Liverpool have inked a new three-year extension to their partnership with global confectionery giant Cadbury.
The partnership, initially signed back in 2020, was due to expire this summer but UK-based firm has opted to extend its deal with the Reds in what is a boost for the club’s commercial efforts and another sign of commercial partners being pleased with their activations with the Reds, following on from extended deals with the likes of Standard Chartered, Expedia and EA Sports over the past 12 months.
The renewed partnership will remain focused on growing the Liverpool FC Works Programme over the coming years of the extension, with the hope of helping even more young people from the Liverpool City Region to prepare for the world of work. Cadbury are also focusing on providing ‘bigger and better’ experiences for fans ahead of the firm’s 200th birthday celebrations next year.
At the start of the original partnership Cadbury created a limited-edition Liverpool FC Champions Dairy Milk bar, which was available to purchase through official club stores. Proceeds from the sale of these bars were donated to the Liverpool FC Virtual Employability Programme, providing £25,000 to launch the initiative. In addition to the money raised, Cadbury employees have been volunteering as mentors on the Programme, providing real-world business knowledge and advice to participants.
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Ben Latty, commercial director at Liverpool, said: “I am delighted to announce the extension of our partnership with Cadbury. Cadbury has shown its commitment to providing for our local community, working closely with the LFC Foundation on the LFC Works Programme.
“We look forward to continuing to work together and strengthening our meaningful partnership further over the next three years.”
The extension of another partnership for the Reds is telling from a business perspective, with the club having been focused on attracting and retaining major blue-chip brands as sponsors and continuing to grow not only the value of those deals cycle after cycle but also offering these companies the kind of engagement that they seek aside from simply selling ad space on pitch hoardings, on shirts and training wear or on the club website.
Daniel Haddad, head of commercial strategy at global sports firm Octagon, told the ECHO’s Bottom Line Podcast recently: “A lot of people from outside the industry may always be looking at the size of the newest deal and getting new partners on board, but we are seeing with a couple of clubs that if your big, long-term premium sponsors don’t want to renew their deals then going back out to market to find a replacement can be very difficult because it is a highly competitive market.
“If you are a club selling your major assets such as shirt sponsorship, sleeve and training kit etc, then at any one time there is going to be some of your competitors selling similar assets. You have got Formula One that is becoming more global and doing really well (commercially) at the moment, and you have got UEFA and the Champions League.
“On some of those bigger partnerships what you want to do is grow them organically over time through extension and expansion rather than finding new partners. What Liverpool have done very well is servicing partners once they are on board and it does speak to the power of the global Liverpool fan-base that once a brand has decided to invest in Liverpool and after spending a few years and activating the partnership, it really does suggest that they buy into what Liverpool say about themselves. That really is the cornerstone of any successful sponsorship model.
“There will always be partners and brands that just come and go. Global economic conditions and things that happen within businesses that are unpredictable, but if you can retain 60-70 per cent of your sponsors when the contracts come up for renewal then you are looking at consistent organic growth over time.”
