McDonald’s is ending its FIFA World Cup sponsorship
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McDonald’s is ending its FIFA World Cup partnership.Photo courtesy of McDonald’s
Future iterations of the FIFA World Cup will be done without the help of the Golden Arches.
McDonald’s is officially ending its sponsorship of the quadrennial soccer tournament as the company reconfigures its marketing strategy in the aftermath of a difficult spring and summer.
“As the current agreement reaches its conclusion with this summer’s Men’s World Cup, so will McDonald’s global FIFA World Cup sponsorship,” the company said in a statement.
The company has been involved with the event since 1994, and its efforts around the most recent tournament was the largest global marketing effort in its history, involving some 100 different markets around the world.
Yet that effort produced underwhelming results. Same-store sales in the U.S. in the second quarter rose just 0.8% and are expected to be down in the current period. That was disappointing given the number of marketing promotions the company was involved in during the period, including the World Cup and a new value promotion.
That has prompted company executives to shift its marketing strategy. One of those changes involves using what executives call “borrowed IP.”
“I think we’ve become overly reliant on borrowed IP,” Chief Marketing Officer Morgan Flatley said in an interview last month. “And I think we need to be very selective and do it a few times versus becoming a frequent piece of our calendar.”
The company said that its decision to move away from the FIFA World Cup is unrelated to recent headlines regarding FIFA. There is a growing power struggle between FIFA and the UEFA, Europe’s soccer governing body. That is at least somewhat related to a suspended ban that allowed U.S. striker Folarin Balogun to keep playing during the most recent tournament despite a red card that should have kept him out of the team’s last game.
McDonald’s stressed that the decision does not mean it is moving away from sports, saying that “sport and culture will remain important ways we connect with our fans as we sharpen our focus on creating distinctive McDonald’s experiences that deepen those connections year-round.”
McDonald’s is putting its name on a Chicago soccer stadium used by the Chicago Fire FC, to be called McDonald’s Park. The company sponsors Formula 1 in Latin America and Ligue 1 McDonald’s in France and has long-standing platforms such as the McDonald’s All-American Games.
Yet its sports marketing effort will no longer involve the World Cup.
“For more than 30 years, McDonald’s and FIFA have brought fans together around one of the world’s biggest cultural moments, and we are proud of the memories and experiences we have created with fans and globally over that time,” McDonald’s said.
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