MG tops AFL season

By John Mellor and Neil Dowling on 25th September 2020 Free Access Articles, Marketing AFL

CHINESE car brand, MG, has had a spot of good luck by taking a rare first place in the home-and-away AFL premiership season in the first year of its sponsorship; in this case with the Port Adelaide club.

Sometimes it can take years for car company brands to see their choice of club make it to the highest levels of the AFL ladder but not only did Port Power deliver the top spot to MG in the home-and-away premiership, the club was top of the ladder for every round of this 2020 season.

MG clearly took a chance on signing up with the club which only achieved 10th place in the 2019 and 2018 seasons and now MG sits backing the club that looks set to be favourites for winning the grand final.

Also in its first year as the auto sponsor of Port Adelaide, MG shone on the sales chart as bright as its football team sparkled on the field. MG is one of only nine brands to increase market share this year according to VFacts data, up 57.1 per cent compared with the same eight months of 2019 (albeit off a low base).

In other highlights of the 2020 sponsorship home-and-away season, Jeep’s 11-year association with the Richmond Tigers is up for grabs in 2021 but on current form it would appear unlikely Jeep would drop the club.

The Tigers have delivered two premierships to Jeep (2019 and 2017), topped the ladder in 2018, came third in 2019 and third this year with every chance of them winning the premiership again.

Ford should be happy with their long-term club, the Geelong Cats. The pair have been partnered since 1925, with the 95 years touted as the longest-running sponsorship deal in professional sports.

The Cats finished inside the eight in 2018 and topped the home-and-away season in 2019.

This year it made the final four and distinguished itself by achieving the highest percentage for the second year in a row by scoring more points against its rivals than its rivals kicked against them. It also came second on percentage in 2018.

Hyundai hedges its bets. It signed with the Brisbane Lions about a decade ago but has also stuck with the long-suffering Carlton Blues for 25 years.

The Lions have served Hyundai well in the past couple of years rising from 15th in 2018 to second in 2019 and second again this year.

Hyundai’s association with the Blues also got off to a good start all those years ago with Carlton winning the premiership in the first year of their association. The Blues played finals in three of the following five years and played in the 1999 grand final (losing to North Melbourne).

But more recently Carlton has been languishing; albeit with a glimmer of hope for its sponsor and supporters. It was last in 2018, 16th last year and in 2020 managed to get 11th on the ladder.

Kia sponsors the GWS Giants after moving across from the Essendon Bombers in 2018. That year GWS was 7th on the home-and-away ladder and jumped a place to 6th in 2019 but has slipped to 10th in the 2020 season.

Kia Motors Australia withdrew from its eight-year sponsorship with the Essendon Bombers. The car-maker was Essendon’s primary sponsor and stuck by the club throughout the drawn-out drug supplements saga.

It is understood that Essendon had asked for a larger financial commitment from Kia but the car-maker declined and moved to GWS. Essendon has not yet found another auto sponsor.

But performance in ALF alliances for car brands does not necessarily correlate with sales. It is somewhat sobering to think that the top two brands in market performance, Toyota and Mazda, are aligned with the two bottom ALF teams for 2020.

Toyota’s long association with the Adelaide Crows must be coming under increasing scrutiny with the Crows finishing in 12th place in 2018, 11th place in 2019 but dropping to 18th place and the wooden spoon this season. This after playing in the grand final in 2017 (losing to the Tigers).

Mazda has watched its team, the North Melbourne Kangaroos, suffer a similar fall. The Kangaroos just finished outside the eight in ninth place in 2018 and then 12th in 2019 but slid to 17th for 2020. Both the Kangaroos and Crows won only three matches each all season.

The Sydney Swans joined with Volkswagen in 2011 and the current agreement runs through to 2022. The Swans won the grand final in 2012 and were runners-up in 2014 and 2016 but they too are on a slide towards the bottom of the competition. In 2018 they were 6th and fell to 15th 2019 and 16th this year.

Nissan must be a little deflated. When it signed up with the Hawthorn Hawks in late 2018 for the 2019, 2020 and 2021 seasons, the Hawks had finished the previous season in the final four. At the time of the deal the Hawks were still basking from winning three premierships in a row from 2013 to 2015 having played in the grand final in 2012 missing out to the Sydney Swans.

But in 2019 the Hawks, with Nissan in tow, finished outside the top eight in ninth place and this year went into freefall to finish 15th out of 18.

Meanwhile, the partnership between Mercedes-Benz Vans and the Western Bulldogs will end at the close of the 2020 season. The three-year deal was made off the back of the club’s premiership in 2016 but it ran out of form by 2018 when it finished 13th. But it made the finals finishing 7th in 2019 and 7th this year.

However one of the main drivers of the sponsorship was to promote the Nissan Navara-based Mercedes pick-up, the X-Class, and with that vehicle’s failure to fire in the Australian market and its subsequent withdrawal from dealers’ showrooms, there was little reason for Mercedes to go on.

And Holden ended its relationship with Collingwood as part of GM’s withdrawal of the brand from the Australian market.

The arrangement began in 2013 but Collingwood has been a bridesmaid of the competition running up in the 2018 grand final after being third in the home-and-away competition that year and 4th in 2019. This year it finished in the final eight.

Who drives what*: