MAY 25, 2006

Ferrari in Wonderland

As we predicted back in December last year, Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro has signed a deal with Alice to replace Vodafone in 2007. The deal is believed to be worth $25m a year for at least three years.

Alice IS the broadband service of Telecom Italia and has recently launched an aggressive expansion programme in Europe. Telecom Italia, a Ferrari sponsor a few years back with its TIM mobile brand, has earmarked $2.5bn for the development of Alice in Italy and the plan is for the service to be in 8m homes by the end of this year. Alice has already entered the French and German markets, having bought up the broadband assets of Tiscali and others. The service offers music, games, movies, sports and online television, which offers the viewers the opportunity to watch what they want, when they want to on their home TV via a broadband connection offering direct access to a wide range of on-demand content, including over 350 movies and TV series, news, soccer matches and, in the near future, live concerts and reality shows.

Ferrari is the perfect fit for Alice for a number of reasons, not least because it reflects a high-technology image which telephone companies are interested in. There are clearly bigger international ambitions for Alice and in addition to the America's Cup sponsorship there are already international sponsorships in the European rugby championship and in MotoGP in which Alice is the sponsor of several races and is an official partner of the Marlboro-funded Ducati motorcycle team (and previously involved with Aprilia).