A first assessment of the Parma Calcio 1913 sponsorship

Four months after the official announcement of the main sponsorship agreement with Parma Calcio 1913 that brought our brand Cetilar to the shirts of the Parma players currently engaged in the League B Championship, we made a first assessment of this important partnership with Carlo Volpi, Managing Director of PharmaNutra SPA. This agreement saw in Volpi himself one of the main promoters – only partly because he has always had affective links to the Emilian team as passionate fan.

”The passion and the support I have for Parma Calcio have contributed, there is no doubt about that; but in these situations, when certain decisions must be taken, there are clearly other considerations and evaluations that must be made,” explains Volpi, who does not hide his satisfaction after these first four months together with one of the most famous Italian football teams, even internationally. “Surely we are satisfied, even if we have not yet had the opportunity to evaluate the actual return on investment, something that we will do later. The satisfaction comes from having found that this operation is giving good visibility to our brand Cetilar, and not only in Parma. And then there is the certainty of being associated with a team that has a very important perceived value, regardless of the excellent results obtained. Parma is considered like a top division team, and moreover its rebirth is a fine example of how a club can be directed seriously with professionalism and effectiveness.”

In these four months, the very important collaborative initiatives have already produced excellent results, like the organization of the second stage of We Are Cetilar, our itinerant roadshow for physiotherapists, an event that took place in Parma, at the Tardini Stadium, with the invaluable presence of the football club medical staff and representatives from among the players. “We have the opportunity to collaborate with Parma Calcio on initiatives that go beyond mere sponsorship, because the synergy is total and it’s the result of professional relationships with companies and medical staff that have been ongoing for several years, eight to be precise – thus well before we became main sponsor. In this sense, the We Are Cetilar stage at Tardini stadium is a practical example, but it will be also followed by other initiatives we are working on and that we will talk about soon – such as an important monitoring activity that we are carrying out with the aim of improving the nutritional aspects of the players’ diet”.

Given the recent entry into the club of the new president, John Jiang Lizhang, reference man for the sports marketing giant DeSports, which acquired 60 percent of the company shares, it was unthinkable to not ask Volpi for a comment on this change at the top of the club. “I have not yet had an opportunity to meet the new members of management personally, but it seems to me that they immediately had a correct approach, providing continuity, synergy and integration with the local and entrepreneurial environment, a decisive move for the relaunch of Parma. For sure they want to bring the team back to where it deserves to be, I mean at the football top level” concludes the Managing Director of PharmaNutra SPA.