Asia's marketers have been hit by a bad case of World Cup fever judging by the immense amount of marketing dollars swirling around this event, jointly kicking off in the land of the setting sun and its foot and mouth-diseased counterpart.
How did we live before the World Cup?
Judging by all of the hoopla surrounding the event, one would have thought that it's the World Cup which brought marketing to Asia.
Then again, maybe it did - suddenly we have this frantic burst of activity built around an event that comes around once every four years.
Scary huh. Because when it's over, it could well mean that devoid of inspiration, we'll all be forced to climb back into our holes and wait for the next World Cup, or better yet the 2008 Olympics to come around to inspire us yet again.
I am off course well aware of the benefits of sponsorship, but with every Tom, Dick and Harry brands getting on the World Cup bandwagon, one would think that marketers just haven't got the imagination to build marketing activities around other equally tangible ideas.
Sure there will be plenty of eyeballs at work watching the pitch action, but what about exploiting other segments, like the football widows who'll want distraction that has nothing to do with football. Niche marketing is sadly neglected in Asia and the predictable surplus of World Cup activity simply testify to this.
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