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卡塔尔世界杯引发争议,但广告商“希望充分利用这次盛会”

卡塔尔世界杯引发争议,但广告商“希望充分利用这次盛会”

Simone Foxman, Alex Webb, 彭博社 2022-11-22
2022年卡塔尔世界杯绝对是史上受到最严格审查的一届世界杯。

图片来源:CHRISTOPHER PIKE—BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

从来没有一届世界杯(World Cup)像2022年卡塔尔世界杯(Qatar 2022)一样,在开幕之前引发如此多的争议。

本届世界杯在许多方面都遭到了人权组织的批评,例如这个宣布同性恋非法的国家对LGBTQ群体的态度,以及赛场劳工死亡等问题。世界杯的组织方国际足联(FIFA)正在努力摆脱腐败丑闻的影响。卡塔尔最初获得世界杯主办权的过程曾经因此备受诟病。国际足联的前任主席约瑟夫·布拉特曾经表示,他后悔选择这个海湾国家举办世界杯。

然而,尽管这场四年一次的盛会令人失望,但世界杯依旧可能吸引50亿观众,约占全球人口的三分之二。面对如此庞大的观众群体,品牌商会趋之若鹜,愿意为此付费。

彭博新闻社(Bloomberg News)采访了76家世界杯或参赛球队的赞助商。其中既有阿迪达斯(Adidas AG)和可口可乐(Coca-Cola Co.),也有大众汽车(Volkswagen AG)和微软(Microsoft Inc.)的XBox等,而且它们都来自人权批评的声音较为普遍的国家,比如美国、加拿大和欧洲的一些国家。国际足联的七家赞助商没有一家表示会因为人权问题而修改全球广告计划。

在69个国家队赞助商中,有20家赞助商表达了对于人权的承诺,但拒绝披露是否可能或者如何修改营销计划。13家公司表示会做出调整,但这些公司与卡塔尔几乎没有重要的业务关系。其中包括丹麦啤酒公司嘉士伯(Carlsberg A/S)、比利时巧克力品牌克特多金象(Cote d’Or)和会计事务所普华永道(PwC)的比利时部门。

2022年卡塔尔世界杯无疑是史上审查最严格的一届世界杯。随着专家和政客们对主办国提出质疑,公司的高管都面临一种两难的困境,但从财务方面,他们很容易做出决定:在全球经济的困难时期,能够让数以亿计的观众看到公司的标识或者营销口号。

为了避免夏季高温,本届世界杯成为首次在11月举办的一届。据彭博社于上周报道,本届世界杯预计将给国际足联带来创纪录的收入,超过2018年俄罗斯世界杯的约54亿美元。

位于英国伦敦的贝伦贝格银行(Berenberg Bank)的欧洲媒体分析师萨拉·西蒙说:“与五至十年前相比,现在公众开始更直言不讳地批评人权问题。然而这是四年一次的良机,因此在世界杯投放广告的企业希望充分抓住这次机会。”

随着观众从传统广播公司转移到在线流媒体服务平台,体育赛事依旧是最后一批可以吸引直播观看的内容之一。品牌商能够在奥运会(The Olympics)、超级碗(Super Bowl)和世界杯等少数几个场合,投入大笔资金向直播观众投放广告,因此这些赛事在电视广告收入方面具有举足轻重的地位。

经济下滑已经迫使品牌商减少营销支出。据数据公司WARC预测,今年和明年,品牌商的广告支出将比之前的预期减少900亿美元。

世界杯恰逢其时,成为广告业的一大亮点

这让本届世界杯恰逢其时,成为一大亮点,尽管它产生了诸多争议。世界杯于11月20日在多哈正式开赛,首场比赛为卡塔尔对战厄瓜多尔。世界杯的刺激,可能抵消广告市场整体疲软造成的损失。

例如,据分析师预测,英国商业广播公司ITV凭借转播世界杯比赛,第四季度的销售额有望达到去年的类似水平。而与此同时,其竞争对手的广告收入预计将会下跌。

彭博智库(Bloomberg Intelligence)的媒体分析师马修·布洛克萨姆表示:“尽管世界杯有各种争议,但对广播公司来说,它的举办恰逢其时。广播公司的广告收入面临严峻挑战,世界杯可以缓解广播公司的状况。”

但对于广告商和赞助商而言,并不能说这是一届正常的世界杯。丹麦、比利时和荷兰球队的许多赞助商称,它们不会利用比赛门票收入的分成。

嘉士伯表示,与去年丹麦参加欧洲足球锦标赛(European Football Championship)时相比,公司为世界杯编制的营销预算减少了一半。嘉士伯的一位女发言人通过电子邮件指出,公司专注于在球队出征卡塔尔之前为他们提供支持。她说:“世界杯开始之后,与正常时期相比,我们大幅减少了营销预算。”

克特多金象表示,公司高管不会出席世界杯,或者向顾客赠送门票,尽管该品牌隶属于食品经销商亿滋国际(Mondelez International Inc.),而后者的食品已经被摆上了卡塔尔的杂货店货架。普华永道的比利时部门也有类似表态,虽然该公司在卡塔尔有大量业务。

事实上,从世界杯开幕到12月18日总决赛,品牌商将密切关注公众的情绪。英国资深广告业高管马丁·索雷尔认为,如果批评的声量日益升高,有些品牌商就可能会重新考虑是否要继续投放策划了几个月的广告。索雷尔离开广告业巨头WPP Plc之后成立了数字广告公司S4 Capital Plc,现任该公司董事长。

索雷尔称:“如果出现明显的势头,如果形成某种运动,或者批评的声音愈演愈烈,人们就会重新评估自己的立场。客户可能会对此有所担忧,比如人权问题以及卡塔尔对待LGBTQ群体的其他政策等。因此,可能会有人对此表明立场。但人们可能早已对此做出了决定。”

英国啤酒品牌BrewDog Plc的经历表明,采取相反的策略可能存在一些陷阱。该公司决定利用对卡塔尔的负面情绪,发起了所谓的“反世界杯”运动。这家公司还承诺在世界杯期间,将把某一类啤酒的利润捐赠给人权慈善组织。

但在广告片发布后不久,在社交媒体上有帖子指出,BrewDog仍然计划在旗下的酒吧播放比赛,并与卡塔尔政府下属的经销商签署了啤酒供应协议。工会组织Unite Hospitality批评该啤酒商对待员工的方式,并指责其广告宣传是“虚伪的”。去年,BrewDog曾经向指控遭公司霸凌的前员工道歉。

还有一些品牌虽然公开支持LGBTQ权利,但依旧是世界杯或者国际足联的赞助商,例如阿迪达斯、啤酒业巨头百威英博(Anheuser-Busch InBev SA)、可口可乐和麦当劳(McDonald’s Corp.)等。它们在为自己继续赞助辩护时,都提到卡塔尔的状况在持续改善。

四家公司对彭博社表示,它们认为世界杯带来了积极改变,并提到了它们对国际足联、国际劳工组织(International Labour Organization)等团体发起的活动的支持。阿迪达斯的发言人在一封电子邮件里表示,阿迪达斯“最近几年一直与合作伙伴合作,改善卡塔尔的人权状况。阿迪达斯并没有参与卡塔尔获得世界杯主办权的过程。”

阿迪达斯的首席财务官哈尔姆·奥尔迈尔在上周告诉投资者,他预测世界杯将带来高达4亿欧元(4.17亿美元)销售收入。

“捏造和双标”

面对各种不满,卡塔尔在某些领域确实有所进步。在承受了十多年的批评之后,政府对批评声音的耐心可能正在耗尽。

卡塔尔改善了低收入劳工的生活标准和安全,并在2021年正式启动劳工改革。卡塔尔是唯一一个发放全民最低工资的海湾国家,而且劳工现在离职变得更容易。维权组织认可这些措施,同时强调卡塔尔劳工制度中存在的不足,比如没有消灭对移民劳工掠夺性的招聘费等。

但关于如何处理LGBTQ群体的问题,卡塔尔政府的行动较为迟缓。人权组织和记者表示,到今年9月,依旧有人被曝出遭到安全部队扣押和骚扰。内部组织者文件表明,卡塔尔可能选择在世界杯期间,不执行反对提高LGBTQ群体权利的规定。

卡塔尔的执政酋长谢赫塔米姆·本·哈马德·阿勒萨尼在今年10月对本地议员表示,卡塔尔最初“认为部分批评的声音是积极的,有助于帮助我们推动一些必要领域的发展。”但他反驳所谓的“前所未有的运动”充满了“捏造和双标”,该运动的动机非常可疑。

决定品牌商对世界杯的热情的最终因素可能是球队的表现。如果本国球队晋级,品牌商可能就会抓住机会继续投放广告。

伦敦广告公司Atomic的董事长尼克·福克斯说:“品牌商会寻找一个可以最低成本切入的角度。它们不会在传统渠道投入数百万美元,而是会尝试另辟蹊径。”(财富中文网)

——戴维·赫利尔和杰西卡·劳迪斯对本文亦有贡献。

翻译:刘进龙

审校:汪皓

从来没有一届世界杯(World Cup)像2022年卡塔尔世界杯(Qatar 2022)一样,在开幕之前引发如此多的争议。

本届世界杯在许多方面都遭到了人权组织的批评,例如这个宣布同性恋非法的国家对LGBTQ群体的态度,以及赛场劳工死亡等问题。世界杯的组织方国际足联(FIFA)正在努力摆脱腐败丑闻的影响。卡塔尔最初获得世界杯主办权的过程曾经因此备受诟病。国际足联的前任主席约瑟夫·布拉特曾经表示,他后悔选择这个海湾国家举办世界杯。

然而,尽管这场四年一次的盛会令人失望,但世界杯依旧可能吸引50亿观众,约占全球人口的三分之二。面对如此庞大的观众群体,品牌商会趋之若鹜,愿意为此付费。

彭博新闻社(Bloomberg News)采访了76家世界杯或参赛球队的赞助商。其中既有阿迪达斯(Adidas AG)和可口可乐(Coca-Cola Co.),也有大众汽车(Volkswagen AG)和微软(Microsoft Inc.)的XBox等,而且它们都来自人权批评的声音较为普遍的国家,比如美国、加拿大和欧洲的一些国家。国际足联的七家赞助商没有一家表示会因为人权问题而修改全球广告计划。

在69个国家队赞助商中,有20家赞助商表达了对于人权的承诺,但拒绝披露是否可能或者如何修改营销计划。13家公司表示会做出调整,但这些公司与卡塔尔几乎没有重要的业务关系。其中包括丹麦啤酒公司嘉士伯(Carlsberg A/S)、比利时巧克力品牌克特多金象(Cote d’Or)和会计事务所普华永道(PwC)的比利时部门。

2022年卡塔尔世界杯无疑是史上审查最严格的一届世界杯。随着专家和政客们对主办国提出质疑,公司的高管都面临一种两难的困境,但从财务方面,他们很容易做出决定:在全球经济的困难时期,能够让数以亿计的观众看到公司的标识或者营销口号。

为了避免夏季高温,本届世界杯成为首次在11月举办的一届。据彭博社于上周报道,本届世界杯预计将给国际足联带来创纪录的收入,超过2018年俄罗斯世界杯的约54亿美元。

位于英国伦敦的贝伦贝格银行(Berenberg Bank)的欧洲媒体分析师萨拉·西蒙说:“与五至十年前相比,现在公众开始更直言不讳地批评人权问题。然而这是四年一次的良机,因此在世界杯投放广告的企业希望充分抓住这次机会。”

随着观众从传统广播公司转移到在线流媒体服务平台,体育赛事依旧是最后一批可以吸引直播观看的内容之一。品牌商能够在奥运会(The Olympics)、超级碗(Super Bowl)和世界杯等少数几个场合,投入大笔资金向直播观众投放广告,因此这些赛事在电视广告收入方面具有举足轻重的地位。

经济下滑已经迫使品牌商减少营销支出。据数据公司WARC预测,今年和明年,品牌商的广告支出将比之前的预期减少900亿美元。

世界杯恰逢其时,成为广告业的一大亮点

这让本届世界杯恰逢其时,成为一大亮点,尽管它产生了诸多争议。世界杯于11月20日在多哈正式开赛,首场比赛为卡塔尔对战厄瓜多尔。世界杯的刺激,可能抵消广告市场整体疲软造成的损失。

例如,据分析师预测,英国商业广播公司ITV凭借转播世界杯比赛,第四季度的销售额有望达到去年的类似水平。而与此同时,其竞争对手的广告收入预计将会下跌。

彭博智库(Bloomberg Intelligence)的媒体分析师马修·布洛克萨姆表示:“尽管世界杯有各种争议,但对广播公司来说,它的举办恰逢其时。广播公司的广告收入面临严峻挑战,世界杯可以缓解广播公司的状况。”

但对于广告商和赞助商而言,并不能说这是一届正常的世界杯。丹麦、比利时和荷兰球队的许多赞助商称,它们不会利用比赛门票收入的分成。

嘉士伯表示,与去年丹麦参加欧洲足球锦标赛(European Football Championship)时相比,公司为世界杯编制的营销预算减少了一半。嘉士伯的一位女发言人通过电子邮件指出,公司专注于在球队出征卡塔尔之前为他们提供支持。她说:“世界杯开始之后,与正常时期相比,我们大幅减少了营销预算。”

克特多金象表示,公司高管不会出席世界杯,或者向顾客赠送门票,尽管该品牌隶属于食品经销商亿滋国际(Mondelez International Inc.),而后者的食品已经被摆上了卡塔尔的杂货店货架。普华永道的比利时部门也有类似表态,虽然该公司在卡塔尔有大量业务。

事实上,从世界杯开幕到12月18日总决赛,品牌商将密切关注公众的情绪。英国资深广告业高管马丁·索雷尔认为,如果批评的声量日益升高,有些品牌商就可能会重新考虑是否要继续投放策划了几个月的广告。索雷尔离开广告业巨头WPP Plc之后成立了数字广告公司S4 Capital Plc,现任该公司董事长。

索雷尔称:“如果出现明显的势头,如果形成某种运动,或者批评的声音愈演愈烈,人们就会重新评估自己的立场。客户可能会对此有所担忧,比如人权问题以及卡塔尔对待LGBTQ群体的其他政策等。因此,可能会有人对此表明立场。但人们可能早已对此做出了决定。”

英国啤酒品牌BrewDog Plc的经历表明,采取相反的策略可能存在一些陷阱。该公司决定利用对卡塔尔的负面情绪,发起了所谓的“反世界杯”运动。这家公司还承诺在世界杯期间,将把某一类啤酒的利润捐赠给人权慈善组织。

但在广告片发布后不久,在社交媒体上有帖子指出,BrewDog仍然计划在旗下的酒吧播放比赛,并与卡塔尔政府下属的经销商签署了啤酒供应协议。工会组织Unite Hospitality批评该啤酒商对待员工的方式,并指责其广告宣传是“虚伪的”。去年,BrewDog曾经向指控遭公司霸凌的前员工道歉。

还有一些品牌虽然公开支持LGBTQ权利,但依旧是世界杯或者国际足联的赞助商,例如阿迪达斯、啤酒业巨头百威英博(Anheuser-Busch InBev SA)、可口可乐和麦当劳(McDonald’s Corp.)等。它们在为自己继续赞助辩护时,都提到卡塔尔的状况在持续改善。

四家公司对彭博社表示,它们认为世界杯带来了积极改变,并提到了它们对国际足联、国际劳工组织(International Labour Organization)等团体发起的活动的支持。阿迪达斯的发言人在一封电子邮件里表示,阿迪达斯“最近几年一直与合作伙伴合作,改善卡塔尔的人权状况。阿迪达斯并没有参与卡塔尔获得世界杯主办权的过程。”

阿迪达斯的首席财务官哈尔姆·奥尔迈尔在上周告诉投资者,他预测世界杯将带来高达4亿欧元(4.17亿美元)销售收入。

“捏造和双标”

面对各种不满,卡塔尔在某些领域确实有所进步。在承受了十多年的批评之后,政府对批评声音的耐心可能正在耗尽。

卡塔尔改善了低收入劳工的生活标准和安全,并在2021年正式启动劳工改革。卡塔尔是唯一一个发放全民最低工资的海湾国家,而且劳工现在离职变得更容易。维权组织认可这些措施,同时强调卡塔尔劳工制度中存在的不足,比如没有消灭对移民劳工掠夺性的招聘费等。

但关于如何处理LGBTQ群体的问题,卡塔尔政府的行动较为迟缓。人权组织和记者表示,到今年9月,依旧有人被曝出遭到安全部队扣押和骚扰。内部组织者文件表明,卡塔尔可能选择在世界杯期间,不执行反对提高LGBTQ群体权利的规定。

卡塔尔的执政酋长谢赫塔米姆·本·哈马德·阿勒萨尼在今年10月对本地议员表示,卡塔尔最初“认为部分批评的声音是积极的,有助于帮助我们推动一些必要领域的发展。”但他反驳所谓的“前所未有的运动”充满了“捏造和双标”,该运动的动机非常可疑。

决定品牌商对世界杯的热情的最终因素可能是球队的表现。如果本国球队晋级,品牌商可能就会抓住机会继续投放广告。

伦敦广告公司Atomic的董事长尼克·福克斯说:“品牌商会寻找一个可以最低成本切入的角度。它们不会在传统渠道投入数百万美元,而是会尝试另辟蹊径。”(财富中文网)

——戴维·赫利尔和杰西卡·劳迪斯对本文亦有贡献。

翻译:刘进龙

审校:汪皓

There’s already never been a World Cup quite like Qatar 2022 before a ball has even been kicked.

Human rights groups are in uproar over everything from the treatment of LGBTQ people in a country where homosexuality is illegal to the deaths of construction workers building the stadiums. Organizer FIFA is recovering from corruption scandals that cast aspersions on how Qatar was awarded the competition to begin with. Erstwhile FIFA chief Joseph Blatter said he regretted that the Gulf country was picked as host.

But for all the handwringing over the quadrennial tournament, the World Cup could still attract 5 billion viewers — almost two-thirds of the planet’s population. And when there’s an audience, brands will pay to reach them.

Bloomberg News contacted 76 companies sponsoring either the tournament or the teams taking part. They ranged from Adidas AG and Coca-Cola Co. to Volkswagen AG and Microsoft Inc.’s XBox, and were based in places where human rights criticism was widespread — the US, Canada and in Europe. None of the seven FIFA sponsors said they would make any changes to their global advertising plans to reflect concerns for human rights.

Of the 69 sponsors of national teams, 20 responded to express their commitment to human rights, though declined to disclose if or how their marketing might change. Thirteen companies did say they would make adjustments, though few have significant business ties to Qatar. They include Danish brewer Carlsberg A/S, Belgian chocolatier Cote d’Or and the Belgian business of accountancy firm PwC.

Qatar 2022 is arguably the most scrutinized World Cup in history, and executives are faced with a dilemma as pundits and politicians raise concerns over the host country. Yet financially it’s a no-brainer: the potential to get hundreds of millions of eyeballs on a logo or marketing slogan during a troubled time for the global economy.

The tournament, which is starting in November for the first time to avoid the summer heat, is expected to deliver record revenue for FIFA, topping the roughly $5.4 billion the 2018 World Cup in Russia generated, Bloomberg reported last week.

“The public has become much more vocal about human rights than it was five or 10 years ago,” said Sarah Simon, a European media analyst at Berenberg Bank in London. “But it’s a one-in-four-year opportunity, so advertisers who advertise around the World Cup want to make the most of it.”

With audiences fleeing traditional broadcasters for online streaming services, sport remains one of the last bastions of live television viewing. The Olympics, Super Bowl and World Cup are some of the few occasions where brands can be counted upon to pay big bucks to reach a live audience, giving them outsized importance to TV advertising revenue.

The economic slump, meanwhile, has prompted brands to curb their marketing. They’ll spend an estimated $90 billion less on advertising this year and next than previously expected, according to data company WARC.

World Cup a timely bright spot for advertising

That makes the World Cup, which opens with a game between Qatar and Ecuador in Doha on November 20, a timely bright spot — regardless of the controversy. The boost from the tournament is likely to offset the advertising market’s broader weakness.

UK commercial broadcaster ITV Plc, for example, is predicted by analysts to record fourth-quarter sales on a similar level to a year before thanks to showing World Cup games. That’s as ad income at rivals is expected to dip.

“For all of the controversy around the World Cup, it couldn’t be coming at a better time for broadcasters,” said Matthew Bloxham, a media analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. “Their advertising revenues are facing tough headwinds, and this will ease some of the pain.”

To say it’s a normal World Cup for advertisers and sponsors would be wrong, though. Many brands backing the Danish, Belgian and Dutch teams said they were not going to make use of ticket allocations for matches.

Carlsberg said it has halved its marketing budget compared with last year when Denmark played in the European Football Championship. It’s focused on supporting the team before it goes to Qatar, a spokeswoman said by email. “Once the tournament starts, we have scaled back significantly compared to what we would normally do,” she said.

Cote d’Or said executives wouldn’t attend the World Cup or give tickets to customers, even though the brand is part of food distributor Mondelez International Inc., whose products are readily found on Qatari grocery store shelves. PwC’s Belgian arm is doing likewise, while the company has a big presence in Qatar.

Indeed, companies will closely monitor the popular mood as the tournament unfolds toward the Dec. 18 final. If the volume of criticism mounts, then some may think twice about continuing with campaigns that have been months in the planning, according to Martin Sorrell, the veteran British advertising executive who is now chairman of S4 Capital Plc, the digital ad agency he founded after leaving the giant WPP Plc.

“If there was significant momentum, if campaigns developed, criticism developed, then people would review their positions,” said Sorrell. “There may be clients who are concerned about it — the human rights issue and the other policies that Qatar pursues around LGBTQ. So, there might be some people who take a position on that. But that decision will largely have been made some time ago.”

The experience of British brewer BrewDog Plc shows some of the pitfalls in trying to go the other way. The company decided to tap into some of the negative sentiment towards Qatar, running what it calls an “anti-World F*Cup” campaign. It also pledged to donate profit from one of its beers sold during the event to human rights charities.

But no sooner had the advertising campaign been unveiled, social media posts pointed out that BrewDog still planned to show matches in its bars and had signed an agreement to supply beer to Qatar’s government-owned distributor. Labor union Unite Hospitality criticized how the brewer treats its own workers, labeling the campaign “disingenuous.” BrewDog last year apologized to former employees who accused the firm of bullying.

Then there are those that publicly support LGBTQ rights yet remain sponsors of either the tournament or FIFA itself, such as Adidas, brewing giant Anheuser-Busch InBev SA, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s Corp. They defend their continued involvement by pointing toward the improvements in Qatar.

The four companies told Bloomberg they believed the World Cup had brought positive changes and pointed to their support of efforts by FIFA, the International Labour Organization and other groups. Adidas “has worked with partners to also improve the human rights situation in Qatar in recent years,” a spokesman said in an email. “Adidas was not involved in the decision to award the World Cup to Qatar.”

Adidas Chief Financial Officer Harm Ohlmeyer told investors last week that he expects a “tailwind” of as much as €400 million ($417 million) in sales related to the World Cup.

“Fabrications and double standards”

Qatar has made progress in some areas more than others when it comes to the complaints levelled against it. And after more than a decade under fire, the government’s patience for criticism may be wearing thin.

The country has improved living standards and safety for low-income workers and enacted labor reforms that took effect in 2021. It’s the only Gulf state with a universal minimum wage and workers are now able to leave jobs more easily. Activists have acknowledged these measures while highlighting gaps in the system, such as a failure to stamp out predatory recruitment fees for migrant workers.

The Qatari government has been less quick to address concerns about the treatment of LGBTQ people. Human rights groups and journalists say that some individuals have reported being detained and harassed by security forces as recently as September. An internal organizer document indicates Qatar may choose not to enforce rules against promoting LGBTQ rights during the tournament.

Initially Qatar “considered some of the criticism as positive and useful in helping us to develop aspects of ours that need to be developed,” Qatar’s ruling emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani told local lawmakers in October. But he shot back at what he called an “unprecedented campaign” full of “fabrications and double standards” with dubious motives.

The ultimate determinant of how enthusiastically brands get behind the tournament may be simply which teams progress. If their home nation advances, there’s scope for opportunistic ad campaigns.

“Brands will look for an angle that will be able to cut through at minimum cost,” said Nick Fox, chairman of advertising agency Atomic in London. “Rather than paying millions of dollars for traditional channels, they’ll be looking to snipe around the edges.”

—With assistance from David Hellier and Jessica Loudis

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