by Jim Stanford, Canadian Auto Workers
No.147, July 23, 2007

In advertising, it's always risky to tie one's fortunes to particular sports stars or events. Sometimes athletes do more harm than good to a brand – like Nike's association with football star Michael Vick, currently charged with animal cruelty. Or they might simply turn out to be losers.

Korean automaker Hyundai just learned this lesson the hard way, through its sponsorship of the FIFA under-20 world soccer tourney that wrapped up in Toronto and Edmonton on the weekend. Hyundai helped sponsor the tournament and the Canadian team. The company then spent swads of money advertising this modest good deed, with an extensive series of soccer-themed ads promoting its own cars – imports, every one.

The radio spot, for example, featured a faux soccer announcer, complete with British accent, describing Hyundai's latest summer deals with growing excitement (as if it were a soccer match). At the end he bursts out yelling, "Canada scores with Hyundai!"

Mildly funny – all the more so in light of the Canadian team's abysmal results. We bowed out in three games straight, losing 3-0, 1-0, and 2-0 to Chile, Austria, and Congo, respectively. Canada didn't score with Hyundai, after all. In fact, Canada didn't score at all.

In soccer, an "own goal" is when you accidentally kick the ball into your own net. I'd say that's what Hyundai has just done.

More deeply, however, I find it offensive for any Canadian event or team to be sponsored by companies with no Canadian roots and no commitment to the Canadian well-being, and in this light Hyundai's sponsorship was doubly ironic. After all, about the only thing more one-sided than a Canadian soccer game is Hyundai's attitude toward economic supply and demand in this country. Here's the scoreboard:

New vehicles sold in Canada in the last 5 years by Hyundai and its affiliate Kia: 470,000.

New vehicles produced in Canada in the last 5 years by the same companies: 0.

In Hyundai's world view, Canadians are little more than potential customers – wallets on legs. The company doesn't produce any vehicles here, or buy any vehicles from us. Its burgeoning imports have destroyed at least 10,000 good Canadian jobs in auto plants and suppliers. And now we erect its logo to adorn a globally significant tournament taking place just down the Queen Elizabeth Way from some of the shuttered factories that are the end result of its business.

Of course, Hyundai hires Canadian dealers to sell its imported cars to other Canadians. But there's no gain for Canada in this: we'll always have new car dealerships. What's in jeopardy is our ability to produce any of the stuff that's on sale there.

How pathetic for Canada to sell-out its sporting soul to the highest bidder, along with our economy. Why can't a world-class Canadian sporting event be sponsored by a world-class Canadian company? Oh yeah, I forgot. Most of those have been taken over.

Hyundai would be by far the biggest winner under the proposed Canada-Korea free trade agreement (FTA). Automotive products (most of them Hyundais and Kias) are the most important Korean exports to Canada, which in sum outweigh our exports to Korea by almost two-to-one. Trading with Korea is like playing soccer on a hill, with Canada's net at the bottom of the slope.

Yet International Trade Minister David Emerson has made it clear he wants to sign another FTA, any FTA, before he leaves office (likely at the next election, since he stands no chance of re-election in Vancouver Kingsway following his defection to the Tories). Korea, where they throw trade union leaders in jail, is his best chance. The back-up plan, apparently, is Columbia – where union leaders simply get knocked off.

If I was the referee, I'd award a penalty shot against Korea for its extensive use of non-tariff barriers – the economic equivalent of using your hands in soccer. These strategies have kept Korea's automotive market 98-percent controlled by Hyundai and other Korean producers – even as Korea's sales to Canada and other open-door markets grow every year.

And then I'd show the red card (signifying automatic expulsion in soccer) to Mr. Emerson and his trade officials – who not only accept this lopsided state of affairs as legitimate, but are willing to make it worse.

On his high-school soccer team, Jim Stanford played – what else? – left wing.

A version of this commentary was originally published in the Globe and Mail.