93 days. Our first FIFA World Cup post.

With the Winter Olympics safely behind us and spring on its way, we can finally focus our attention on the world's largest sporting event, the FIFA World Cup in South Africa. From a sports marketing perspective, it doesn’t get any bigger than this. Adidas, Nike and Puma are the companies with the most at stake here and all three are in the process of hyping up new uniforms and gear. Nike and Adidas put a lot of effort into the technical side soccer equipment which is, for some reason, a little controversial. I’m not too concerned with controversy but will go over some of the new gear in the next couple of weeks. Let’s start with the ball…



Adidas is the official sponsor of the World Cup, as usual, and that means they make the balls that are used. This year they are using a ball called Jabulani which means “to celebrate” in the Zulu language. It is the 11th ball that Adidas has created especially for the World Cup. What is unique about this ball is that it has reduced the number of and size of the seams which are thermally bonded so that there is more striking space. Basically, the ball is perfectly round, more aerodynamic and increases overall player ball control.

They say that Adidas engineers have been working on the technology behind the ball since the day after world cup 2006. I’m doubtful that this ball is all that better than the ball from 2006 which was already super-duper fancy. However, there is no doubt that this is an important part of Adidas overall marketing mix. Being the official purveyor of equipment to the world’s largest sporting event is crucial for a global company that positions itself as the brand that cares about sports performance first and image second. This is the best ball on the planet and Adidas will receive a ridiculous number of impressions this summer as the world is transfixed on it.

Full story at the FIFA World Cup 2010 site