#NotAPennyMore movement started following failed European Super League project
Digital analysis of Manchester United fans’ #NotAPennyMore campaign suggests online targeting of sponsors’ Google Ads could cause millions of pounds worth of overspending.
New research by Mediaworks, a digital marketing agency based in the north of England, is showing that sponsors of Manchester United, including Adidas, Chevrolet and Tag Heuer, are being affected by the #NotAPennyMore campaign, a protest against Manchester United’s owners.
The movement was founded on the back of the Glazer family’s failed efforts to form a European Super League along with 11 other European football teams.
Organisers of the protest movement are appealing to fans to click multiple times on any of Manchester United’s listed sponsors’ Google Ads. This could serve to pile up high bills for the companies, which could potentially run into “millions of pounds”, Mediaworks says.
Mediaworks has been analysing the digital impact of the movement on the club’s commercial partners.
CEO and founder of Mediaworks, Brett Jacobson said: “When looking at the digital evidence, it’s very easy to see how this could very quickly start costing Manchester United’s sponsors a lot of money. This could easily run into sums comfortably into the millions.”
“We’ve already seen one major sponsor pull back from a new deal this week and this move by the fans to light the match on some digital dynamite as a means to remove the Glazer family as owners of the club has every possibility of having the desired effect. There could be some very awkward boardroom conversations between United and their sponsors if this plays out as the fans hope.”
Using freely available Google Ads data to calculate what that could mean to advertising costs for these brands, Mediaworks says the outlook is bleak for the marketing budgets of the targeted companies.
Brett Jacobson explained: “We’ve looked at the top end cost per click data for just those five brands, a price they could reasonably expect to be charged by Google for this type of fan activity. Generously assuming that only one quarter of those choosing to look up these sponsors in the last 48 hours decide to click just once on their Google Ads, that could be an eye-watering bill in excess of £1.2m they could be collectively facing this month alone. And that figure could easily skyrocket.”
“Manchester United has 50 listed key partners and sponsors that the #NotAPennyMore activists claim they’ll target. As Glazer’s Stateside accountants might be nervously whispering right now, ‘you do the math’.”
“With The Hut Group withdrawing from a rumoured £200m, ten year deal to join the list of sponsors for the club for fear of the negative associations, you do fear that this is just the tip of the iceberg for the Glazer’s fan troubles.”
The Manchester United share price (NYSE:MANU) is down by 0.35% on Wednesday to $15.88.