Capitalising on sports events to leverage brand awareness
The 2008 summer of sport, with the likes of the Euro 2008, Wimbledon, Test matches, Grand Prix, the British Open and of course the Olympics, has offered great opportunities for marketers to generate strong awareness and leverage sales of their brands via marketing activity says David Atkinson, Managing Partner at space.
And with the launch of the new football season, the Ryder Cup in Kentucky coming up, amongst a whole host of other sporting activity that’s due to kick off in the Autumn, there’s plenty of opportunities for marketers to capitalise on sporting action.
However, what are the challenges when planning activity around sports events? How can brands decide whether to join the bun fight or aim for less cluttered battlegrounds? And what rules can be followed to best avoid wasting investment?
I would say that short-term, tactical activity should be ruled out altogether, because to truly engage and cut through, brands need to commit to their sporting partner for a longer period than just a six-week in-store burst. Also, brands must remember that the relationship a fan has with a sport is often based around a sense of community. For brands to intrude into that community, they need to understand the emotions at play and, as with most of the best relationships, look like they might be in for the long-term. It’s no coincidence that Coca Cola, at a recent ESA conference, took the general plaudits for having won the sponsorship battle of the 2006 World Cup as voted by their peers; and although their campaign was clever, intuitive, creative and engaging, much of that success is down to 90%+ recognition of Coke’s role in football and acceptance of the value it brings.
Decisions on how to take sports promotions to market depend on the goals of the activity – awareness, a sales spike, a shift or reinforcement of brand values, association with a pinnacle sporting event to build credibility and reputation. The official sponsorship of Euro 2008 was only really appropriate for pan-European brands. Sponsorship of British teams would be relatively pointless given that no ‘Home Nations’ had qualified, however, the tournament could have provided an interesting platform from which to engage consumers. Nevertheless, there’s a danger that brands could become limited to ‘generic football’ activity, which may only add to the wallpaper and clutter that accompanies major football bonanzas.
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The issue of polarisation created by supporting one team is an important issue. We work with Samsung, who recently picked up Best Integrated Campaign at the Sports Industry Awards, in leveraging their sponsorship of Chelsea FC. When looking at potential to polarise consumers, Chelsea is right up there. And yet Samsung’s understanding of the triggers from within the sponsorship rights that might engage wider audiences than Chelsea fans alone, is what has made this campaign so successful. After all, as wide as the Chelsea fan base is, Samsung’s support of the club has needed to reach out to all football fans to ensure that positives outweigh negatives.
The key is to provide entertainment, reward or value for fans of the sport being targeted. Just ‘being there’ is not sufficient. Where once the worst you could expect from marketing activity around major sporting events was neutral brand or sales results, we have observed negative reactions to marketing activity in recent years. For example, overt support of one side, team or individual might open a brand up to rejection from supporters of other teams or players. Essentially, underestimating the relationship that a fan has with their sport could cause untold and unexpected damage to a naïve brand. For consumers to welcome intrusion into their pure relationship with sport, brands need to demonstrate a reason to be invited, a thank you for the time together, and a sign that just maybe they might be at the same party again in two or four years time.
