Category: Blog


Is this not old news? The Evening Standard’s article: Goalposts shift as sponsorship game turns more complex? 2nd February, 2014

It was refreshing to read a sponsorship article in a national paper that did not have to do with how much a brand paid for their recent premier league football kit deal.  However what surprised me was not the content of the article in question, but the amount of tweets that included the words “fascinating” and “amazing” from those working in the sponsorship industry that followed.

For those of you who haven’t read it, the article outlines how the advancement of marketing technology has shifted how brands communicate to their audiences.  With Barclays pulling out of Boris Bikes and Vodaphone’s recent announcement of dropping F1 to launch their Firsts programme, this is clearly becoming big news. However, this should not be a surprise to those in the industry as it has been going on (albeit in smaller incubator-type projects) for awhile.

This shift is the reason I launched Slingshot and despite these large budgets being pulled out of single properties, I echo chief executive of M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment Steve Martin’s comment as we too, “have never been busier”.  This is because sponsorship still remains the best way to engage with audiences by creating emotional engagement beyond traditional advertising.

In the past four years, Slingshot has worked with a number of brands who have slowly been siphoning budget out of their larger media–based sponsorships into tester projects that have deeper engagement, allowing their internal teams the opportunity to become more creative with the rights they purchase.  Our results have enabled our clients to prove the value of this type of sponsorship (away from badging into engagement) against what they have previously been doing, driving larger budgets into more innovative projects year on year.

The drive for brands to innovate is leading this shift and in reference to the article’s ‘earned’ vs ‘paid’ media argument, there remains a great opportunity for the sponsorship industry.  As noted in the article, it is now becoming easier for brands to create their own platforms; however, the cost and typically the lack of direct knowledge in these areas significantly increases the risk.  Sponsorship can support this drive and really is what sponsorship should be about – working collaboratively to create something unique through the synergy of two of more organisations. With these types of sponsorships, the lines between rights holder and sponsor become blurred as the benefits derived from both are not just equal, but significant.

This is only the beginning of what will inevitably become a major shift in the traditional sponsorship model.


Football Sponsorship in Brazil Grows Up 23rd January, 2014

With Brazil becoming ever more present in global sponsorship discussions due to securing the upcoming World Cup and Olympics, sponsorship professionals abroad need to be aware of this growing market.  Specifically how Brazilian brands have previously been choosing sponsorship rights to how those rights are being activated in South America.  More importantly, with Brazil acting as the next global stage for some of the largest global brands – understanding their desire and ability to become more strategic in their approach to create more sustainability in sponsorship beyond the upcoming events.

Football in Brazil remains the sport that receives the majority of sponsorship investment and therefore would be expected to be the industry leaders in terms of activation and strategy.  However,  football still remains poorly activated as an engagement platform by both football clubs and brands.  More surprising is that the tactics used within football are not substantially more advanced than many of the other sponsorship platforms such as art and culture which retain a fraction of investment.

Valuation within this market seems to be the key downfall for rights owners – specifically within football clubs in terms of their property rights and additional commercial assets outside of kit deals.  For brands; it is largely due to poorly planned activation strategies.  Many of the deals are tactical in nature, which extrapolates the problem of long-term vision and the necessary time to truly derive value from the assets purchase.  Unfortunately the combination results in a lack of value for the audience, the brands and the clubs themselves – undeniably reducing the true value these partnerships can generate in Brazil.

It seems that in the most part, Brazil is heavily afflicted by a cultural problem that affects not only football, but sponsorship as an industry in the South American market.  Many brands in Brazil still purchase sponsorship and invest in properties within the same principals and frameworks as their media buys – making tactical as well as individual preferences based solely on the need to generate brand exposure with very little strategic insight.  As an industry, Brazil is missing real-world experience in activating strategies that really connect brands to their audiences and tend to play it safe opting for more traditional activation through media advertising.

However the desire to start utilising sponsorship’s ability to harness online engagement and experiential is growing ever apparent.  The next coming months will be telling – watch this space!


Slingshot Sponsorship signs Carphone Warehouse as Headline Partner of Award-Winning Spring Online Campaign 22nd January, 2014

After the success of last year’s partnership, Digital Unite has announced that Carphone Warehouse will again act as Headline Partner for Spring Online, one of the UK’s leading digital inclusion campaigns which will run from 31st March – 4th April 2014.

Around 7 million people across the UK have never used the internet, of which just over 6 million are aged over 55 years. Many more can’t do basic online tasks such as send an email or browse the web.

Since 2002, Digital Unite’s Spring Online campaign has sought to inspire people, particularly older people, to achieve a lasting use of the internet by supporting volunteers and organisations to hold hundreds of free internet taster events across the UK.  Last year around 1,000 Spring Online events were held helping over 20,000 people to get online.

The successful partnership between Carphone Warehouse and Spring Online 2013 saw a number of Carphone Warehouse stores actively participate in the campaign with their own Spring Online events.   One store in particular, Carphone Warehouse Billericay , received a Spring Online 2013 Best Event Award for its enthusiasm and commitment to the initiative as the in-store team hosted their event on a Sunday when the store is normally closed.  Such was the success and interest by local people that the Billericay store has continued to remain open one Sunday every month to help more people learn about digital technology.

Kesah Trowell, CSR Lead at Carphone Warehouse said “Getting to grips with technology can be daunting for many older people yet they can have the most to gain, whether it’s keeping in touch with friends and family, internet shopping and banking or finding out about community events and activities. At Carphone Warehouse we’ve been guiding people through the complexities of the connected world for 25 years and are keen to share our knowledge and experience to help combat digital and social exclusion”.

Now in its 13th year, the Spring Online campaign has been instrumental in successfully helping tens of thousands of people make technology a part of their everyday lives and helped even more so through the partnership with Carphone Warehouse.  Carphone Warehouse’s sponsorship of the Spring Online campaign will be administered by Digital Unite’s charitable arm, the Digital Unite Trust.

Judith Graham, Operations Manager for Spring Online said: “We are delighted to have Carphone Warehouse as Headline Partner for Spring Online again this year.  The way the stores took time out from business as usual to get involved in the campaign and effectively meet the needs of local older people was terrific. We’re looking forward to building on these successful foundations with Carphone Warehouse to help even more people in 2014.”


The Happy Gilmore Approach to Brand Ambassadorship 21st January, 2014

For every effective brand ambassador deal that adorns the pages of Marketing Week, much of the time I’m left thinking: ‘why is Rory Mcillroy talking to me about mortgages?’ or ’what is Pele doing in a fast-food sandwich chain eating a foot-long sub?’

The point being that I don’t believe that:

The result: a contrived set of dialogue that doesn’t add any weight to convincing me to bank with Santander or to buy a Subway sandwich.

For me, the best endorsement deals are natural ones, a.k.a. the Happy Gilmore approach (as shall become apparent later). When you believe that the athlete or artist in question feels passionately about the brand they’re promoting, it illustrates the quality of the product to the consumer and makes them feel the desired way towards it. For example, if Gordon Brown bored me to death about the validity of Royal Bank of Scotland’s fixed-rate mortgage rates vs their tracker ones, or James Corden waxed lyrical about how he eats a six-inch Meatball Marinara sub ‘as a snack’ I’d be more inclined to believe them and thus, trust and feel positively toward the service or product that they were promoting.

In order to showcase what I mean by a natural brand ambassador, I’ve compiled five of my favourite brand ambassador deals – all of which came about due to the ambassador’s existing passion for a product, before the sponsor and their cheque books came knocking.

  • 1. Mo Farah and Quorn

Tasked with changing the perception of Quorn from a ‘veggie’ food to a nutritional alternative to meat, the company needed a brand ambassador that was strong and athletic but was also a genuine eater of Quorn. Once the company’s researchers found that Mo Farah had used Quorn as part of the training regime that saw him win two gold medals at the London Olympics – they jumped at the opportunity.  Quorn invested significant funds into the campaign to highlight how effective Quorn can be as part of the average (and the not so average) person’s diet. The partnership worked so well that they plan to use Mo in a series of television adverts throughout 2014. The first release, which came out on New Year’s Day, is a fantastic showcase of how Mo uses Quorn in his diet to beat the rest of the field.

 

  • 2. George Foreman and the George Foreman Grill

Contrary to public belief, George Foreman did not actually invent the ‘lean, mean, fat grilling machine.’ Rather, he was approached in the earliest stages of design and was partly responsible for the machine’s thirty degree tilt – a technique his wife used to reduce the amount of fat consumed during the family’s weekly burger nights. Foreman was also infamous for eating two reduced-fat hamburgers before each fight, including his comeback in 1994, aged 45, in which he retained the World Heavy-weight World Championship, making him the ideal ambassador to promote the machine’s ‘miraculous’ fat-reducing capabilities.

 

  • 3. Run DMC and Adidas

Hip-hop music arguably has a stronger links to fashion than any other musical genre, with numerous tracks named after artist’s favourite footwear, hat or sunglasses. Indeed, no partnership was more iconic than Adidas’ sponsorship of the Queens’ based trio: Run DMC. Initially borrowed from prison ‘fashion’, the group became famous for wearing Adidas sneakers without shoelaces. This was followed up with ‘My Adidas’ – the first single of their third album: Raising Hell. With the group firmly established as one of the best-selling hip hop groups of all time, Adidas partnered with Run DMC for $1.6million and made a long-term strategic allegiance both to Run-DMC and hip-hop throughout the 90s.

 

  • 4. Example and Nandos

Following a tongue in cheek video professing his love for the Portguese food chain’s peri-peri chicken, back in 2010, Nando’s created a special black loyalty card that gave Example the spicy chicken goodness whenever he feels like it. In order to repay what most inner-city dwellers would give their left ear for, Example performed four acoustic sets at carefully selected restaurants across London. Since 2010, Example has continued to tweet his stalker-like devotion for his favourite chicken eatery, acting as priceless, genuine promotion of the now universal restaurant chain.

 

  • 5. Happy Gilmore and Subway

Lastly, and arguably the most natural endorsement deal to date: the Happy Gilmore and Subway partnership. The eagerness in his voice, the knowing look of excitement in his eyes as to what awaits and his delicate grasp of his treasure, all show that there is no greater fan of Subway’s Turkey Club sandwich. In direct contrast to Pele’s rather awkward Subway deal, you believe that Happy Gilmore would stroll into a Subway on a Monday afternoon and demolish a foot-long Turkey sandwich… and that makes me want a Turkey Sub.


Fuel the Gap – Evaluating Public Transport Sponsorship 9th January, 2014

The rather abrupt end to Barclays intended 8 year partnership with London’s cycle hire scheme has amplified the vehemently contested debate surrounding public transport sponsorship. With rumours circulating as to why the Barclays sponsorship deal has been halted, it poses the question – is there value in public transport sponsorship?

According to a recent poll, 82% of Londoners support an increase in sponsorship across the public transport sector – this statistic seems even more surprising when you realise that the poll included the acquisition of naming rights for tube stations. Public support aside, it seems that brands are taking to the idea. Samsung recently trialled a month-long partnership with Madrid’s ‘Puerta del Sol’ Metro Station (more info) – a partnership which was then acquired by Vodafone to become ‘Vodafone Sol’ after the telecoms giant purchased the naming rights for a reported 1 million Euro a year deal, to the dismay of many Madrilenians.

sol1

There’s no doubt that this sponsorship has been effective in generating an additional revenue stream, one that has been crucial for the cash-strapped Spanish transport authority. A similar approach in London would almost single-handedly allow the cap on fare increase which we, the general public, so desperately crave. Yet despite the benefit for the general public, it is sometimes hard to find the true value for sponsors in the public transport industry. To demonstrate this, one need look no further than London Transport’s other high profile sponsorship deal, The Emirates Air Line.

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The project was originally billed as an entirely self-financing transport link for commuters and tourists alike costing £25 m; but by the time of completion this had risen dramatically to £63 m.

Whilst Boris Johnson’s enthusiasm for one of his signature projects continues, it would be surprising to hear such continued positivity from Emirates. If recent usage figures are anything to go by, it is difficult to see where Emirates can draw any positives from their association. Statistics show that the transport link is running at an average capacity of around 1 %. Despite this monumental drop, during 2012 the Emirates Air Line was one of London’s premier tourist attractions and generated a vast amount of exposure for the company. Short-term successes aside, surely when Emirates put pen to paper on the 10 year deal, they were hoping for more long-term rewards rather than the ‘flash in the pan’ success they received.

So as a sponsorship campaign, what does the future hold for The Emirates Air Line and is there any danger of Emirates ‘doing a Barclays?’ If Boris thought Emirates got him out of a hole with the shortfall, then in more recent times they have landed him in another one, with the much-publicised controversial contractual details that was implemented by the UAE. The contract appeared to exclude Israel from business with TFL. In some peoples’ eyes, what was once a popular tourist attraction has now become a symbol of hatred towards Israel.

Industry trends suggest that creative and selective campaigns often out-trump heavy-handed broadcast branding. This is not to say, however, that every project of this scale in the public transport industry is doomed for failure, it just suggests that the industry needs to develop. If the industry can learn anything from the Emirates/TFL partnership it is that brands contemplating putting their name on a public transport project should be aware of the challenges ahead. Perhaps brands would be better off targeting tried and tested transport models on a smaller-scale with an increased emphasis on engagement.


Korean Tourism Organisation Partner with GB Taekwondo for 2014 18th December, 2013

The Korean Tourism Organisation (KTO) has been announced as the ‘Preferred Destination Partner’ for the Olympic gold-medal winning, GB Taekwondo for 2014. The year-long partnership will see KTO run a number of initiatives throughout the next year, starting with a presence at the inaugural World Taekwondo Grand Prix at Manchester Central between 13-15th December. The event, which saw 250 of the world’s top athletes compete for valuable qualification points ahead of Rio 2016, was used by KTO to launch a unique sports package that will take holiday-makers to places of sporting interest across Korea, including the T1 Stadium (the world’s first taekwondo specific complex).

jade-jones-sarah-stevenson-lutalo-muhammad-and-the-rest-of-the-gb-taekwondo-team

Ramy Salameh, PR Manager of the Korea Tourism Organisation said: “As ‘preferred destination partner’ we open a new chapter to an already long-standing relationship with GB Taekwondo. Korea’s national sport has grown to new heights in the UK thanks to London 2012 successes. Korea will open a new Taekwondo Park in 2014, which has already attracted interest from sports tour operators and will enable sports fans to visit the ‘home of Taekwondo”.

As Preferred Destination Partners KTO will run a number of joint promotions with the Manchester-based team in 2014; including utilizing athlete appearances to promote the launch of the T1 Stadium in Korea, offering travel promotions to GB Taekwondo’s database and further integration across GB Taekwondo communications.

Steve Flynn, GB Taekwondo Operations Director, commented: “We’re delighted to announce the Korean Tourism Organisation as our ‘Preferred Destination Partner’ for 2014. They have been really supportive of us over the years so we’re looking forward to further promoting Korea and its new purpose-built Taekwondo Park as a tourist destination to an ever growing taekwondo audience in the UK”

The World Taekwondo Grand Prix took place at Manchester Central on December 13-15, 2013.


A Personal Touch: Using sponsorship to engage consumers locally 13th December, 2013

The increase in the number of communication channels between consumer and brand has brought with it a greater amount of choice for the public when purchasing products and services. In order to cater towards this, brands have looked to put the consumer first, engaging them on a personal level to retain their loyalty. Here are four key criteria that brands have built into their sponsorship strategy to develop customer loyalty, and where it has been done effectively.

Limited Edition Offers: O2 have set the standard for this over the past five years with their Priority Moments, which was initiated to increase customer retention and reduce churn. They’ve achieved this thorough giving customers a more personalised bespoke service, offering VIP tickets and first refusal on anything from music to rugby tickets. Having recently teamed up with Nike, they now offer a comprehensive range of perks to reward the loyalty of their customers.

Tapping into Passions: Tapping into people’s passions can propel brands into the hearts and minds of the consumer. However associating with specific fans is a risky business, because you can easily alienate groups by associating with their rivals. McDonald’s avoided this with their sponsorship of Euro 2012; this was geared around harnessing people’s passions for their individual team, where they then competed against one another through an online app. By staying completely bipartisan but engaging with each fan made this app the most downloaded throughout the tournament, building a strong rapport amongst followers of Euro 2012.

Regionalising the Model: The football club Manchester United have developed an unprecedented regional sponsorship campaign whereby they have developed regional partners in order to promote their brand overseas. Associating with more local companies has allowed them to engage with fans on a local level, creating greater recognition.

Second-Screen Engagement: Having consumers directly interact with brands content can provide lasting exposure which could either cost millions to build, or years to develop. Coca-Cola created the Coca-Cola Polar Bowl which provided a second screen experience game during the Super Bowl, where fans from either side would tune in to watch two bears live reactions in relation to what was happening on the pitch. This generated nine million views with an annual watch time of 28 minutes, systematically giving Coke unparalleled  exposure, and kudos amongst fans.

With brands such as Vodafone who announced this week a shift in their sponsorship strategy from a corporate badging exercise to a locally engaged model, it shows consumers are driving the need to be listened to and engaged with. Keeping brands on their toes and opening the door to more versatile partnerships.


Connecting with the Youth- Successful Sponsorship Strategies to Young People 3rd December, 2013

Digital media proliferation has led to social media platforms becoming paramount to successful sponsorship strategies directed at the youth. Younger consumers also tend to be far more receptive to campaigns based around their passions, of which sport and music are the most universal.

Deloitte and Further Education

Sponsorship campaigns in Universities are becoming increasingly common, with the most well-known examples coming through sport. Deloitte’s collaboration with the British Universities and Colleges Sport body (BUCS) is particularly successful. The 5-year partnership deal focuses on a ‘Leadership Academy’ model which delivers events to BUCS members to experience and develop leadership and communication skills.

Through the partnership, Deloitte has first-hand access to thousands of graduates which enables them to maintain their position as one of the top graduate employers (#2 in The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers 2013). It also gives Deloitte an opportunity to build a rapport with students, making them a leading choice for career-searching graduates.

Spotify and Bacardi on Tour

Consumers tend to be more receptive to campaigns that draw upon personal interests. ‘Spotify on Tour’ tapped into this by teaming up with Bacardi to bring music based experiences to fans across America. They created intimate gigs and festivals with renowned artists such as Ed Sheeran and Kendrick Lemar with an emphasis on musical discovery for real music lovers.

The project was supported by a dedicated ‘Spotify on Tour’ which enabled sharing of tour dates, exclusive images and video content. The campaign resonated with the younger generation, which in turn helped Spotify increase its Facebook ‘likes’ to over 2.7 million.

Coca-Cola – Fusion of Music and Sport

Sporting events also represent golden opportunities to engage with young people. Coca-Cola directed its sponsorship of London 2012 towards the youth with the innovative ‘Move to the Beat’ campaign. ‘Move to the Beat’ celebrated British talent by combining the critically acclaimed architects Pernilla & Asif and award winning DJ Mark Ronson. It was based over four different platforms: the Coca-Cola song, documentary, Facebook app and the Coca-Cola Olympic Games pavilion, and had the overall objective of bringing ‘teens closer to the Olympic Games by fusing sport with their passion for music’. The campaign generated a vast amount of online activity including 245 million search impressions, an additional 1.5 million Facebook likes and 21,000 Twitter followers. In addition, Coke became the 2nd most talked about brand during the London Olympics.

Much of the success of these campaigns can be attributed to the use of highly  relevant content for young people and the right platform for the market. Given the significant changes to the way young people are now marketed to it will be fascinating to see how the sponsorship landscape continues to evolve and how brands adapt to this fertile marketing demographic.


Is Following your Passion Leading us Astray? 2nd December, 2013

I recently had the pleasure of guest lecturing for the amazing students at the University of Northampton.  I have been fortunate enough to have spoken at a number of Universities this year including Cambridge and Westminster and always find it invigorating – mostly because it was not too long ago that I was on the other side of the lectern.  However, this recent presentation included an opportunity to sit down with the students afterwards where I was able to ask them questions about their views on sponsorship.  When asked what their plans were after graduation, one student’s reply particularly peaked my interest – she wanted to work in football.  When I dug a bit further, I found she was so passionate about football that she would be happy with any role just as long as it was working in football.  Digging further still I queried whether she would take a similar role at a cricket club?  Her reply was unsurprisingly ‘no’.

Passion is what makes our industry different.  Our ability to tap into consumers’ passions – whether it is for sport, music, art, or even their own industry awards, enables us to derive value based on a connection to the audience.  It is what separates our marketing strategy from above-the-line campaigns.  It is what makes our industry unique.

However, I would argue that our biggest strength can also be our biggest weakness.  Far too often I meet Commercial Directors at sport clubs whose last role was on the pitch; Artist Liaisons and Media Managers for festivals that previously were lead singers of failed bands.  To make matters worse, there have been multiple occasions where we have lost pitches to other sponsorship agencies because we were ‘not passionate enough’ about sport or music – and in one bizarre case, yoga.  It seems that the criteria for being employed in sponsorship can sometimes be judged based on passion for the activity rather than the skill set required to do the job.

We have therefore hit the core part of the problem: the skill set is ill-defined and vague at best.  Sponsorship encompasses so many different types of roles in so many different industries that it is almost impossible to define who would excel or even who would enjoy the type of work.    In our agency alone, not one person entered the industry with the intent to become a sponsorship professional (I wanted to be a mathematician).  And even with the clients that we are working with, some of our most creative and successful work comes from industries/organisations I didn’t even know existed until a couple years ago; and therefore had never had the chance to become passionate about.

Though our industry is built out of passion; passions, unfortunately, do not create the pathway to success in sponsorship.  More needs to be done within the industry to define and communicate the attributes and skill sets of a successful career.  In addition, the industry needs to work closer with educators and course leaders to highlight opportunities that may be overlooked, in order to help realistically hone graduate passions into a career that they love.  This not to say however, that a passion for football won’t lead to success within football sponsorship – far from it.  Many incredibly successful sponsorship professionals have a strong passion for the industry they work in (whether it be sport, art, or music).   But it is experience in doing sponsorship – regardless of industry – that will prevail.  As Gladwell states in Outliers: The Story of Success ‘You need 10,000 hours of experience to become an expert’.

You better get started.

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