Cars and Football

Cars and football are often two of the things that interest men the most and over the past year or so it seems as though the two industries have joined forces as part of a clear marketing strategy.

You've got Manchester Utd and Audi, Kia and the 2010 World Cup and now Spanish car giant SEAT have coupled up with the Europa League (formerly known as the UEFA cup).

SEAT are using the European stage to boost their brand and their model line-up. Officials at SEAT have said that they believe their target audience are youthful and interested in 'design' which they relate to the flare often associated with European football.

Once again it's the British clubs who are amongst the favourites to lift the trophy - Manchester City and Liverpool in particular. Other European clubs who are in with a chance include Spain's Atletico Madrid, Portugal's FC Porto and Russia's CSKA Moscow.

The newly-branded Europa league is a big sporting attraction. Last year a total of 526 million people followed the 205 matches that were played throughout the competition and a further 4.4million people watched the games live in the stadiums. Therefore the SEAT models and branding is going to be seen by thousands upon thousands of people.

SEAT have already seen the impact from their sponsorship from last season as the banner displayed on the uefa.com website received more than 48 million hits alone.

SEAT are going to continue to sponsor the Europa Cup for three more seasons which will last until 2012 - so it looks like they are going to enjoy a lot more publicity yet!