Sport Industry Group

21 Jun 2010

With a growing number of sponsorship opportunities available, Pete Davis, managing director of getmemedia.com, looks at what clients really want in the current market.

Currently, the average person has a repertoire of around 14 media channels that they consume on a regular basis, whether that be Facebook, Sky Sports or The Daily Star. Everyone has their media circle of influence and this can see them absorbing thousands of advertising messages every week. That’s a lot of brand noise.

Getting cut through is an ongoing challenge for brand managers. And, while many brands are keen to be involved with sport – “sports fans” is the most popular lifestyle demographic when marketers and agencies are searching for opportunities across our site – the constant launching of new and diverse media and sponsorship opportunities within the sector can sometimes make it feel like every available space is up for grabs as a way of targeting an audience.

At any one time there are between 200 and 250 sports industry opportunities on Getmemedia.com. Over half of these are sponsorship, ranging from high-profile opportunities with the England Team for the Commonwealth Games 2010 or the RFL (Rugby Football League) to more niche ideas, such as opportunities to sponsor marathons in some of the world’s most challenging environments with Everest Ultra.

The rest include a range of opportunities including advertising in sports orientated magazines, mobile apps, websites, events / festivals and even radio programming. With this amount of choice on offer, selecting the right opportunity for a brand can be a confusing and time-consuming process.
 
With so many more media owners being brought into the fray, marketers are struggling to keep up with developments, and equally the media and rights owners themselves are struggling to get their message across to those marketers effectively. So what are the key issues that sport media owners need to pinpoint to give themselves and their opportunities the best possible chance of being taken seriously?

Consumers only have the ability to take in so many advertising messages, so brand marketers need to know how effective any media channel is at allowing advertising to get through clearly and attract the undivided attention of the consumer; full engagement with their brand is what every marketer craves. To do this media and rights owners must be able to demonstrate the credibility of their medium, either through measurability (within the constraints of their medium) or with great case studies, or ideally both.

With procurement becoming heavily involved in the process, any channel needs to deliver value for brands, and brand marketers are always in search of accountability. They need to be able to take the results back to their bosses and say, “we delivered X”. This doesn’t necessarily have to be sales uplift; it just has to deliver measurability in line with brand objectives.

It is here that online is setting the pace with numerous ways to demonstrate measurability: from page views to click-throughs. Outdoor media companies, for example, whilst delivering stature and impact would never be able to tell you exactly how many people have viewed a 48-sheet poster, let alone how many had bought the product as a result of seeing it. Measurability is one reason why brand marketers are enticed by new technology media, and the knock-on effect is that this is driving the need for other media channels to catch up in terms of accountability.

But sometimes even this is not enough, particularly with some of the more adventurous new media opportunities, such as a sports orientated mobile phone app. Media and rights owners need to make sure that marketers trust what they are doing and that they are comfortable with their media channel or proposition. While something might sound like a good opportunity, the bottom line is that if a marketer either isn’t 100% comfortable with an opportunity or doesn’t understand how it can benefit their brand, they are not going to do it.

The best way to do this, of course, is for media and rights owners to get in front of the marketer to explain and present their opportunity to them, but this is far from easy. While we would always advise marketers not to underestimate media owners’ ability to deliver value for them and to therefore give them the time, it is simply not possible for every marketer to meet every company.

It is also important to remember that brand managers are typically fielding dozens of calls a week from media and rights owner sales teams who want to tell them about their opportunities. Frustratingly for the brand manager, many of these calls are either not relevant or tailored enough to their brand, or, are received at the wrong time of the year to be included in marketing plans. But there are ways round these issues.

Industry events and networking opportunities are a useful way to meet marketers. By perfecting your ‘elevator pitch’ you have the best chance of engaging people quickly. Indeed for any meeting with a marketer there are some golden rules. Keep your proposition simple, clear and inspiring. Don’t risk losing your audience by using industry jargon and acronyms. And, remember to tailor your points to the brand in question. Keep it relevant! It sounds simple enough, but actually doesn’t happen as often as marketers would like.  What’s more, help marketers understand what marketing objectives your opportunities can deliver, sponsorship for example is excellent for driving brand loyalty.

Collaborating either within your own business, or with other media and rights owners, to create cross-media solutions to present to marketers also doesn’t happen often enough but when it does this too can be really powerful.

Websites and online communities – like Getmemedia.com – can also fill a vital role for the industry by bringing marketers together with media and rights owners in an environment that is much easier for the marketer to fit into their schedule. These online resources can help marketers find the targeted solutions they require – as well as case studies of the medium in action – and enable them to make informed decisions on opportunities for their brand campaigns.

Most marketers spend roughly 10% of their time on media and advertising. Whilst this is a small chunk of time, the percentage of marketing budget this represents will be far higher. Getting marketers excited about media and sponsorship opportunities serves both the media agency and the media owner. 

Marketers want solutions delivered to them, in a clear, measurable and simple fashion. If that delivery stems from effective collaboration between media or rights owner and agency, then so much the better!