Question: Manchester United - the case continues
One of the challenges facing Manchester United is the best organisational marketing structure to design and the internal culture to induce in managing its huge operation. At corporate level, the Glazer family owns football-related and non-football-related businesses, and is involved with various joint ventures in TV, financial services and mobile phones. At business and product levels, management have to deal directly with their target segments. Promotional campaigns for individual products have to be sensitive to the image of sister MU products. Hoarding adverts of a noisy football crowd having a good time will be exciting to other potential fans but could be off-putting for someone who has to produce their MU credit card at local stores.
Preserving the perceived value of the brand is also important: the replica jersey product manager will not want stores such as Tesco to sell them at a discount. This raises important questions of channel management and relationship with companies whose strategy might be more cost focused than differentiated. In 2009 MU signed a deal worth £80 million over four years with Aon, an American financial services group, to be its principal sponsor: this was the largest-ever football sponsorship deal. They also signed a three-year deal with Turkish Airlines to be their official carrier.