Sponsorship Spinning
After fouling out with the NFL (May PROMO), Coca-Cola Co., Atlanta, struck a four-year sponsorship agreement with the National Basketball Association. The deal extends across the NBA’s three leagues.
Plans call for Coke to use the flagship NBA and the National Basketball Development League to promote Sprite, and the WNBA to tout Diet Coke and Dasani.
Coke has sponsored the New York City-based NBA since 1986, and in 1993 struck a “100-year marketing agreement” that comes up for renewal every four years. The latest pact will bring “increased integration of NBA assets,” says Jonathan Press, the NBA’s vp-marketing partnerships. The league has similarly broad arrangements with Gatorade, Reebok, and Anheuser-Busch.
Coke’s re-upping with the NBA seemed contradictory to statements the company after losing NFL rights to rival Pepsi, when it said that deals with individual teams were more beneficial than a league-level pact.
“They’re two different platforms,” says Coke spokesperson Bill Marks. “The NBA is unique in that it’s a global partner. It’s also fully integrated into the marketing we do for Sprite.” Coke is also the official supplier to more than 15 NBA arenas.
Elsewhere, Atlanta-based Coke reached an agreement with Paris-based Groupe Danone to oversee marketing, sales, and distribution of Evian bottled water in the U.S. and Canada.
SHELF TALK
Brookline, MA-based Upromise in April expanded its college tuition savings program into more than 15,000 grocery and drug stores nationwide through partnerships with 13 leading packaged goods companies. Participating manufacturers including Coke, Keebler Foods, and Kellogg Co. are donating from three to five percent of every purchase to the interest-bearing accounts of Upromise’s one million-plus members. Top chains including Safeway, Albertson’s, Kroger, and CVS are touting the offer’s launch in weekly circulars, shelf displays and other P-O-P materials, and radio promotions.
BIG BUYS
Long live the media alliance: Monster.com, Boston, and Viacom Plus, New York City, signed a broad marketing deal that will promote the former across a variety of the latter’s platforms including broadcast, cable, and syndicated TV, Web sites, and outdoor properties. New York City-based Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., meanwhile, inked a similar deal with Daimler-Chrysler, Highland Park, MI.
TALENT SCOUTS
Struggling mass retailer Kmart Corp., Troy MI, hired talent agent Creative Artists Agency, Los Angeles, to develop marketing initiatives in film, TV, music, and videogames.
