Solar sponsorship

FIFA recently announced the global sponsors of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The Chinese Green Energy giant Yingli broke two records that day: becoming both the first Chinese company and the first renewable energy company to sponsor the FIFA World Cup.

Yingli is a leading solar energy company. They provided solar panels for the previous 2006 World Cup in Germany and will be providing solar panels to support the 20 stadiums where the World Cup will be hosted.

The sponsorship gives Yingli global marketing rights, including certain ticket, perimeter-board advertising and media rights as well as the right to showcase its solar products at the fan zones in the FIFA World Cup stadiums.

Additionally, the agreement gives Yingli the right to place its company logo next to the FIFA World Cup Official Emblem and advertise or promote its products and services at each step of the distribution process. Yingli will have access to extensive on-site opportunities at FIFA World Cup stadiums for marketing and promotion purposes.

Although the amount of the endorsement is unknown, “tier one” sponsorships start above the $100 million mark. Other sponsors include McDonalds, Budweiser and the Indian-owned Satyam IT services company. That puts Yingli in the ‘premier league’ of World Cup Sponsors, and marks their entry as even more spectacular.

Beyond the commercial aspirations for Yingli, the sponsorship will be a statement for China at large championing the ambition to lead the world in Green energy technologies. As we mentioned in an earlier post on Green China.

Current Western perceptions of China’s energy credentials are fairly entrenched: a major-pollutant and emitter of fossil fuels, Luddites in terms of Green Energy innovation and at worst disruptive of attempts to create a greener planet, most pointedly seen in Western media’s portrayal of China as an ‘obstacle’ in the Copenhagen earlier this year.

Yingli’s sponsorship deal hopes to challenge  these preconceptions, and indeed these views fail to document the reality of the extent to which Chinese companies are pursuing advances in ‘Green Tech.’

Even walking around Shanghai, you see examples of solar panels in public places – this isn’t a common facet of urban London, New York or indeed many other metropolises.

Last July, the Chinese government stated it would subsidize 50% of investments for solar power projects. Between now and 2015, the administration plans to more than double its “environmental protection” spending to as much as $454 billion. This will result in mandates for using renewable energy generation sources, including solar.

The Chinese governments overwhelming support for growth and creation of green energy industry is acknowledged within the Green Energy Industry, “that’s going to be their market. That’s how they feel about it,” says CEO of SPG Solar Tom Rooney. “They’ve put a very, very high priority on winning the race for global leadership on solar.”

Even if China currently relies predominantly on coal for energy and currently exports 95% of its Solar technology, mainly to the US, it is showing rapid progress in pioneering the technology and there are aims to increase the renewable energy sources to 15% by 2030. Companies like Yingli are at the forefront of increasing Solar power adoption globally.

The costs of parts and speed of production is far greater in China than in the US, for example. Yingli will hope that their investment in World Cup advertising sends a convincing message about the quality of their products.

The announcement is in-keeping with FIFA’s “green goal” programme which aims to make the football world cup as environmentally responsible as possible. The World Cup’s focus on on ‘green goals’ fits nicely with the other big global event of 2010, the World Expo in Shanghai, which also has a strong focus on sustainability.

Both of these events should make 2010 a year in which China can improve global perceptions of its involvement in green tech and more importantly, revise broader perceptions of ‘Brand China.’ In a previous post about Nation branding in China we wrote about how ‘Created in China’ was ultimately a more apirational and positive moniker, but one that would only be achieved after reassurances in perceptions around manufacturing and industry were rectified . This idea is echoed in a statement from Yingli’s Bryan Li:

“It’s a China-created company. It’s not made in China. It’s created in China. We want to bring this concept and increase the profile of a Chinese company to the global arena.”

The Yingli sponsorship is another example of how China aims to change impressions of ‘Made in China’ to the outside world. The company plans to open up in Africa later this year, and the global spectacle of the World Cup will showcase the brand to key markets in Europe and beyond. It’s also an interesting twist on the usual China and Africa ties, that to Western eyes are linked to mineral extraction and infrastructure development.

Let’s see if the year of the Tiger is a turning point in perceptions of Green China.

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 11:38 pm. It is filed under Asia, China, Energy, Technology and tagged with advertising, featured, Green, nation branding, sponsorship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.