BANGALORE: Philips and Federation Internationale de Football (FIFA), the world governing body of soccer, announced jointly that Philips would be the Official Partner of the 2006 FIFA World Cup to be held in Germany. This would be Philips sixth sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup.
As part of the agreement, Philips will have exclusive sponsorship rights to the Consumer Electronics (CE) category of the FIFA World Cup for the first time.
An official release from Philips India quotes executive director and senior vice president-CE, D Shivakumar as saying "The 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany is a great platform to demonstrate our new brand positioning, build valuable relationships and really showcase how Philips is providing innovative products that connect with the consumer. There is a clear link between the brand values of the FIFA World Cup and Philips, and we hope to bring these values to life by enabling football enthusiasts all over the world, especially India, to view the FIFA World Cup in a new light through Philips products and services."
According to Shivakumar, Philips plans to add to the excitement to the FIFA World Cup by rolling out interesting promotional offerings during various festivals across cities that are passionate about soccer in states and places such as Kerala, Kolkatta, Goa and Mumbai. Free tickets to the FIFA World Cup could be won as grand prizes. The FIFA campaign would be kick started with the biggest festival in Kerala - Onam. Special theme based activities across exclusive Philips Arena showrooms would take place as part of the campaign.
During the 2006 FIFA World Cup all Media Centers will be equipped with Philips Flat TVs, a total of 5,500, to power the behind-the-scenes action of the FIFA World Cup, adds the release.
As per figures revealed by Philips, in 2002 a cumulative number of 28.8 billion people watched the FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan on TV. That figure is expected to rise for 2006. In India, unlike cricket, soccer viewership is still limited to metros with Kerala, Goa and West Bengal being the exceptions among the states. International soccer events like the FIFA World Cup, European Championships amongst others, are the most watched and viewership during this period goes up to 300 per cent with an average increase of 50 per cent.
