Contact bar "Blue Monkey" may no longer advertise
The players of the NLB hockey club HC Thurgau are currently taking to the ice with empty pants. The «Blauer Aff» bar is no longer allowed to be a sponsor—so now the club is holding a raffle for the pants sponsorship.
"This is quite depressing," says Urs Tiefenauer, the club's media director. As if sports clubs don't have a hard enough time finding sponsors, HC Thurgau has to part with a sponsor. The emblem of the "Blauer Aff" contact bar in Affeltrangen, Thurgau, had to be removed from the players' shorts - meaning the club is out a hefty sum, as media chief Urs Tiefenauer explains.
The Swiss Ice Hockey Association initially tolerated the Kontaktbar advertising, but later intervened, Tiefenauer said. Because other sponsors were also bothered by the "Blauer Aff" pants advertising, the emblem was taken off the pants, Tiefenauer said. One of HC Thurgau's main sponsors is Thurgauer Kantonalbank (TKB). Another major sponsor is the Stadler Rail Group of former SVP National Council member and ex-ice hockey player Peter Spuhler.
So that the players no longer have to take to the ice with empty pants, as Tiefenauer puts it, HC Thurgau is now looking for another pants sponsor. It is doing so with a lottery. The club wants to sell 222 tickets at 500 francs each. Among the participants of the lottery, two will be drawn - they will win the free trouser advertising space. Already 40 tickets have been sold, Tiefenauer told SDA on Thursday. If at least 111 tickets are sold, two winners will be chosen, Tiefenauer said. The free advertising space is worth 35'000 francs, the HC Thurgau media chief confirmed a report in the Thurgauer Zeitung.
HC Thurgau's campaign is entitled "Get in your pants now". Tiefenauer doesn't find the whole story about the "Blauer Aff" advertisement very funny, he rather thinks it is prudery. (sda)
