Lloyds TSB has been named as the top-tier Olympic sponsor most associated with the London 2012 Games according to research by OnePoll.

However, Olympic campaigns by BT, British Airways and BP are failing to resonate with customers, the research said.

With one year to go until the Games, members of the public were asked which sponsors they most associate with London 2012, giving them a list of sponsors to choose from.

Lloyds TSB garnered 17.5% of the Tier One sponsors’ vote, ahead of EDF Energy with 16.4%.

However, respondents were dismissive of other top-tier sponsors, such as BMW, which accrued just 1.5% of the vote, BP (5%), BA (5.6%) and BT (3.9%).

Nearly 28% of those polled declared their ambivalence to top-tier sponsors.

Angus McGougan, business director at international sports marketing agency Fast Track, believes Lloyd’s TSB’s campaign has hit home with consumers because it has integrated well with its existing work.

He said: “Lloyds has built a platform and done well with TV and press advertising. It also started before other sponsors and has put a lot of money behind it.”

The banking group was the first brand to sign up to the Olympics and the first to activate its sponsorship.

Nigel Currie, director of sports marketing agency brandRapport, said Lloyds TSB’s campaign was unlike others, in that the executions themselves were Olympic-centric and not just ads with a London 2012 logo at the end.

With regardss to Tier Two sponsors, results from the survey see Cadbury being the most recognisable, polling 20.6%, ahead of holiday brand Thomas Cook (7.3%) and shipping company UPS (3.7%).

The America’s Cup Event Authority (ACEA) has unveiled Garmin as an official supplier of sailing’s 34th America’s Cup, the oldest trophy in international sport.

As the official supplier of marine navigation, marine communication and marine sensor equipment, Garmin will supply a range of global positioning system (GPS) equipment to the fleet of support boats overseeing the America’s Cup World Series, the Louis Vuitton Cup, the America’s Cup Challenger Series and the America’s Cup Finals in 2013.

The first series of races will begin with the America’s Cup World Series in Cascais, Portugal on August 6 2011, while the final match is scheduled for September 2013 in San Francisco.

Engelhard Sundoro, Garmin director of marine OEM sales and marketing said: “We’re honoured to have the opportunity to collaborate with the America’s Cup competition, bringing Garmin’s reputation for quality, commitment, performance and world-class support to the sailboat racing community. There’s no larger stage in sailing than America’s Cup, and Garmin gets to illustrate our ability to deliver customised systems to the marine industry while showcasing our technology to the best crews and fans in the world.”

ACEA director of technology, Stan Honey, added: “As we work to transform the America’s Cup and broaden its appeal globally, we are making a significant investment in technology to make the event more competitive on the water and more compelling off. Our partnership with Garmin has resulted in a set of tools that empowers our race management team to create world-class courses that will start and stop on time, something that has not been easy to achieve in a sport dependent upon the wind.”

English soccer club Birmingham City FC, who were relegated from the English Premier League last season despite winning the Carling Cup competition, have launched a new method of selling their shirt sponsorship rights for the forthcoming season.

The club are set to offer sponsorship on a match-by-match basis, which is a major shift away from the normal convention of a brand sponsorship a club shirt for at least the duration of a season.

Birmingham City’s shirt sponsor for the previous five seasons has been financial company F&C Investments.

Middlesbrough and West Bromwich Albion (WBA) have previously employed a similar strategy of match-by-match sponsorship, and the club said they had spoken to those two clubs about the strategy.

Ian Dutton, Birmingham City’s commercial manager, said: “The commercial team have been working hard since relegation to find a suitable brand to work with the football club and, unfortunately, we had a number of offers that didn’t match the price that we valued our shirt sponsorship to be.”

Birmingham City executives believe the move will give the club added flexibility and will allow it to build stronger relationships with the local community and charitable organisations.

China’s Olympic swimming team is to be sponsored by the GLG Life Tech Corporation’s AN0C venture, a company which specialises in natural food and beverage products, on a two-year deal.

AN0C, which stands for All Natural and Zero Calorie Beverage and Foods Company, will be the exclusive tea drink sponsor of the team as it competes for medals at the London 2012 Games.

To support the sponsorship, members of the swimming team will be featured in TV and print advertisements.

The venture’s president, Katzu Cheng, said the partnership deal with the swimming team represented a “very strategic sponsorship for AN0C”.

Cheng said: “The Chinese government has set very high standards for the sponsorships of national teams, especially for the Olympic team. Only national or international brands with high quality and safety standards are approved as sponsors. Our AN0C brand has become the first all natural and zero calorie beverage brand to sponsor the national team for the Olympics and this demonstrates that our AN0C brand has been accepted as a national brand in China.”

Flyeralarm have become the new lead sponsor of German basketball club FC Bayern Munich basketball.

Wirsol Solar AG has signed a stadium sponsorship deal with German 1.Bundesliga club TSG 1899 Hoffenheim.

The company have acquired the naming rights to Hoffenheim’s Rhein-Neckar Arena in a three-year partnership.

China’s Suntech Power Holdings, arthritis Q-Cells, prescription Solarworld and Yingli Green Energy, which is also a sponsor of the FIFA World Cup, have signed deals with Bundesliga clubs in recent months.

The importance of the deal is explained by Henning Wicht a solar analyst “Soccer sponsoring increases brand awareness and may lead to new customers,”

 Suntech have a shirt deal with Hoffenheim, while Q- Cells signed a five-year sponsorship deal with Bundesliga champion Borussia Dortmund. Yingli has been a “premium sponsor” of Bayern Munich since March and Solarworld, Germany’s largest module maker, began sponsoring Cologne two years ago.

New York has completed the line up for this year’s Clipper Round the World Yacht Race with an entry sponsored by Empire State Developments. The race, viagra 60mg which lasts a full year, adiposity will see the boats cover over 40,000 nautical miles, visiting 15 ports in six continents.

Empire State Developments are a state run agency charged with promoting business and economic development throughout the state. 

Sir Robin Knox-Johnston who is the founder of the race said, “We are really pleased to have New York represented in the Clipper 11-12 Race and welcome the way the State is promoting business and tourism through its yacht branding. They are taking New York to the world and next year we will be bringing the world to New York, to do business and discover the rich variety of tourism attractions on offer.”

“This is an incredible human endeavour and we wish skipper, Gareth Glover, and the crew well on this challenging race,” said Empire State Development president, chief executive and commissioner Kenneth Adams. “The Clipper Race presents a powerful global marketing platform for New York State to promote our tourism and business strengths around the world. We look forward to welcoming New York ‘home’ together with the rest of the fleet, crews and sponsors, when the Clipper Race sails into New York at the end of May 2012.”

The Clipper Race will  begins in Southampton, UK before visiting Madeira, Brazil, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, China, Panama, USA, Canada, Northern Ireland and the Netherlands.
 

Chesapeake Energy has secured the naming rights to the Oklahoma City Arena.

The 18, abortion 203-capacity home of NBA team Oklahoma City Thunder will now officially be known as the Chesapeake Energy Arena where around five million visitors attend each year for a variety of events.

The 12-year deal is worth US$3million in the first year alone. The fee will then rise by three percent each year thereafter.

The company are the second largest producer of natural gas in the US, cheap was one of five founding partners after the franchise moved to Oklahoma City from Seattle in 2008.  

Clayton I. Bennett, discount Thunder chairman, said, “On behalf of the entire Thunder organisation, we are extremely proud to enhance our already strong partnership with Chesapeake Energy. Besides being a leader in the national and international energy industry, Chesapeake is a dynamic business and community leader in Oklahoma. Together with the Thunder’s commitment to the community, it makes the naming rights partnership a perfect fit. The Thunder looks forward to many exciting years ahead playing in Chesapeake Energy Arena in downtown Oklahoma City.”

Martha A. Burger, Chesapeake’s senior vice president of human and corporate resources, added, “This is an exciting day for Chesapeake and its employees. We are thrilled that the arena will bear the name of our company. The Thunder represents the values we embrace at Chesapeake – integrity, teamwork, commitment, hard work and service. The Chesapeake Energy Arena and the Thunder are both strong reminders of the incredible progress our city has made in the past decade as well as the energy our citizens have demonstrated to keep building an even better and stronger Oklahoma City in the years ahead.”

Burger continued, “The naming rights also provide a powerful natural gas branding opportunity for our company, particularly when you consider the national, and even global, reach of the Thunder. To see Chesapeake’s distinctive and recognisable blue flame logo as a visually prominent part of downtown Oklahoma City supports our commitment to community and our corporate message that the abundance of natural gas offers our nation the best opportunity to achieve energy independence.”

Telecommuncations giant T-Mobile has signed a two-year deal to become the title sponsor of the Polish Football league, decease known as the Ekstraklasa.

Though financial terms of the agreement were not released, Polish media is reporting that T-Mobile’s commitment is thought to be worth US$7.2 million annually.

T-Mobile has also revealed plans to promote the use of new technologies within the game as well as offering football fans a series of promotional deals.
 

The Energy Team which is the French entry for the America’s Cup has agreed a sponsorship deal with luxury watch manufacturer, viagra 40mg Corum. The company becomes Energy Team’s first official sponsor.

The Chief executive of Corum, Antonio Calce said: “This major project is a further step in our strategy that I announced and launched several years back. Taking part in the America’s Cup is the dream of every sailor and for that reason matches the aspirations of a brand like Corum, which since 1960 has been a key player in the sector. The close relationship based on trust that has developed between Corum and the Peyron brothers has enabled this dream to come true.”

Team sailor of French entry Bruno Peyron added: “It is with immense pleasure that our team welcomes Corum on board as the official partner of Energy Team. It takes courage to be the first, as there are on the one hand doubters and then on the other those, who are determined to make their own destiny. Antonio Calce is one of the latter and the atmosphere of mutual trust that we are building together is probably down to what we already have in common: a great desire to see things through. The support of Corum is vital and this commitment will act as a catalyst to attract other major partners and allow us to get going in building our first AC 72.”

As part of the deal the Corum logo will feature heavily on the team’s boat including across the sail.