Pocari Sweat jumps on board as sponsor for ASEAN Football Federation

Fitness drink Pocari Sweat has jumped on board as an official supporter of the bi-annual football tournament, the ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) Mitsubishi Electric Cup. Facilitated by SPORTFIVE, AFF’s exclusive commercial rights partner, Pocari Sweat has committed to two editions of the tournament (2022 and 2024). The deal was inked to help drive the brand's exposure and engagement opportunities with football fans across the region as the event returns to a full home-and-away format this year.

“We are excited to embark on this journey with AFF as the Official ION Supply Drink of the AFF Mitsubishi Electric Cup for the next two editions. We see a lot of synergies between ourselves and AFF, especially in terms of enhancing athletes’ performance through the fulfilment of hydration needs. It also provides a platform for Pocari Sweat to deepen the connection with the fans through on-ground activations,” Mikio Bando, Otsuka Emerging Countries and Otsuka International Asia-Arab (OIAA) Division managing director said.

“With the quality of football in Southeast Asia which improved tremendously and its popularity has increased remarkably, we hope that the competition will inspire fans to be more active, and for us as an organisation, to provide healthy solutions to the communities through football-related activities which very much aligns with our corporate philosophy,” Bando added.

“As we herald in a new era for ASEAN football with the newly named AFF Mitsubishi Electric Cup, we are delighted to have POCARI SWEAT join our family of AFF partners. To have them commit to two editions speaks volumes about the popularity of the tournament and how strongly the event is able to connect brands with fans,” Malcom Thorpe, SPORTFIVE managing director said. 

Taking place from December 2022, the renamed AFF Mitsubishi Electric Cup 2022 will enter its 14th edition this year and see the 10 qualified teams compete in a full home and away format.

According to Technavio, the Sports Sponsorship Market size is expected to increase by US$ 5.33 billion from 2019 to 2024, at an accelerated CAGR of 2%. Approximately, 34% of the market's growth will originate from APAC during the forecast period. 

China and India are the key markets for sports sponsorship in APAC. Market growth in this region will be faster than the growth of the market in other regions. The emergence of new sporting events coupled with the increasing sports sponsorship spending will facilitate the sports sponsorship market growth in APAC over the forecast period.

The report also added that given analytics is gaining prominence in the arena, it is a major trend that is expected to have a positive impact in the coming years. 

Over the years, the lack of efficient metrics to measure sports sponsorship ROI had been one of the major challenges faced by the sponsors. However, the advent of marketing analytics is expected to be one of the best solutions to encounter this problem.

Marketing analytics helps the sponsor in collecting social media insights from customers before, during, and after a sports event. Thus, the sponsor will have a better understanding of what people are really saying about their financial brand.

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