Virtual advertising comes to the Euros: Do APAC’s football fans notice sports sponsorships?
The 2024 UEFA European Football Championship, which draws to a close this month, marks the first time in the tournament’s history that TV viewers will see different ads to stadium goers.
With the advent of virtual advertising, LED stadium boards displaying international ads are overlayed with more market tailored commercials when beamed to TV audiences around the world – allowing a larger pool of brand sponsors to be featured during the sporting event.
But to what extent do football fans in APAC notice advertising by sporting event sponsors? And how likely are they to express support for their sports teams by buying products/services from their teams’ sponsors?
What proportion of APAC’s residents regularly follow football matches?
Latest data from YouGov Global Profiles – the world's largest globally consistent audience dataset – shows that about a fifth (21%) of APAC residents regularly watch or read about football matches / soccer games and events on a regular basis.
Football followers make up almost a third of residents in Indonesia (31%), ahead of a quarter in Thailand (27%) and Hong Kong (24%), followed by around a fifth in Singapore (20%) and sixth in Australia (17%).
To what extent do football fans in APAC notice various types of sponsorship?
Most APAC residents across the five markets examined who follow football have noticed one or more brand sponsors (of any type) over the past half year. Those in Indonesia (92%) are most likely to, ahead of Hong Kong (89%) and Thailand (88%), followed by Australia (83%) and Singapore (75%).
But how does awareness of different types of potential sports sponsorship – in the past six months – compare across markets in APAC?
Awareness of event sponsors (e.g. football tournament)
Football followers in Australia are most likely to have noticed such sponsors (57%), while half of football followers in Hong Kong (51%) and Indonesia (50%) say the same. In contrast, under two-fifths in Singapore and Thailand (38%) say the same.
Awareness of TV programme sponsors (e.g. broadcast of football matches)
About half of football followers in Thailand (51%) and Hong Kong (49%) have noticed such sponsorships, ahead of more than two-fifths in Australia (45%) and Indonesia (44%). However, only a quarter in Singapore (26%) say the same.
Awareness of venue sponsor (e.g. football stadium)
About a third of football followers in Australia (35%) have noticed such sponsorships, ahead of a quarter in Hong Kong and Indonesia (both 24%), and closer to a fifth in Thailand (22%) and Singapore (18%).
Awareness of sports team sponsor (e.g. season sponsor for a football team)
About a third of football followers in Australia (36%), Thailand (34%) and Indonesia (32%) have noticed such sponsorships, compared to around a quarter in Singapore (27%) and Hong Kong (25%).
Would most football fans in APAC buy from their team’s sponsors as a show of support?
Data from YouGov Global Profiles also shows that most football followers in Indonesia (57%) and Thailand (52%) would support their teams by buying products from their sponsors, with about an eighth (12-13%) expressing strong agreement.
In contrast, only about two in five football followers in Hong Kong (43%) and Australia (40%) and around a third in Singapore (35%) would do so.
Methodology: YouGov Global Profiles is a globally consistent audience dataset with 1000+ questions across 48 markets. The data is based on continuously collected data from adults aged 16+ years in China and 18+ years in other markets. The sample sizes for YouGov Global Profiles will fluctuate over time, however the minimum sample size is always c.1000. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from India and UAE, which use urban representative samples, and China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Philippines, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, which use online representative samples. Learn more about Global Profiles.
Cover Photo by Alex Livesey