The Seminar was held under ECU supervision in Kallithea, Greece on May 3-4th, 2007 to discuss issues relevant to present day problems and opportunities in marketing chess. The list of the speakers and the titles of the presentations can be seen on the ECU website, www.eurochess.org.

Following the introductory remarks of ECU President Boris Kutin, the participants agreed that until recently chess has not been professionally marketed by the international chess organizations to attract sponsors and to sell merchandise. On the other side, there are many good opportunities and ways of promoting chess among the family of sports achieving success in sports marketing. The participants enumerated cases where the activities of event organizers, voluntary organizations and ECU or FIDE institutions have proven that chess is capable to attract a wide range of interest, to achieve success in financial and other manners. The Aberdeen School in Chess project started in 2001 led to a significant growth of the numbers of young chess players in the broader region and has grown to a level where it becomes international. The project established its logo, brand (SJC), web-site and awards trophies and cash prizes to the winners of the tournaments. The ECU’s Women Grand Prix series, supported by MonRoi, is a success and it travels not only to European cities but goes oversees to the United States and Canada. From view, the marketing relevance of the Grand Prix is that it creates a good record for corporations to consider active participation in chess sponsoring. From a presentation dealing with the top events of the chess world (world championship, grand master tournaments), it became clear that there is a close relationship between the format chosen for the event and the kind of sponsoring that can be achieved. The President of the Turkish Chess Federation gave a detailed overview of the very successful Turkish experience in which the government and local goverments have been attracted to chess and by their support, chess became one of the most popular sports among youngsters in Turkey. The Seminar organizer, Th. Tzorbatzoglou pointed out that tourism, including chess tourism is an organic part of good marketing results and the best way is to combine the chess event with supplementary actions grouped in a package for the sponsors and non-resident visitors. Several presentation have dealt with theoretical issues of defining the terms and methods related to chess-marketing, the practice of ACP, while in one of the presentations a detailed methodology was shown on what to consider and how to prepare a bid for organizing chess events. FIDE PR and Marketing Director discussed the difficulties and different techniques of marketing chess and also dealt with the new efforts to overcome those problems and to re-shape the organizations for better chess marketing. ECU Deputy President emphasized the good feeling of a well-organized tournament that can be felt by the participants, organizers and spectators who in that sense are gens una sumus.