Chinese IT/Telecoms giant Huawei has signed a two-year deal to become the new title and shirt sponsor of the Australian Rugby League team Canberra Raiders.
The partnership, reported to be worth $1.7 million over two years, is the Chinese brand’s first major sponsorship deal anywhere and marks what may become the first of many Chinese brands sponsoring non-Chinese sports franchises around the globe.
The collaboration sees the Huawei logo appear on the front of the Raiders home and away jerseys for the remainder of 2012 and 2013 seasons.
The contract is extendable to 2015 and sees Huawei replace construction union CFMEU/Tradies.
In addition to the flagship shirt sponsorship element, the partnership is currently being activated across the team’s social media platforms.
A Twitter campaign, ‘Sign up for Twitter to follow Canberra Raiders (@RaidersCanberra)’, is being incentivised with a competition to win a brand new X3 Huawei smartphone by attending a game and tweeting to the team hashtag live on the big screen.
The Raiders’ Twitter feed has 5,888 followers to date.
Huawei is moving in to new business areas, including consumer-facing ones such as mobile handsets and the SME space with enterprise IT. Clearly this first sports sponsorship aims to help build brand awareness in Australia.
“This is Huawei’s first major sports-team sponsorship anywhere in the world, and we’re delighted it’s with the Raiders,” said Huawei Australia chairman John Lord.
“As Huawei ventures into new business areas like mobile handsets and Enterprise IT, this partnership with the Raiders will help build our brand. With Huawei’s 140,000 staff, it’s safe to say that the Raiders have just gained 140,000 new fans around the world.”
“Huawei partnership with the Raiders is also a massive vote of confidence in the city of Canberra and its people,” commented Canberra Raiders CEO Don Furner.
“It is well known that Canberrans are very IT savvy and I think Huawei recognised this in choosing the Raiders. By their own admission they are a company that most people in Australia have used, but have never heard of. Accordingly, the Raiders look forward to increasing Huawei’s brand awareness and assist in promoting the company’s products”.
Comment
By partnering with an Australian Rugby League team, Huawei is going head-to-head with several direct and in-direct industry competitors such as Kaspersky (Manly Sea Eagles) and Trend Micro (Wests Tigers).
There are, perhaps, clear business reasons for backing a team in the NRL and embedding the Chinese brand more firmly into everyday Australian life. After all, Huawei remains hopeful of landing future National Broadband Network contracts, despite being locked out of bidding for NBN work on ASIO advice.
Chairman Lord denies the deal is an attempt to improve relations with the government which blocked the company from tendering for security reasons. Insisting the timing of the sponsorship announcement had been decided by the Raiders about a month ago, and was unrelated to the furore that enveloped the company this week over the NBN ban.
“This is not aimed at the federal government. This is aimed at the branding, the image,” he said.
Links:
Video of the sponsorship announcement
https://twitter.com/#!/raiderscanberra
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