It has been reported over the last couple of day's that Coca Cola, one of the world's largest soft drink producers is considering a potential move into Formula One sponsorship. It is believed that if the company does decide to come in to Formula One it would become the new title sponsor of McLaren.
McLaren already have a title sponsor in Vodafone, however it has been suggested recently that Vodafone are looking to cut costs and that could potentially mean cutting short the agreement with McLaren. Vodafone became McLaren's title sponsor in 2007 when the company took over from the banned West tobacco advertising.
Should Coke decide to come into Formula One it will not be the first time that they have been involved in the sport as the sponsored a number of GrandPrix in the early 1990's.
The company spends millions of dollars a year on sponsoring IndyCar and NASCAR in America and they are very heavily involved in Andretti Autoport through Dr Pepper. I believe it would be a massive boast for both Formula One and Coca Cola as a brand if they came into Formula One as it would show the sport that sponsorship agreements are still doable despite the economic down turn.
I found it extremely surprising at the weekend's Hungarian GrandPrix that the Vodafone logo had disappeared from the rear wing of both McLaren car's and in it's place was Lucazade's brand Maxi Muscle and on the other side the team were promoting their animated series TOONED that features on the Sky Sports F1HD channel.
This makes me believe that Vodafone are considering their options as it would be very uncharacteristic for a company of their size to drop their logo's from the rear wing of the car. Any potential Coca Cola dal with McLaren may have to wait however, as I believe Lucazade would be unwilling to end or indeed share sponsorship space with Coke especially as their deal with McLaren is a relatively new deal.
So we will have to watch this space over the next few week's to see what happens.
No comments:
Post a Comment