Castrol’s football sponsorship theme continues at Posidonia

In association with its official 2010 FIFA World Cup sponsorship, Castrol welcomed one of the most decorated footballers in history, one-time captain of France and 1998 World Cup winner, Marcel Desailly.

Interviewed in a Q&A style by Paul Lowther, Castrol’s global marketing communications manager for marine lubricants, Marcel entertained over 100 guests with anecdotes from his career, including his own passionate World Cup experiences. According to Castrol, he touched on subjects integral to both Castrol’s business and football; performance, analysis, passion and teamwork, and reflected on his own personal winning performances.

After the Q&A visitors to the stand were invited to meet Marcel personally and have merchandise autographed.

Marcel’s appearance ties in with a wider campaign teaming football and business, which has seen Castrol hold World Cup-themed customer events at three other key maritime industry tradeshows and conferences in 2010, involving football legends Terry Venables, Bryan Robson and Lothar Matthäus.

Paul Lowther said: “Throughout our sponsorship programme, Castrol Marine has used football as a vehicle to conduct and develop our business and demonstrate product benefits in the language of sport. Football also gives us a new and unique property in which to engage our customers. The World Cup is the ultimate opportunity to reinforce winning performances through football.”

The Motorship adds, with tongue in cheek, that German star Lothar Matthias made his appearance at the Castrol-supported dinner at our conference in Hamburg. With the current German team still going strong in the competition at the time of writing, we wonder if some of our own success is helping them along the way? Or will this news story prove the kiss of death for this evening’s match against Spain?