How Snapdragon became a household name with sports fans

When tech company Qualcomm and its product brand Snapdragon inked a deal with Manchester United in 2022, CMO Don McGuire never imagined the Snapdragon name would end up plastered on the Premier League team’s kits.

Similarly, when Qualcomm first got involved with Formula 1 the same year, there were no plans to partner with Mercedes, which, despite some difficulties in recent years, is still firmly in the top half of the grid. And a year before that, when the company signed its 15-year naming rights deal for a stadium complex in San Diego in 2021, the facility was primarily expected to host college football games; now, two professional soccer teams call it home, too.

Over the last few years, McGuire and Qualcomm have pivoted to take advantage of opportunities in sports sponsorships as they present themselves, and rolled with the changes. After a little bit of convincing of the rest of the C-suite, sponsorships, McGuire told us, have become Snapdragon’s single biggest driver of brand growth, more than traditional ad spend.

“As we saw relevance with consumers of our technology and we built our brand story, we had to look at our marketing mix, how we build more affinity for the brand, and how we do more storytelling,” he said.

The reverse Hamilton

Qualcomm originally got involved in F1 with the Ferrari team, not Mercedes. At the time of the deal, Qualcomm had a business relationship with Ferrari outside of F1, along with several other auto brands, and McGuire said it made sense to test out an F1 sponsorship with a one-year deal. The fact that both brands’ primary color is red didn’t hurt, either, he added.

The partnership was announced at the start of the 2022 F1 season in February, and by the time the Italian Grand Prix in Monza rolled around in September, some hospitality hiccups involving understaffing and ticket issues had McGuire feeling frustrated about the deal, he said.

At the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix toward the end of the season, Qualcomm’s Ferrari paddock passes fell through again, and Mercedes hooked the brand up with access to its paddock instead. That offer “sealed the deal,” McGuire said, and Qualcomm moved from Ferrari to Mercedes—a year before F1 all-star Lewis Hamilton announced he was leaving Mercedes to join Ferrari after more than a decade. (A representative for Ferrari did not return a request for comment.)

For the past few seasons, Qualcomm has had a significant presence with the team, showing up on its cars, race suits, personnel clothing, and social media, as well as partnering with its drivers and activating at races. Last summer, Qualcomm expanded its partnership with Mercedes to include driver Doriane Pin and F1 Academy, the women’s F1 championship. So far, the sponsorship has helped Qualcomm add to its membership community of “Snapdragon Insiders,” show off its tech to F1 fans in person, and meet other business partners like WhatsApp and Marriott, McGuire said.

The two organizations will discuss renewing their deal in 2026, he said, and while Qualcomm is “always evaluating” the sponsorship market to vet its contracts within the context of the rest of the landscape, McGuire said he’s excited for Mercedes’s future on the track and has been pleased with the relationship.

Dragon 🤝 devil

Qualcomm also experienced something of an unexpected changeup with regard to its Manchester United partnership. McGuire said that about a year into the original deal, the team approached him with the opportunity to become its front-of-shirt sponsor—which would be a huge sponsorship step up for the brand.

“I was like, ‘Wow, I’m flattered, but there’s no effing way I’m gonna be able to get this over the finish line,’” McGuire said. “We’ve never done anything this big…I would love to have the Snapdragon brand on one of the most coveted pieces of sports real estate in the world, but man, I’m thinking [there’s a] 5% chance this is going to happen.”

After some persistence, and about a year spent working on making the case for the deal with the Red Devils, McGuire said he sold the rest of the C-suite on the idea, which he said primarily came down to the deal’s equivalent media value.

“Being the front-of-shirt partner with Manchester United and having 24 home matches a year for the men’s team alone is like getting the equivalent of 24 Super Bowl ads,” McGuire said. “It’s been the biggest move we’ve made to position Snapdragon into the zeitgeist to a broad audience.”

Sure enough, Qualcomm saw more than 5 billion impressions during its first season on Man United’s kits alone, along with the addition of hundreds of thousands of new additions to its Snapdragon Insiders community, according to McGuire. Last year, the two organizations extended their deal until 2029.

“It’s been pretty life-changing for the brand,” he said. “The KPIs have been phenomenal.”

Hometown heroes

Elsewhere in the world of soccer, Qualcomm found itself involved with San Diego FC, which started playing in MLS as the league’s 30th club this season, and San Diego Wave FC, which joined the NWSL in 2022; both teams play at Snapdragon Stadium. To round out its local sponsorship portfolio, Qualcomm is also a partner of the San Diego Padres MLB team.

While Mercedes and Man United largely serve top-of-funnel goals like brand awareness, the local team efforts are more about “lower-level KPIs like mentions across media” and connecting with the San Diego community, McGuire said. In addition to tens of thousands of media mentions, the stadium has earned Snapdragon global broadcast exposure thanks to international matches and tournaments, like the upcoming Concacaf Gold Cup, according to McGuire.

“This area of brand partnerships and this area of community are really two very fertile areas for us that are driving brand growth overall, and that paid off, from an ROI perspective, tremendously,” he said.