“We Want to Be Synonymous with Football”: Inside Unilever’s Tactics to Conquer the Beautiful Game

Are brand sponsorships simply a ‘badging’ exercise in promoting visibility, or can they be something more? 

At the ISC Brands and Sponsorship Summit, held at Unilever’s sprawling London HQ last week, the answer was emphatically the latter. For the many brands under the Unilever umbrella, sports sponsorships are partnerships based on shared values and ambitions – leveraged to secure increased awareness and drive market share, of course, but crucially measured on their success in achieving change. That change could be on a relatively small scale – like helping to improve access into the grassroots women’s game in local communities. Or it might be broad – like promoting positive role models for the next generation of boys and girls on an international scale. 

This was the key theme to come out of a day of talks featuring voices from across Unilever's leadership alongside HEINEKEN, UEFA, Expedia, Metro Bank and more, hosted by the sports presenter and broadcaster Adam Leventhal. “We want to be synonymous with football”, noted Komal Patel, Unilever’s head of gifting and football on one of the earlier panels. It was a note of ambition upon which to set the tone, and was underscored by both global head of sport and entertainment partnerships Willem Dinger and global brand lead for Rexona Kathryn Swallow in an exclusive interview with LBB. 

Ambitious, yes – but also based on existing success. Unilever had an unmissable presence at this summer’s UEFA Euro 2024, for example, with brands like Rexona popping up pitch-side in Germany’s stadiums and interactive activations aplenty across the country. The tournament faced a truncated preparation time with Euro 2020 having slipped into 2021 due to the pandemic, and UEFA’s head of sponsorship and licensing Guillaume Sabran pointed out how impressive it was that Unilever “had put together so much content and so many activations on a tight timescale”. 

That’s on top of the company’s experience in partnership with 2023’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. That tournament is widely credited with having boosted viewership for women’s sport amongst men and women – something that Unilever is keen to build upon with future initiatives. 

Game Changers 

When asked why Unilever was putting such a high priority on football, Willem was quick to point towards the company’s work in the women’s game. “Strategically for us, football is clearly a massive passion point across the world”, he said. “That’s why we partnered with two Women’s World Cups – in ‘23 and the next in ‘27 – and we’ve just come out of the women’s under 20s tournament in Colombia where we saw the highest ever attendance for an under 20s match. So there’s this huge passion which is only going to grow across all sorts of demographics”. 

That level of passion is something that excites Willem and Unilever – both as a platform in its own right and as a catalyst to drive changes which align with their values. “Football allows us to emotionally connect in a more meaningful and deeper way with our audience”, he explains. “It allows us to drive unmissable communication, and helps our brands drive superiority in their categories”. 

Values-driven change is another way in which the company is keen to define its own success. “We would love to see the number of women playing football triple in the coming years”, notes Kathryn. “But we aren’t where we want to be yet. Thinking in terms of partnerships rather than traditional ‘badging’ sponsorships is key, because whilst we might have some credibility as a deodorant brand - you sweat when you play any sport, after all – we don’t have as much credibility as an NGO. So we need to lead efforts across partners to be truly effective”. 

In addition to all of that, there’s another unifying theme around all Unilever’s football sponsorships: A focus on the long-term. In modern times, their partnerships are about more than one tournament – or even one whole season. Invariably, the team has a much wider and grander vision in mind. 

Rexona, for example, has partnered with Chelsea FC since 2017 and Manchester City since 2018. In that time, the brand has been at the forefront of initiatives focused on promoting exercise, especially those with close links to the women’s game. Rexona is present in celebrations for Chelsea’s record-breaking female players, for instance, and both clubs’ platforms have been leveraged to promote the Rexona Breaking Limits Program which aims to empower young people to move more and promotes access into sport. 

Whatever campaigns and activations may come along in the future, there’s a sense that this is Unilever's model for sponsorship success. A focus on shared values, promoting the women’s game internationally, all whilst driving up brand recognition in key markets. And it’s about the long-term. “Through our work with Chelsea, we’ve started working with the club’s disability inclusion program”, offers Kathryn by way of another example. “I think we can make a difference, but it won’t happen in six months. We’ll need longer than that, but we’ll get there”. 

Beyond the Badge

Ultimately, this approach represents a significant change in marketing mindsets. “It’s such a different approach to how we looked on sponsorships when I first started out”, says Kathryn. “Back then, sponsorship really was a badging exercise”. 

“I don’t even think ‘sponsorship’ is the right word anymore”, adds Willem. “It’s a partnership. Because we also talk about what we can do to enhance the fan value proposition. We’re creating one-of-a-kind experiences on matchdays because that does fundamentally drive the top-of-mind consideration from fans – we want them to remember us based on what we were able to deliver”. 

At one point in the interview, Willem and Kathryn were confronted with the idea that passion around football can be – as well as a positive force in culture – something that curdles into negativity on occasion. For every moment of joy and triumph, there are instances of defeat and frustration. Would it never concern them that their brands could accidentally become associated with these negative emotions? 

“Not at all”, responds Kathryn. “Because when you zoom out, frustration around a defeat has never replaced the passion for a sport. Nobody has ever stopped supporting a team because they lost a game, even a final. It’s what makes the passion what it is, something real and authentic. That certainly doesn’t concern me, it only underlines how powerful it is”. 

Win or lose, fans flock to football - and sport more broadly – because it’s part of culture and it means something to the millions who follow it. In most cases, it’s a passion that endures for life, and the long-term nature of football fandom is something of which the Unilever marketing team are utterly aware. Football partnerships insert brands into culture, align on positive values and visions for change, and ultimately drive revenue through awareness. And that focus on the long-term means that Unilever is set to become intrinsically linked to the sport. 

Or, to sum it up in the parlance of modern football fandom: They trust the process.