live and in HD.
LG Electronics Australia will have its local launch of this partnership in the first week of November 2014, sources say, to recognise the ‘100 Days to Go’ mark.
One of the appealing aspects of cricket sponsorship is that because the matches run for seven hours, the partners really get the opportunity to saturate viewers in their brand messaging.
Meanwhile, LG Electronics has quietly exited its sponsorship of A-League football on SBS after only one year. LG is understood to have been dissatisfied with a lack of commercial awareness within both that football code and the broadcaster.