Colombia loves and admires Nairo Quintana and its cyclists more than their soccer players

Fortuna , the brand of Tabacalera's blond cigarettes, never sponsored competitions or sailing vessels, and yet, in the surveys it turns out that it is the brand that is most associated in Spain with sailing, they count year after year in schools marketing , where they add that, of course, the sailboat with which King Juan Carlos won so many races was called Fortuna . The anecdote wants to explain that the reasons of the consumers sometimes reside in unfathomable mental verdicts, and that this is one of the reefs that must be exploited by the advertisers, market scholars who rationalize and take advantage of it by adding another commandment to their creed: or for worse, the first victory is the one that leaves in the people the memory of the brand that sponsored it ”.

Fernando Alonso, and so many years have passed, is still associated with Renault rather than with McLaren or Ferrari, and at Telefónica they know that, although in the ditches of Colombia their jersey is no longer visible, when they survey the country's consumers Latin American so important in the global strategy of the Spanish company, Nairo Quintana, seen the jersey he saw, will be forever Movistar, the team in which he ran eight seasons and with which he won the Turn and Lap and climbed three times to the podium of the Tour

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And, with 30 years already completed, Nairo, who announced last August that he was leaving Eusebio Unzue's team to sign for the Bretons of the Arkea, a brand that nobody in Colombia knows what sells (it's a bank), is still a figure Primordial in Colombia.

According to the popularity surveys conducted by Telefónica, Nairo was, in the fourth quarter of 2019, already with Egan crowned in the Tour, the best known and most admired character in the country. The Lion of Tunja knew 99.2% of the respondents, a tenth more than the soccer player Falcao (99.1%) and more than one point more than his colleague James Rodríguez (98.1%). The singer Carlos Vives reached 97.7%, and behind, in the ranking, there are four cyclists: Rigo Urán (92.3%), Egan Bernal (91.8%), Fernando Gaviria (67.3%) and Miguel Ángel Superman López (64.5%).

Telefónica believes that the sports divorce, unavoidable when considering both parties that an end of the cycle had been reached and that coexistence would not benefit the broker or his team, should not lead to commercial divorce and, according to company sources, its strategy is to maintain the association with Nairo even if he runs on another team. Therefore, Movistar Colombia continues to maintain its collaboration with the Gran Fondo de Nairo, the popular and massive race organized by the cyclist every year in his Boyacá.

According to the data of the same study that Telefónica manages, always in the survey of the fourth quarter of 2019, 75.5% admire Nairo with a score of eight to 10, 72% to Egan and 69.7% to Rigo, three cyclists who are more loved and exemplary than soccer players: 66.2% give the highest score to Falcao and only 54.3% to James.

It is not unreasonable, therefore, to collect, and there is no need for images of passionate crowds in the gutters of the recent Tour Colombia for this, that cycling is the number one sport in Colombia, a country that, in addition, is perhaps its great power World Cup and its nursery for the future. Therefore, the people of Telefónica give great value to a survey of spontaneous association of brands with cycling in Colombia that Movistar has been leading since the signing of Nairo in 2012, when the cyclist was 22 years old. In the first quarter of 2015, 68% of respondents associated Movistar with cycling sponsorship, more than 40% more than Postobón, one of the most traditional cycling brands in Colombia.

Movistar's leadership peaked in the third quarter of 2017, when Rigo Urán's podium on the Tour and Nairo's 12th place, his worst ranking. Postobón was second then (28.3%) and Sky, third, with its highest historical value (21.8%). In the fourth quarter of 2019, the podium does not change despite the fact that Nairo was already starting to detach himself from Movistar, Postobón had closed his professional team and Sky had stopped sponsoring the Froome and Egan team. The Spanish company, which has started this year, in addition, to sponsor the Tour Colombia, maintained an 81.8% spontaneous brand association with cycling, Postobón was 21.6% and Sky 11.4%. Of course, Latin American mobile telephony was fourth, with 7.3%, and Japanese component manufacturer Shimano, fifth, with 3.2%. In the top ten, after Tigo, Red Bull and Lotto, Ineos enters for the first time, the sponsor of the old Sky since last May and with whose jersey Egan red wine became in July the first Colombian to win the Tour.

In Movistar they are aware that, without Nairo running with his jersey , this position will be weakened, but they also know, because the laws of the market and brands say so, it will take a long time to lose the lead.

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