日本電商樂天簽下巴薩胸前廣告

Last summer, FC Barcelona player Gerard Piqué and his pop star partner Shakira organised a dinner in San Francisco. Attendees included the football club’s new president Josep Maria Bartomeu and an unlikely friend of Piqué’s, Hiroshi Mikitani, the founder of Rakuten, Japan’s largest internet retailer by sales.

去年夏天，巴塞羅納足球俱樂部(FC Barcelona，簡稱：巴薩)球員杰拉德•皮克(Gerard Piqué)和其流行歌手女友夏奇拉(Shakira)在舊金山組織了一次宴會。與會者包括巴薩新任主席何塞普•馬里亞•巴托梅烏(Josep Maria Bartomeu)，以及一個本不太可能是皮克朋友的人——以銷售額計日本最大互聯(lián)網(wǎng)零售商樂天(Rakuten)的創(chuàng)始人三木谷浩史(Hiroshi Mikitani)。

Mr Mikitani spent the evening talking to Mr Bartomeu about the sport he loves. But he ended the dinner with a business proposal: Rakuten should become Barcelona’s new shirt sponsor.

三木谷整晚都在和巴托梅烏談他喜歡的運動。不過，宴會結(jié)束時他卻提出了一個商業(yè)建議：樂天應當成為巴薩新的球衣胸前廣告贊助商。

On Wednesday, he got his wish as Rakuten inked a deal with Barcelona worth at least €220m, sealing one of the world’s largest football shirt sponsorships in the latest display of how the value of commercial deals for top-tier clubs continues to rise.

本周三，他達成了這個愿望。樂天與巴薩簽訂了一項價值至少2.2億歐元的協(xié)議，這是世界上最大手筆的足球襯衫廣告贊助交易之一，也是證明頂級俱樂部商業(yè)交易價值不斷攀升的最新例證。

Speaking to the Financial Times, Mr Mikitani insists that the deal is not just about the vanity of seeing his company’s logo emblazoned across the chests of the world’s best players, such as Lionel Messi and Neymar. The deal with one of Europe’s most successful football teams is a chance for Rakuten to gain recognition outside Japan where it is already a household name.

在接受英國《金融時報》采訪時，三木谷堅稱，簽訂該協(xié)議不僅僅為了滿足看到自己公司標識出現(xiàn)在萊昂內(nèi)爾•梅西(Lionel Messi)和內(nèi)馬爾(Neymar)等全球最佳球員胸前的虛榮心。對樂天來說，這項與歐洲最成功球隊之一簽訂的協(xié)議，是在日本以外贏得知名度的一次機遇。在日本國內(nèi)，樂天早已是個家喻戶曉的品牌。

“Not so many people know about Rakuten, to be very honest,” he says. “This is our first step to globalise our brand, which is going to be very important for our future strategy.”

“說老實話，知道樂天的人并不太多。”三木谷說，“這是我們品牌走向全球的第一步，這種全球化對我們未來的戰(zhàn)略非常重要。”

Mr Mikitani founded Rakuten in 1997 and has built it into a company known as Japan’s Amazon. It operates the country’s biggest online marketplace for 44,300 small businesses that sells everything from books and cars to electronics. The ecommerce group, which is worth $15.6bn, also offers property and electricity services and is an active investor in early-phase technology start-ups.

三木谷在1997年創(chuàng)立了樂天，并將其打造成了一家被稱為“日本的亞馬遜(Amazon)”的公司。該公司運營著日本最大的網(wǎng)上集市，上面有4.43萬家小商戶，這些商戶銷售從書籍、汽車到電子產(chǎn)品等各種商品。這家市值156億美元的電子商務集團，還提供不動產(chǎn)和電力服務，并積極投資處于早期階段的科技初創(chuàng)企業(yè)。

“Just putting our brand in front of many, many eyeballs is itself very, very valuable,” he says. “But partnering with Barcelona, demonstrating what we do, will help synchronising our brand. It will make this partnership much more valuable than what we are paying.”

三木谷說：“僅僅是讓我們的品牌出現(xiàn)在無數(shù)眼球前面這件事本身，就極具價值。不過，與巴薩合作、展示我們的業(yè)務，將有助于傳播我們的品牌。這將讓這種合作關(guān)系的價值，大大超過我們所掏的錢。”

The Catalan club and the Japanese company have signed a four-season deal, with an option to extend to a fifth, worth €55m a year.

這個加泰羅尼亞俱樂部和這家日企簽訂的協(xié)議涵蓋四個賽季，并可選擇再延長一個賽季，每年的贊助額為5500萬歐元。