World Cup Tournament , Hyundai Provides Official Vehicles
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Contributing Editor, AIADA
Talk about sports irony. The world’s
biggest sporting event, the FIFA World Cup football – soccer in
Hyundai, who just scored very well in the J.D.
Power I.Q. study in the
The
company recently kicked off its 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™
sponsorship activities, including supplying a fleet of approximately
1,000 Hyundai VIP vehicles and 100 buses to the Organizing Committee of
FIFA, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association. FIFA
like the official NFL, NBA, MLB leagues, controls the game, rules and
regulations for over 200 different football-playing nation members.
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| The Presentation of the Key |
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| Hyundai’s Fleet of World Cup Vehicles |
The
official Hyundai fleet will be deployed within the 12 Host Cities and
the 32 team base camps in order to transport the 32 teams, the
Each
participating association’s national team will be provided with a bus
with a large national flag graphic and World Cup logo.
The
team buses are eco-friendly and feature an on-board kitchen, bathroom,
entertainment system with a 6-DVD changer, a navigation system, and
space for 44 passengers, the driver and two couriers. The seat design
has been created especially for the 2006 FIFA World Cup and boasts an
exclusive official emblem on the seat backs.
Four
additional Hyundai vehicles -- TG Grandeur, Sonata, Trajet, and H1 van
– are provided to each team. Hyundai is also supplying dedicated
support services, including: a driver hotline, a 24-hour maintenance
service, and a special replacement parts facility.
"We
want the players and officials to feel relaxed and comfortable when
they travel. The buses will also symbolize the tournament wherever they
go," observed Wolfgang Niersbach, vice president of
the Organizing Committee in
Hyundai Motor Vice President Su-Kil Lee told a crowd gathered for a special key presentation last week in Frankfurt, Germany, “Hyundai has been looking forward to this moment. We have already started our world-wide marketing activities, but VIP transportation forms the core of our sponsorship. It is the platform for familiarizing millions of spectators with our products." An oversized key, signifying the fleet of Hyundai vehicles was presented to Franz Beckenbauer -- coach of a winning World Cup team and President of the FIFA Organizing Committee in Germany.
The
Korean company, founded just 39 years ago in 1967, sells in 193 nations
-- all members of FIFA. Hyundai’s long-term partnership with
FIFA began in 1999 and included the 2002 World Cup in Korea/Japan. The
partnership was recently extended to 2014, catapulting the
automaker to an elite FIFA partner, which covers the World Cups in 2010
and 2014. The World Cup event is held every four years.
The Korean and new
Hyundai
will distribute a substantial number of tickets to customers and will
also be one of four top partners of the FIFA fan events, which offer
public viewing and additional entertainment for fans who could not
purchase tickets. The company is ramping up
its worldwide web presence by opening a micro-site on the official
tournament site (www.fifaworldcup.com) to interconnect offline
marketing activities.
While
NASCAR may have the biggest live spectator fan base with telecasts
growing significantly, nothing can compare to the international
television audience and fan base of FIFA football. It’s in the
hundreds of millions, if not billions when you add all the nations
participating and those who are members of FIFA. It
is the biggest sports television event period.