By
iGBA
Editorial
Non-native advertisers in European football leagues including the EPL are not taking advantage of the organic search presence they are driving to their brand, leaving others to fill the void, as Dan Taylor explains
Advertising in sport has evolved greatly over the past two decades as competitions such as the English Premier League have evolved into an exportable product. This means more and more non-native advertisers and companies now have the opportunity to increase awareness and prominence both within their own market and in international territories. Organic search presence isn’t always a consideration of these brands, and this can lead to some compelling opportunities where users are looking for a brand they have seen advertised, either through base curiosity or a more qualified interest, and there’s no one there to fill the gap. These opportunities not only exist with generic brands’ advertising, such as in Germany’s Bundesliga where software company SAP and the dairy cooperative Schwarzwaldmilch have close affiliations with Hoffenheim and SC Freiburg respectively, but also with non-native betting companies. Examples of betting companies doing this don’t only exist in non-UK markets, though. In fact, there are two prominent examples in the English Premier League. In both these instances, non-native advertisers are driving search interest to their brand without creating the content to satisfy it, thus allowing other betting sites and affiliates to muscle in and fill the void.
LABA360 AND BURNLEY FC
Laba360 have a prominent placement as the principal shirt sponsor of Burnley FC, and given the club’s ambitions to recreate the European fairytale of the 2018/19 season, there is strong potential for high OTS and coverage for the brand. But when you search for LaBa360 on Google.co.uk, what do you get? There is a Twitter account for the brand that appears on page one, advertising a .co.uk URL:
MANBETX AND CRYSTAL PALACE/WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS
Much like the LaBa360 example, ManBetX has twice entered the EPL as a non-native shirt sponsor. With the company logo adorning the shirts of Crystal Palace and Wolverhampton Wanderers, ManBetX has invested considerably into advertising its brand within the EPL product. Again, looking at Google Trends, UK search interest in the brand term ‘ManBetX’ starts at around the time the sponsorship deal with Crystal Palace was announced in 2017, and has been relatively steady since.
