Lessons the Sponsorship Industry should Learn from Kickstarter 15th May, 2013

Continuing from Jackie’s most recent blog, which expressed the inherent need for an understanding of sponsorship in every industry, I wanted to lead this blog in a similar vein. The past couple of weeks have seen the re-emergence of the platform Kickstarter into the blogosphere – a crowd-funding site that offers entrepreneurs, film-makers, artists, techies etc. a platform through which they can raise funding for specific ideas and projects.

Until a few weeks ago, many were unaware of Kickstarter until Mr Zach Braff (of Garden State and Scrubs fame) launched a campaign on the website to generate funding for his new movie ‘Wish I Was Here’ a kind-of-but-not-really sequel to Garden State – find his campaign video here. Through the website, and by the click of a button, anyone is able to become an investor in Braff’s film. What is more, those willing to sponsor are offered some pretty hefty benefits – ranging from larger investors being treated to a character in the film being named after them, to escorting Braff as one of his personal guests to the premier and after party – not bad.

Within only 3 days, Braff’s target of $2 million was smashed. Of course this was due, to a large extent, to Braff’s extensive networks (1,099,497 Twitter followers) and celebrity pals who helped him reach this goal. Yet despite the project’s success, Braff’s use of the site has come under immense scrutiny, with many citing this project to be one of (soon to be many) Hollywood overhauls on the website – which they believe will overshadow projects that really need to use the site to create contacts and source funding.

Despite the Hollywood backlash, the success Braff has gained through Kickstarter and the buzz his project has generated; has led me to identify 3 things the sponsorship industry should take away from this case study:

1) It is imperative to tap into passions – Sponsorship should always be about tapping into people’s interests and passions. As a marketing tool; the brands and rights-holders that have the most success, are the ones that really connect with what the consumer wants and understand what it is they need. Braff was able to build on the cult success of Garden State and use the affinity his fans have towards the film to help fund a new project, giving fans the opportunity to join him in the films journey.

2) Not just about the idea – Despite the success of Braff’s Kickstarter campaign, an overwhelming majority of Kickstarter projects lead to failure. As Michael C. Neel’s research shows, the campaigns that are the most successful are the ones that are able to promote and leverage networks, exercise connections and generate as much buzz as possible around the project. In essence, this is similar to sponsorship – those that are deemed ‘successful’ are the ones that are able to utilise every aspect of the relationship at hand – not just rely on the basic sponsorship or ‘idea’ itself.

3) Corporates should learn from crowd-funding – Some of the best ideas and projects gain fruition from smaller, grass-root platforms like Kickstarter; and it is important that these projects are able to gain funding. Sponsorship should be accessible and understood by all; not just large corporates – the funding of such projects will in turn help generate an already stagnant economy. Websites such as Kickstarter also offer first-hand insight into projects that are succeeding and those that are failing – offering corporates in real time, trends within specific industries.

Despite the criticism surrounding Braff’s use of Kickstarter, the re-emergence of the platform has emphasised once again, the need and capacity for sponsorship in all industries whether big or small.

The Blurring of Sports & Entertainment Marketing 12th July, 2012

We recently saw the launch of Manchester City and Umbro’s kit for the 2012-13 season with a little help from City’s most famous supporter, Noel Gallagher. This is yet another example of crossover between the two key industries for sponsorship spend which prompts the question: what does this blurring of sports and entertainment really mean for sponsors?

Sport has always been a form of entertainment however the two concepts were once treated as two separate entities. Sport was solely about the display of athleticism whilst entertainment strictly referred to music, film and other performance-based art forms.

Sports stars are now entertainment personas, using their sporting foundations to build brands that extend way beyond their reason for being famous in the first place. Whether this means becoming a commentator, designing their own fashion labels or trying their hand at acting (Michael Jordan in Space Jam has to be worth a mention), sporting personalities along with their sponsors are exploiting markets that lie increasingly further away from sport, thus introducing the industry to new territories whilst continuing to pull the two worlds of sport and entertainment even closer together.

What does this mean for sponsors?

Sponsors are in turn benefiting from athletes promoting their brand in front of a range of audiences, making endorsement deals more valuable than ever. The activity of athletes off the field, court, track or any other sporting arena has also heightened considerably, giving brands a more continual relationship with the personality they are associating with. Social media platforms, especially Twitter, are providing athletes with a voice away from the field of play, resulting in a 24/7 dialogue with fans. Brand association and messaging are therefore becoming significantly more impactful with athletes personally posting images, videos and comments relating to the products they use.

Sport as a whole has also seen a transition as leagues and tournaments have been opened up to new markets; going on tour just as a musician would. With the success of such worldwide exhibitions as the Harlem Globetrotters, the NFL is now staging a season game at Wembley and drawing a sell-out crowd every year. Proposals for the Premier League to go global have also been brought to attention in recent years and with an increasing ratio of international to English players and managers, it would appear inevitable that we can expect to see games from the world’s greatest domestic football league being played in international cities from New York to Hong Kong. This will in turn attract brands with no previous ties to the sport, opening up the game to a whole host of additional markets around the globe.

What to expect for the future

Traditional sports are now experiencing a transition into a genre more similar to that of bull fighting and wrestling with athletes thriving off the opportunity to engage with the crowd. This is in turn broadening the commercial awareness of sporting professionals, making them more susceptible to working with sponsors in order to design, brand and market their products.

Moving forward, we can expect to see a vast change in the existing sports marketing landscape. Athletes and brands will continue to increase their online presence whilst promoting their sponsorships on a truly global stage with (what were) domestic competitions taking place from all corners of the world.

Sports sponsorship is still very much focused around the ideology of winning, success and excellence along with reaching global markets, however, with athletes becoming more of a lifestyle interest, we can expect to see some unusual brands popping up in this arena in years to come. This year we have already seen Rovio, the creator of the addictive Angry Birds app, sponsoring Caterham F1’s Heikki Kovalainen in Monaco as well as The Dark Knight Rises, the latest Batman film, joining forces with Lotus at Silverstone – two true testaments to the convergence of sports and entertainment.