easyMarkets vs Axi: Two CFDs Brokers Clash in Big-Ticket Champions League Game

“In life, no one’s a guaranteed winner. But, we’ve got history on our side, with more trophies than you can count! Get ready, you’ll have to fight for this one tooth and nail!” that's the message of Garen Meserlian, easyMarkets' Chief Marketing Officer, to its industry rival Axi before the big Champions League between Real Madrid and Manchester City on April 9.

Axi’s Head of Brand and Sponsorship, Hannah Hill, wished easyMarkets “lots of luck,” predicting the game to favor Manchester City with a final score of the challenging game at 2-1.

Sponsors of Top Football Teams

easyMarkets has been sponsoring Spain’s Real Madrid since 2020, while Axi (previously AxiTrade) inked a deal with Manchester City, one of the top football clubs in the United Kingdom. Both these teams will play in a much-anticipated Champions League quarter-finals next week.

The two top teams in their individual country’s leagues clashed last time in the Champions League semi-finals of the 2022-23 season. While the first leg was a draw with a score of 1-1, the English club dominated the second leg by winning it 4-0. Interestingly, the two teams also clashed in the semis of the previous Champions League, when Real Madrid emerged victorious.

For this upcoming match, easyMarkets’ Meserlian predicts the score to be 3-1 in favor of Real Madrid.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by UEFA Champions League (@championsleague)

A Brand Building Exercise

Spots sponsorships are popular brand-building marketing channels for financial services companies, including forex and contracts for differences (CFDs) brokers. Although dozens of such brokers have associated their names with sports teams, easyMarkets and Axi are among the few that spent top dollar to ink big-ticket sports deals.

The scope of Axi’s deal with Manchester City includes hospitality and experience assets that allow the broker to take some of its partners and clients to games to “drive loyalty.”

“We use our assets to create a little bit of noise around games,” said Hill. “There were spikes in some of our awareness metrics around big games.”

Although Axi does not usually run social media campaigns around individual matches outside its seasonal plans, the strategy of easyMarkets is different. The Cyprus-headquartered broker runs campaigns around some matches and even offers free tickets occasionally. Axi also rewards its followers with match tickets and experiences.

@easymarkets

easyMarkets is giving away 12x VIP tickets to Real Madrid’s next home Champions League match! Watch the video to find out how you can win. 👈⚽🥇

♬ original sound - easyMarkets

easyMarkets also awards its followers with occasional access to Real Madrid players, as a part of fan engagement. The broker even arrange meetings of its top clients with coaches, ground staff, among other engagement activities. Axi, on the other hand, run promotional campaigns with the players of Manchester City.

Both brokers also enjoy brand placements on various infrastructures of the clubs, including the LED boards, perimeters etc.

RoI Is the Key

Spots sponsorships are costly. However, both Axi and easyMarkets have been involved in multi-year partnership deals with the two football clubs, respectively.

“We have a very stringent reporting process that we've kind of honed over the last three or four seasons,” Hill said explaining how the broker quantify the success of sports-sponsorhips. “We look at a number of metrics, the first one being brand awareness.”

“We look at the media value that we see through our exposure in the stadium. We see the growth we're experiencing during social activity around sponsorship engagement. And, then a really important one is obviously return-on-investments. This is a fairly substantial part of our marketing budget.”