Manchester United Gets Fifth Shirt Sponsor in 134-Year History

Aon is handing over the keys to its £20 million/year Manchester United shirt sponsorship. Chevrolet, the current Official Car Partner of the Club, will become only the fifth shirt sponsor in the famed soccer club’s 134 year history. Terms of the seven year deal were not released. The announcement comes only one day after the dismissal of General Motors' CMO Joel Ewanick for what the Wall Stre...

Wembley Takes The Fall For Visa Payment Fiasco

Soccer fans like beer. Lots of it. So it was a big problem when a packed house of soccer fans was unable to pay for food and drinks during Great Britain's first Olympics match. Fans attending the match against the United Arab Emirates at Wembley were left in the cold when Wembley inexplicably stopped accepting card payments from the only credit card available for usage due to its ~$100M sponsor...

Report: GM Execs Altered Man-U Deal That Led To Marketing Boss' Resignation

The plot line surrounding the massive General Motors-Manchester United sponsorship deal continues to thicken. Bloomberg today is running a story that GM's most senior execs, while agreeing to honor the sponsorship deal with Man-U, had to go back and alter the deal terms, which reportedly led to the resignation of marketing chief, Joel Ewanick. From Bloomberg: "GM leaders had to ask for Ewan...

Did Dr Dre Ambush The Olympics?

According to The Guardian, Rapper Dr Dre has crashed the Olympics with his upstart headphone brand, Beats by Dre, sending Team Great Britain athletes special versions of his Beats headphones, which are apparently being worn by athletes at the Games. Though the headphones became popular among athletes and celebs well in advance of the Games, the Guardian reports that tweets sent by Team GB athle...

The Incredible Story About How Chik-Fil-A Became A Gay Pride Festival Sponsor

This may come as a surprise given recent events, but apparently the only Chik-Fil-A in New Hampshire is sponsoring the state's NH Pride Fest. Patch has an incredible story on one of the most unconventional sponsor pitches we've heard of....! "It started out as a prank," said Manseau, senior director of the NH Pride Fest, of his gay pride canvassing at the mall. His plan was to plant some NH P...

What We Learned About the State of Gaming From Electronic Arts' Recent Results

Gaming bellwether and major sports and entertainment marketer, Electronic Arts, reported 2nd quarter results last night. The Redwoods-Ca. company lost $120 million on $491 million in revenue, which was slightly down from $524 million a year ago. Here's what some of the EA numbers tell us about the rapidly shifting gaming industry. Moving to freemium: EA said this fall it would offer a new fre...

How Beats Successfully Turns Athletes Into Influencers

Of all the news pieces about Beats by Dre's Olympic ambush in recent days, Billboard has one of the most insightful looks at the company's marketing strategy. In particular, here's what we learned in their interview with Sr. VP of Marketing Strategy, Omar Johnson: it's easy to get product in the hands of celebs and athletes, but getting them to actually use it is a much tougher task -- with or ...

USC Trojans Add Official Airline

The University of Southern California Trojans have landed an Official Domestic Airline Partner. The multi-year sponsorship with JetBlue Airways will kick off with the 2012-2013 school year and includes all 21 USC Division I teams. JetBlue, which recently exited its deal with another major college football program, is the largest carrier at nearby Long Beach Airport, where the partnership was la...

Toshiba Partners With NASA To Promote Mission To Mars

Toshiba has teamed up with NASA to promote the mission to Mars. In an unprecedented move, the Toshiba Vision screen in New York City's Times Square will show live coverage of Curiosity, NASA's most advanced planetary rover, as it lands on the Martian surface at 1:31 a.m. EDT August 6. The Toshiba Vision screen will broadcast NASA TV coverage, originating from NASA's Jet Propoulsion Lab, begin...

In Q2, This Headphone Maker Sponsored Nearly 50 Different Events

The headphone category is a white hot category. You know things are getting frothy when there are headphones for cats and perhaps no single event has done more for the premium headphones category than the London 2012 Olympics with the most famous of Olympians evading the IOC strutting their Beats by Dr Dre and Sol Republic's around Olympic venues. Whereas some category leaders are focused on ce...