‘Do you like Messi?’

With over 300 million FC Barcelona football fans around the world, Beko’s partnership with the team describes the brand’s dedication towards teamwork and excellence.

It was still an hour and a half away from the start of the awaited clash between hometown hero FC Barcelona and visiting Sevilla, but fans had started walking from all directions toward Camp Nou, the cathedral of football in Barcelona, the second most important city of Spain after the capital Madrid.

And almost everybody—male, female, senior citizens, children—was wearing the home kit featuring their favorite player—Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, Neymar Jr., Gerard Pique, Andres Iniesta among them. On the left sleeve of the home kit is emblazoned the logo of Beko, reputedly the second largest home appliance brand in Europe.

Beko paid top euro to have that coveted space on the kit, knowing it will have instant global exposure from the association with FC Barcelona, one of the world’s most valuable sports brands.

Beko is extending the winning brand association to the Philippines, despite the fact that football is far less popular a sport here than the ubiquitous basketball.

Great potential

Still, the European company believes that the potential is there. Filipinos may not appreciate football as a sport, but they are aware of such global players as Messi and Neymar, thanks to their various brand associations and growing exposure to sports developments overseas.

Beko, which is distributed in the Philippines through the SM Appliance network, amplified the association through a series of campaigns such as the latest Kick Your Way to Barcelona, and it is confident that riding on the global popularity of both the team and the players will win it some customer loyalty from other brands that have a far longer and deeper presence in the Philippines.

According to Dyeun Zapanta, sales and marketing head for Beko in the Philippines, the signs have been positive.

“Beko’s partnership with FC Barcelona helped in the inception of the brand in the Philippines—with the team spirit campaign launched in the same year of 2015. Beko Philippines easily associated itself with the FC Barcelona team, most especially with its best known players, through transit ads as well as digital billboards, and a promotional trip to Barcelona to watch FCB play live,” Zapanta says. “It did make an impression of Beko as a premium leading global brand in home appliances.”

Beko is a far more familiar brand in Europe.

Beko is the global home appliances brand of Arçelik Group. It offers product lines including major appliances, air conditioners and small appliances. Beko claims it has been the fastest growing brand in overall European market in the last seven years and the campaign with FC Barcelona helps solidify its presence in people’s minds.

Niche market

Zapanta agrees that the Philippines is not a football country, but there is a niche market interested in the sport. And to widen the reach—the focus was not on the sport itself—it centered on the underlying brand campaign, such as the latest brand campaign to make Beko the Official Partner of the Everyday.

He says Beko is on its second year here in the Philippines and it sorely needed the association with a brand known for its tradition and winning ways to jump-start its process of being known to the market.

“As a new player in the highly competitive home appliance market, brand recognition would have been more challenging without Beko’s partnership with FC Barcelona as its global advertising anchor. With over 300 million FC Barcelona football fans around the world, this partnership connotes a stronghold of brand dedication towards team work and excellence. There were several online and offline campaigns that we implemented, anchored on the premium partnership with FC Barcelona. The campaign was successful as it helped increase our Facebook fan base and also translated into sales lift during the campaign period,” he says.

Campaign

One of the most recent campaigns in the Philippines is the “Kick your way to Barcelona: The Grand Kick-off Challenge”, where winner Rafael Halili, 28, also a football player, was treated to an all-expense paid, tax-free trip to Barcelona, Spain to watch the live match of FC Barcelona.

“This promo aimed to make football more popular among Filipinos,” said Zapanta, “Aside from this, we also want to emphasize Beko’s underlying brand campaign as a brand that is relevant to the mass premium market—a vibrant market of aspiring individuals who seek reliability to overcome the demands of their day-to-day living.”

The campaign was implemented alongside efforts to widen the distribution reach, to make the products more easily accessible to those who want to buy a Beko product.

“Since 2015, Beko Philippines has already doubled its distribution in SM Appliance Center and tripled its sales through its improved and aggressive product line that continuously meets the need of the Filipino market. Intensive brand campaigns—both FC Barcelona Partnership and the Official Partner of the Everyday—resonate in the Philippines through our trade-focused initiatives with SM Appliance Center as our exclusive retailer,” Zapanta says.

“Beko Philippines will soon open its door to other business partners as it aims to reach more Filipinos and become their Official Partner of the Everyday,” he adds.