Battle of the brands: UEFA Champions Leauge Teams
In June, we had a very interactive SMBR Battle of the brands exchanging about the social media presence of the two champions league finalists BVB and FC Bayern Munich. In this week’s SMBR article we want to focus on the start of the UEFA Champions Leauge season: What has changed since last season during the summer? Who is the leading brand in the social web of this years teams? And what are the secrets of brandmanagement in the football industry?
UEFA Champions League
What has changed?
At the end of last season SMBR noticed the difference between the two teams concerning their followers on facebook and twitter. Since then, FC Bayern has reached 8,1 mio., and Borussia Dortmund 3,6 mio. follower on facebook. Comparing the monthly groth rates before and since the Champions Leauge final, one can say that both teams have profited from their final in terms of brand awareness in the social web. The ranks of both seem to remain the same, although the SMBR study has revealed a completely different result in terms of brand perception in the social web.
Nevertheless when comparing these scores also to the UCL competitors they seem quite realistic: two Spanish teams and one English team, are setting the benchmark concerning their brand awareness and followers on facebook: FC Barcelona (44,64 mio.), followed by Real Madrid (41,65 mio) and Manchester United (35 mio) are all in the top field in terms of the amount of follower on facebook. After these three teams, a huge gap separates the next field of competitors, leaded by Arsenal FC (14 mio.), Galatasaray (8,47 mio.), FC Bayern Munich (8,1 mio.), Manchester City (6 mio.) and Borussia Dortmund with 3,5 mio. follower. All other teams of the top ten social media brands are beyond the threshold of 1 mio. user.
Infographic CL Leaugue Ranking by facebook likes
What are the social media secrets of the footbal industry?
How influencing these social indications on the brand strength of the different clubs are in reality can be seen when comparing the figures with their total value of football brands. The following ranks display the different teams concerning their total brand strength measured by FORBES:
http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mlm45eigjk/5-bayern-munich-3/
Beside the seasonal performance of the teams, one reason for strong brand equity can be of course the amount of time a brand is actively using social media as marketing channel. Further reason might also be language issues which increases the audience in following a brand. Nevertheless, Galatasaray is a brand that contradicts both, the language issues and the amount of time.
So of course it is now up to you SMBR followers – Which UEFA Champions League team has the most social media influence on your perception?
Related articles
- Battle of the brands: FCB vs. BVB (alexwjonke.com)
- Social Media 2.0: How to build and grow communities on the visual web? (blogs.imediaconnection.com)
- UEFA Champions League 2013-14: Top 10 Contenders For This Year’s Competition (latinospost.com)
- Battle of the Brands: Drive now vs. Car2go (alexwjonke.com)
- Social Media Face Off: Mercedes-Benz vs. BMW (ubervu.com)
