Enjoy a coffee with Manchester United: How the “Red Devils” and Melitta benefit from their partnership

In November 2017, Manchester United named Melitta as its first Official Coffee Partner in a multi-year partnership, which brewed up people’s curiosity about the commercial possibilities between professional football and coffee brands. Recently, as a media supplier of the 2018 SpoBis held in Germany, Yutang Sports was able to hold an interview with Volker Stühmeier, Member of Melitta´s Chief Corporate Management and Sean Jefferson, Director of Partnerships, Manchester United Football Club.

Shared brand values

According to Jefferson, there are very few coffee brands collaborating with football clubs for the time being, and Man Utd’s partnership with Melitta is the first of its kind in the English Premier League. One of the main reasons that the “Red Devils” chose Melitta is that the two brands have shared values and outstanding achievements in their sectors.

The Premier League giants see their relationship with Melitta as a partnership rather than sponsorship. “The companies we work with have to be intrinsic with Manchester United’s values and to be able to complement the way in which we work,” Jefferson told Yutang Sports. “By working as a partnership rather than a sponsorship means the strategies we create are mutually beneficial to both organization, with the club assisting the partner in meeting their targets and objectives.”

Jefferson values the benefit that any partnership they create can provide for their fans, no matter if it’s “through various engagement programmes or simply by offering them a high-quality product.”

Generally speaking, the partnership means two leaders within their industry have joined hands to create an extraordinary fan experience that money cannot buy. In this regard, Manchester United were the first English team to win the European Cup as well as the first League team to introduce hospitality areas to their stadium.

Melitta’s partnership can provide “premium products and services to the tens of thousands of hospitality visitors we welcome each home game, as non matchday visitors who have the opportunity to visit the newly refurbished Red Café supported by Melitta.” In return, with 80,000 visitors to Red Café and nearly a million cups of Melitta served at Old Trafford every year, Melitta is expanding its business in the football market.

Customized marketing activation

As we know, marketing activation is quite important for any brand partnership, so it is necessary for both Manchester United and Melitta to tell authentic stories about the two brands and add real-life value to all “Red Devils” fans. 

According to Stühmeier, Melitta has installed their machines at Old Trafford, the player´s canteen and throughout the AON Training Complex, to meet players everyday demands for coffee. To interact with fans in a digital era, the coffee brand has also started a video campaign “For a coffee with…” on social media. This has given enthusiastic fans opportunities to know about their favorite player’s behind-the-scenes stories.

Manchester United also use its 659 million followers worldwide, to help raise people’s awareness of the coffee brand and create a chance for Melitta to directly interact with their fans within the countries the partnership operates in.

“Just like the Melitta brand, Manchester United stands for excellent performance, inspiration and zest for life. Success, dynamism, hard work, passionate commitment and global presence are intimately linked with the “Red Devils”– these are qualities that also characterize Melitta,” Stühmeier said.

“From this co-operation we expect to see positive effects on our global brand awareness and image perception. Especially in the very important Asian markets, this partnership will provide a big boost for brand perception and sales activities.” Stühmeier added.

Positive commercial strategies

As Stühmeier commented in our interview, “What we have successfully demonstrated is that football and coffee fit great together, as they both create lots of positive emotions and add a zest of life.” Under this partnership, Melitta and Manchester United can make sure:

• ◆ 7,500 hospitality guests at Old Trafford enjoy a hot and delicious Melitta coffee on cold matchdays.

• ◆  Over 200 Melitta coffee machines and bean to cup machines have been positioned in the executive boxes and VIP areas.

• ◆ Over six tonnes of coffee beans per year as well as large volumes of porcelain, accessories and both disposable and non-disposable materials will also be provided.

In fact, it was due to the brilliant foresight in commercial strategies that helped Manchester United find strong partners or sponsors like Melitta. As Jefferson said in the interview, “…we are able to monetize the value of our global brand and community of followers through marketing and sponsorship relationships with leading international and regional companies around the globe.”

Specifically, the club has developed a “global, regional and product segmentation sponsorship strategy”, to ensure the maximum exposure of its brand value. The solid, passionate, international fanbase makes it possible for Man Utd to “generate significant revenue from multiple sources, including sponsorship, merchandising, product licensing, mobile & content, broadcasting and matchday.”

The club engages with a global community of active followers in different ways, which can be seen from the points Jefferson shared with us below:

• ◆ Premier League games at our home stadium, Old Trafford, have been sold out since the 1997/98 season. In the 2016/17 season, our 31 home games were attended by over 2.1 million people.

• ◆ Our Twitter account now has more than 17.7 million followers, an increase of over 121% from 30 June 2016.

• ◆ As of 30 June 2017,  we had close to 150 million social connections.

These facts point to why “Red Devils” can attract leading companies such as Adidas, Aon, General Motors (Chevrolet) and Melitta, who want to reach more potential customers by associating with the Man Utd brand.

Proofread by William Logsdon