Driving innovation: Jean-Pierre Diernaz on Nissan’s Uefa Champions League journey - SportsPro Media: With any partnership, you have to look at your brand dimensions. Many think this is just a European partnership but really, because of the Champions League’s brand dimensions, it is worldwide.
About three years ago, Nissan was really growing worldwide, and within all of our key regions we were increasing our share. We were becoming a key part of public thinking in China, Japan, Korea, Europe and the Americas, and we started to think, where do we go from here?
One thing we knew we had to do was to continue to accelerate the brand awareness of Nissan across the globe.� So we stopped again and asked, “How do you do that?” Immediately, the answer is through sponsorship. Sponsorship is one of the best ammunitions to drive awareness, but then you think, what is the right kind of sponsorship for my brand?
We looked at music, Hollywood and sport and we realised that sport is closely aligned to us. We are an active brand, an outdoor brand, and we put excitement and drama at the centre of our cars.
When we looked at sports, football really came naturally. Put simply, it is the favourite sport across the world, with the most viewers across the globe. In soccer sponsorship you have international tournaments, national tournaments, and then continental tournaments, and we immediately felt that the Uefa Champions League had the most advantages.
About three years ago, Nissan was really growing worldwide, and within all of our key regions we were increasing our share. We were becoming a key part of public thinking in China, Japan, Korea, Europe and the Americas, and we started to think, where do we go from here?
One thing we knew we had to do was to continue to accelerate the brand awareness of Nissan across the globe.� So we stopped again and asked, “How do you do that?” Immediately, the answer is through sponsorship. Sponsorship is one of the best ammunitions to drive awareness, but then you think, what is the right kind of sponsorship for my brand?
We looked at music, Hollywood and sport and we realised that sport is closely aligned to us. We are an active brand, an outdoor brand, and we put excitement and drama at the centre of our cars.
When we looked at sports, football really came naturally. Put simply, it is the favourite sport across the world, with the most viewers across the globe. In soccer sponsorship you have international tournaments, national tournaments, and then continental tournaments, and we immediately felt that the Uefa Champions League had the most advantages.