Stupidity - Exhibit I

Sponsorship That Doesn't Make Sense


If you haven't read my previous post on AirAsia: Punishing Malaysians for Their Support, please do. This post is again about AirAsia and unfortunately MAS for the wrong reason. I think most of Malaysians Barclays Premier League (BPL) followers should have known by now that our own Tony Fernandes has completed his takeover of Queens Park Rangers (QPR) on 18th August 2011. He now owns a 66% stake in the club. Maybe some Malaysians are already feeling proud of what he had achieved. I don't have any problems with whatever he wants to do with his money. What I don't like is the subsequent chain of events. 

Barely a month after that, MAS and AirAsia announce a sponsorship deal for QPR jersey. I've truncated a few important points below:

• The total sponsorship fee for both MAS and AirAsia for the English professional football club, which involves a term of two years, would cost some RM30mil (6.2mil)
• MAS will take up a bulk or almost 60% of the total fees while the remaining will be forked out by AirAsia Bhd and its related companies 
• Typically, the home jersey sponsorship is more expensive than the away jersey
• MAS and AirAsia signed a jersey deal for QPR which will see the MAS logo adorn the jersey at home while the AirAsia logo will be used on the team's away games

Personally, I would like MAS to concentrate on their turnaround plan and the money should be well spent elsewhere. But lets not go there since I'm no expert in their turnaround plan. I try to look at the deal as a business move that should benefit MAS. From a layman's point of view, the purpose of a sponsorship is to get a huge coverage for your brand. This is to promote the brand so that people will recognize your brand. Since MAS is the bigger contributor in this sponsorship deal, they should be getting wider coverage i.e. their brand should be shown to a wider audience. Is that the case?

There are 38 league games for each team in the BPL. 19 home matches and 19 away matches. MAS will have their logo on the home jersey and AirAsia on the away jersey. MAS logo will be shown only at Loftus Road, QPR's stadium with capacity of 18,439 (the smallest in BPL) while AirAsia on the away jersey will go places and shown to audiences in other stadiums such as Anfield, Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge, Emirates and others which the crowd are much bigger. Let's face it, you will unlikely have a different set of crowds for the home games since in England, supporters will have to buy season tickets. The crowd is barely the same for the home games and the MAS brand is shown to almost the same crowd.

For the benefit of doubt, let's just assume that the crowd is different for each home matches since it has been justified that "home jersey sponsorship is more expensive than the away jersey". In total, MAS will get sponsorship exposure to 18,439 x 19 = 350,341 audiences for the home matches for the whole season (let's just neglect the matches that have been played prior to the sponsorship deal). AirAsia on the other hand will get exposure to 727,567 audiences in the other stadiums for the remaining 19 away matches. That's 2 times more exposure for AirAsia.

It really puzzles me as to why MAS is paying 60% of the sponsorship deal when they are getting 2 times lesser (more if season ticket holders are considered) exposure with the home jersey. It looks to me MAS is taken for a ride by AirAsia again. For Tony Fernandes, it's just like taking out money from his left pocket and put them into his right pocket since he owns both AirAsia and QPR. While MAS is helping him to put more money into his right pocket. It's either Tony is too smart to be outfoxed in a business deal or there are super dungus on the MAS management team. This certainly isn't a business deal that benefits MAS. Should a royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) be held to determine who's the dungu? 

The simple reason why I'm concerned with MAS dealings is because this is a Government Linked Company (GLC). Government get their money from the rakyat. Basically, you and me own part of MAS. We should know and point out what's not right in their dealings. I don't care what AirAsia wants to do. That is purely business. But when they try to take my money away, I feel like slapping them.

So... time to boycott AirAsia anyone?