Beyond badging: Unilever on the sports sponsorship game

Low Lai Chow

Unilever brands are using sports sponsorships – including Formula One and football – to connect with fans on things that mean the most to them.

For Unilever’s global head of sponsorships, Willem Dinger, sponsoring sports simply makes good business sense.

“It’s all about connecting all of our different brands with the right passion territory and then finding the right partner within that,” Dinger said at the recent All That Matters entertainment conference in Singapore, on the topic of future-proofing sports sponsorship alongside execs from Formula 1 and PGA Tour.

“We are going big into passion partnerships or passion content, however you want to call it,” said Dinger.

Unilever really got into gear with sports partnerships in the past year, with the mindset that brand...

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