Great Marketing Ploy

Below is an excerpt from rugby heaven on marketing ploy... Loose some..Gain more

One of the most famous football teams in the world did just that for 107 years. The Barcelona football team withstood some mind-boggling offers from the biggest companies in the world wanting to splash their names across the front of the distinctive Barca strip.

For more than a century they said no but less than two years ago they buckled, albeit in a rather novel fashion. Instead of accepting an offer from a large telco or betting agency, they seized the initiative and approached Unicef.

The charity is now the name on Barcelona's shirt and they didn't have to pay a cent. In fact Barcelona agreed to pay the food aid charity $2m a year. It was both a marvelous gesture and a marketing masterstroke.

Barcelona was showered with praise and shirt sales sky-rocketed. So what they lost in terms of sponsorship dollars they regained in merchandise revenue. Best of all, the team's major stakeholders, the fans, were happy.