Manchester United’s club sponsors could be facing digital advertising bills running into the millions, according to new evidence.

Global brands like Adidas, Chevrolet and Tag Heuer are being dragged into the #NotAPennyMore anti-Glazer fan campaign, which comes off the back of the Glazer’s attempt to become founder members of the failed European Super League.

Now protestors are appealing to fans to click multiple times on any of Manchester United’s 50 listed sponsors’ Google Ads. The action of clicking on the online ads immediately threatens to rack up worrying bills for the club’s sponsors, which one digital specialist says could very easily run into ‘millions of pounds.’

Mediaworks, the future facing digital marketing agency headquartered in the North of England, has been analysing the digital impact of the action from the Manchester United anti-Glazer protesters, which has turned its sights on the club’s commercial partners.

CEO and founder at Mediaworks, Brett Jacobson said: “When looking at the digital evidence, it’s very easy to see how this could very quickly start costing Manchester United’s sponsors a lot of money. This could easily run into sums comfortably into the millions.

“We’ve already seen one major sponsor pull back from a new deal this week and this move by the fans to light the match on some digital dynamite as a means to remove the Glazer family as owners of the club has every possibility of having the desired effect. There could be some very awkward boardroom conversations between United and their sponsors if this plays out as the fans hope.”

Digital specialists at Mediaworks have evidenced more than 51,000 uses of the #NotAPennyMore hashtag on social media platforms, with daily use rocketing 62% to peak at more than 7,000 mentions a day.

At the same time, assessment of Google Trends data suggests that popularity of searches for just five of Manchester United’s key partners – Adidas, Chevrolet, Tag Heuer, Kohler and AON – have doubled in the last 48 hours just in the UK alone.

Using freely available Google Ads data to calculate what that could mean to advertising costs for these brands, Mediaworks says it paints a bleak picture for the marketing budgets of those in the firing line.

Brett Jacobson explained: “We’ve looked at the top end cost per click data for just those five brands, a price they could reasonably expect to be charged by Google for this type of fan activity. Generously assuming that only one quarter of those choosing to look up these sponsors in the last 48 hours decide to click just once on their Google Ads, that could be an eye-watering bill in excess of £1.2m they could be collectively facing this month alone. And that figure could easily skyrocket.

“Manchester United has 50 listed key partners and sponsors that the #NotAPennyMore activists claim they’ll target. As Glazer’s Stateside accountants might be nervously whispering right now, ‘you do the math’.

“With The Hut Group withdrawing from a rumoured £200m, ten year deal to join the list of sponsors for the club for fear of the negative associations, you do fear that this is just the tip of the iceberg for the Glazer’s fan troubles.”

Written by fcbusiness.