Casio Eyes Value From Landmark Southeast Asian Football Deal

Casio has become the Official Timekeeper for the AFF Suzuki Cup 2020 in a landmark deal, brokered by Sportfive.

This is the first time Casio is backing South East Asia’s most popular biennial football tournament, which features ten national teams from the region.

The Japanese consumer electronics giant will see its G-Shock brand as the official timekeeper. Under the deal, G-shock will enjoy strong brand exposure across the tournament’s platforms, both on-the-ground and digital avenues. Several marketing campaigns and events will also be activated across the participating countries.

According to ASN data, Casio’s G-Shock brand is the tenth largest sponsor for the Watches category (1.7% share), investing over US$4.2m over the last three years in the Asian sponsorship market.

Its domestic sponsorships in Japan contribute almost 61% of that spend; China has enjoyed almost 22% of budgets; while Singapore (9.2%), Indonesia (4.6%), Thailand (1.6%) and India (2.3%) round up the brand’s expenditure. Our forecast for G-Shock in Q420 will see robust growth of almost 2.5x to nearly US$1.1m from a quarterly average of US$441k, as it intensifies its spending across Southeast Asia, particularly in regional deals. 

The AFF recently announced that the AFF Suzuki Cup 2020 will be held from 11 April to 8 May next year (2021).