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6 June 2006

6 June News ...

Behind the Sponsor: Prodir

What does it take for a company to be involved in the world of cycling? Why do they pay the money to have their name on the kits of the riders? We paid a visit to the Prodir headquarters near Lugano to find out why they are associated with your favorite sport.

Prodir shares sponsorship with Saunier Duval on the squadra, Saunier-Duval Prodir. The Spanish-Swiss squadra have some top names in their 2006 stable, such as Gilberto Simoni, David Millar Koldo Gil, and Riccardo Riccò. The riders help push the team to wins and ensure the sponsor's name is seen on the televisions and magazines across the world.

Prodir produces pens to be used as marketing tools by their customers and they pride themselves on their Swiss quality and customer service. The Swiss company got involved in the sport in late 2003 when Mauro Gianetti was building a squadra for the following season. Gianetti really wanted a Swiss company to join forces with his Spanish-based Saunier Duval sponsor, so after a couple of phone calls he was put in contact with Prodir. Both Prodir and Gianetti are from Ticino, so it was a perfect match. In 2004 the team debuted, in 2005 they participated in their first Tour de France and 2006 holds even more possibilities.

Supporting the Squadra and Some

Marco Moya, Prodir's Sponsoring Manager, tells us that the company really had no passion in cycling before Gianetti made the proposal, but now, two and a half years later the company is very involved and informed. Their commitment to Gianetti and the team is through 2009. A great investment, as Moya notes that the squadra is one of the lower budget teams on the ProTour, making a good point of entry for Prodir.

In addition to the money supplied directly to the team, Prodir pours in more euros every season on 'side projects'. This gives the company more flexibility in how they can direct their brand awareness. For example, Prodir puts greater influence on Grand Tours such as Tour de France and Giro d'Italia, as well as races in the USA, where they are the team's first name (Prodir–Saunier Duval). At the Tour of Georgia they started "Autograph Ally", which is essentially a red carpet walkway for the riders on the way to signing in for the stage. The "ally" is covered with Prodir banners, and you don't have to guess which pens are used to sign the autographs. Prodir, of course.

La Grand Boucle

One race that everyone wants to be a part of is the Tour de France. Last year Saunier Duval-Prodir competed for the fist time and this year they will be back, with Prodir making their own additional investment. Aside from supporting the team, the company will budget for tents to be at each stage finish, the promotional caravan for distributing 200,000 pens, and will offer a VIP package. The VIP package helps to entice clients and includes six tickets for each stage finish and a reserved spot on the Alpe d'Huez. They wanted to offer the stylized 'pen of the race', like they do for the Giro d'Italia and other races, but said no when Tour organizers asked €750,000 for this right.

If you are at the Tour of Georgia, Tour of California, Deutschland Tour, Vuelta a España or Giro then you will find Prodir's 'pen of the race', it is a highly sought after collector's item. These races are far less costly and still offer plenty of publicity for the company, especially important in Germany where Prodir sells almost half of the pens they produce. Thus, Prodir can manage, via certain races, how they reach out to new customers.

From the beginning Moya has literally been the driving force behind the Prodir message, this year he will be driving the Prodir car in the Giro race caravan. He will cover the same 3,553K route as the riders and throwing out pens along the way. He travels to most of the races with the team to ensure Prodir's name is properly represented and to handle any business contacts. Many times Moya will join forces with the team's other main sponsors, Saunier Duval (heating and cooling units) and Scott (bicycle frames), to increase their awareness and help build a team spirit. At last year's Vuelta, Prodir used the Scott team truck to provide a huge VIP viewing area to schmooze their potential clients.

Cost-Effective Cycling

Even with all of their cycling investments Prodir is still a small Swiss company. They currently produce 70 million pens per year (up from 14 million in 1998), making the world of cycling a great avenue for their advertising budget. Even with the cost of the La Grand Boucle, cycling is much less expensive than F1 or Soccer, where Prodir's budget would be wisped away in a month or less. Like the more costly F1, the cycling peloton travels the globe and still offers the same range of international marketing options for Prodir.

Is it working? One way to measure their success is through Google's search engine: before their involvement in cycling a 'Prodir' search resulted in 49,000 results, now that number is above 300,000. Since the company does not deal in direct sales it is difficult to obtain the precise impact, but the company is very satisfied with the increased demand from only two years ago. The team's partners, Team CSC, Lampre-Fondital, and Discovery Channel all call up Prodir for their promotional pens, and that means a lot. Plus, the company is now hooked on the passion, Moya has a hard time supplying enough of the team's jerseys to the company's workers.

6 June News ...