KYOCERA joins 2010 IIHF World Championship as Official Print & Copy Partner

The Official Sponsor package provides KYOCERA with product category exclusivity and is designed to meet KYOCERAs marketing objectives. It includes KYOCERAs logo inserted as Official Data Sponsor in the worldwide TV-signal as well as other branding opportunities, such as tickets and VIP hospitality.

Uwe Götze, Marketing Manager of KYOCERA MITA Europe commented: ”A cumulative audience of 750 million for last year’s event in Switzerland was the proof point that investing in the IIHF World Championship would be valuable. The event fascinates fans around the globe and offers KYOCERA a superb communication platform to increase its brand awareness in traditional ice hockey markets such as Scandinavia and Eastern Europe - important markets for us.“

Bruno Marty, Executive Director Winter Sports at Infront added: “We are confident that the agreement with KYOCERA for the IIHF World Championship is a perfect fit. As the biggest of all annual winter sports events, the tournament will provide outstanding brand visibility and excellent television coverage to our new partner. KYOCERA will also benefit from Infront’s high quality services during the event, which we have continuously developed since 1981.”

As an Official Sponsor KYOCERA will offer a print and copy service in all three of the championship venues - Cologne, Mannheim and Gelsenkirchen - providing copy services to the Organising Committee, the media centre and the on-site offices, 24 hours a day. During the events more than half a million pages will be printed and copied.

Following Official Sponsors are already confirmed - seven of which have been involved with the event for 10 years or more, including: AJ (Home and office furniture - Sweden); Bauhaus (Home stores - Germany); Intersport (Sports retailing - Switzerland); Nike (Sports apparel - USA); Tissot (Watches/timing - Switzerland) and Zepter (Home and kitchen ware, cosmetics, health lamps - France). They have recently been joined by high-profile blue-chip sponsors including: Boehringer Ingelheim (OTC medicals - Germany); Henkel (Detergents – Germany) and Raiffeisen International (Bank - Austria).

KYOCERA’s sponsorship of the IIHF World Championship is their first big investment in winter sports. Besides the perimeter sponsorship of the 2009 ISU World Figure Skating Championship and the co-sponsorship of the BMW International German Open golf tournament, KYOCERA has mainly focused on soccer. In the past there have been jersey sponsorships with Atletico Madrid, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Atletico Paranaense (Brasil) and FC Reading (UK). The KYOCERA Corporation also owns Kyoto Sanga a leading team playing in Japan’s J-League.

KYOCERA MITA is one of the world's leading office document solutions companies. Its product range consists of printers, multifunctional systems, wide format devices, parts, supplies and efficient office output solutions. KYOCERA MITA provides innovative products with superior printer controllers, built on a foundation of long-life components, allowing it to offer its customers low total cost of ownership and high efficiency in any workplace. For further information, visit: www.kyoceramita-europe.com.

KYOCERA MITA Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of KYOCERA Corporation, which marked its 50th anniversary last year. Ranked no. 418 on Forbes magazine’s 2009 “Global 2000” listing of the world’s largest publicly traded companies, KYOCERA Corporation is a leading manufacturer of high-tech ceramics, electronic components, solar cells and electronic office equipment. KYOCERA Corporation’s long-term growth strategy is to focus on business that supports telecommunications, information processing, environmental protection and the preservation of quality of life.

Infront Sports & Media, based in Zug, Switzerland, is a leading international full-service sports marketing company with 500 employees across 24 offices in 10 countries. In football, Infront operates at club, national and international levels in all key areas of the value chain in sports business, including marketing, media rights distribution and host broadcast.

Its partnerships include long-term relationships with top European football leagues, including Italian's Lega Calcio and the French Football League (Ligue 1) – handling the host broadcast for the first division of the up until 2011/2012 – national football associations including the DFB in Germany, the world’s largest sports federation, and several clubs like A.C. Milan, SV Werder Bremen, FC Schalke 04, U.S. Città di Palermo and S.S. Lazio Rome. Infront is also best known for working with the sport’s governing bodies. It successfully delivered the global media rights sales and host broadcast of the 2002 and 2006 FIFA World Cup™. Today, Infront is involved in the distribution of the Asian media rights to the 2010 and 2014 FIFA World Cup™ (in a joint venture with Dentsu). The company’s dedicated and highly specialised host broadcast organisation Host Broadcast Services (HBS), is handling the host broadcast of the 2010 and 2014 FIFA World Cup™ and also contributes to UEFA Euro™ events. – www.infrontsports.com.