Cristiano Ronaldo dramatised what Coke is about: Sports marketing expert on Coca Cola row in Euro 2020
Cristiano Ronaldo’s Coca-Cola snub is said to have had a negative impact on the beverage-maker’s brand value. An industry expert has now weighed in on the subject.
As Cristiano Ronaldo snubbed Coca-Cola at the press conference ahead of Portugal’s Euro 2020 opener, the move had a spiralling effect all across the football fraternity. The move also coincided with the share prices of Coca-Cola dropping down, wiping off about USD 4 billion from their brand value. However, industry experts don’t feel the two incidents were related.
Ronaldo wasn’t pleased seeing Coca-Cola bottles placed on the table as he arrived to attend the press conference with Portugal manager Fernando Santos on the eve of the Hungary match. He put the Coke bottles aside and picked up a water bottle saying ‘Agua’, asking people to drink water over soft drinks.
While the move was to promote a healthier lifestyle, the fact that Coca-Cola is an official sponsor of Euro 2020, is bound to leave both the beverage brand and UEFA a little disappointed.
“Coke and UEFA will both be fuming,” sports marketing expert Tim Crow, who worked as an advisor to the beverage-maker for 20 years, was quoted as saying by The Athletic. “The fact is there’s an agreement between them, which all the FAs and players sign up to, and one of the contractual agreements is going to press conferences where you’re surrounded by the sponsors’ branding.”
“It’s certainly not ideal that one of the most famous and most followed athletes on the planet makes a gesture like that. The sports marketing community will have raised more than an eyebrow in Ronaldo doing that,” he added.
A day after the incident, reports of Ronaldo’s move hurting Coca-Cola’s stock prices and brand value surfaced but Crow has dismissed any co-relation between the two incidents. Branding it as ‘complete nonsense’, Crow said that the investors in the United States of America are not impacted by what happens in a European football match’s press conference.
“American investors are not driven by what happens in a press conference ahead of a European football match. It doesn’t work like that. Tonnes of stocks went down for several reasons but the two things are not related. There are a billion servings of Coke every day. I think they’ll be OK,” he said.
‘Ronaldo dramatised what Coke is about’
About Ronaldo’s perception of the Coca-Cola products, Crow said that even the water bottle that Ronaldo held and placed in focus was a Coca-Cola product. The company doesn’t just make aerated drinks but a variety of other products.
“In one way, Ronaldo dramatised what Coke is about. Coke is about choice. All of those products that are in front of him were Coca-Cola products. Even the water he held up is a Coke product.
UEFA reminded teams participating in #Euro2020 that they have contractual obligations toward tournament sponsors after soccer stars Cristiano Ronaldo and Paul Pogba removed drinks bottles from shot during news conferences https://t.co/gKHK1ppk5g pic.twitter.com/SSTT3LJPMQ
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 18, 2021
“Coke has a massive portfolio of brands. It has soft drinks, sports drinks, water, juices. Coke is a massive non-alcoholic beverage company. It’s not just about Coca-Cola, there are dozens and dozens of brands and it’s about choice. He’s dramatised that.”
Be it UEFA or Coca-Cola, none of them have taken any action on Ronaldo’s gesture. While there have been a few other similar incidents in press conferences too, it looks highly unlikely that Ronaldo or the Portugal team will be penalised in any manner.
