Archive for the ‘Sponsorship’ Category

What, No More Football?

Reflecting on a month of non-stop football coverage, Alex Clements this week mulls over the effectiveness of high profile advertising and sponsorship.

The World Cup is now over and things are, once again, returning to normal. Wives get their husbands back, kids get the right to watch TV back and the men are in recovery for another four years until the next World Cup. I will confess, I’m not a huge fan of grown men kicking a ball around a pitch (I’d rather watch grown men beat the life out of each other in a cage!). I did, however, watch a few games of the World Cup, including the England vs. Germany game, which was an interesting one to watch with Vanessa, my fiancée who, just to make things more interesting, comes from Wuppertal in Germany!

Despite not really caring who won the World Cup, I found myself subconsciously supporting Spain in the final. The only reason I can think of for this is that I quite like visiting Spain on my holidays. The least I can do is support their football team in return for their hospitality.

I’m quite easily distracted at times and my mind can wander to a vast array of weird and wonderful things. The example I’m going to share with you on this occasion came to me during this football (or “soccer” for those of you in the US) match between Spain and the Netherlands. As I watched the ball go back and forth between opposing players – and on occasion directly from one goalie to the other – my mind wandered as I noticed the multitude of banners advertising different companies around the pitch. There were banners for Adidas, Sony, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Budweiser to name a few. I sat there and wondered to myself, “How effective are these adverts?”

I decided that some of these adverts must be more effective than others when using this platform to reach their target market. I praise the strategic placement by Adidas because it is a company that manufactures sports clothing, which is likely to be of interest to a considerable percentage of football fans who will be watching. Similarly, people watching the game on TV at home or in a public bar could see the banners for Budweiser or Coca-Cola and as a result think “I could really do with a Budweiser!” – just as I did! Unfortunately, however, I was sitting at home with no access to any Budweiser… Of course, this is the aim of the banner and I’m sure it works quite effectively.

In my mind, I compared the effectiveness of the ‘drinks’ banners to that of ‘electrical goods’ banners which have used the exact same method to reach their target market. Let’s first think about the platform for advertising here: The World Cup final. A quick search on the internet suggests there were over 18 million viewers in the UK watching the game on British television. Before the game took place, FIFA expected an audience of 700 million worldwide to watch the final. Even if viewers turned out to be significantly fewer than this prediction, it would undoubtedly still reach a considerable number of potential customers. As a means of embedding your brand in the minds of your target market, I say this is a very effective way to reach millions globally.

Maybe the decision to advertise in this way would be more straight-forward for companies such as Coca-Cola as they are presumably targeting anyone who drinks liquid – which I shouldn’t need tell you is a pretty high percentage of the world’s population! However, for companies that specialise in electrical goods – which are not necessities of life (don’t tell my fiancée I said that) – as high value and infrequent purchases, from a consumer point of view there is more at stake and a bigger purchase decision to be made. Such companies must assess who they are targeting and who they would reach by each method of advertising before deciding on a platform.

At first, I questioned whether electrical goods companies would see as much return on investment as drinks companies would. Will people see these banners and think, “I could really do with a new TV”? My guess would be that the need for a beer would come before the need for a new TV, but then again, I was watching the game in high-definition on a 40-inch screen! Despite this, this approach still does the job of raising awareness and embeds the brand in the minds of millions. Not bad for something as simple as a banner with your logo on, is it? Not that a pitch-side banner at the final of the World Cup will be within every company’s budget, mind!

I’ll leave you now with one final example, which truly shows how effective advertising and sponsorship can be. Domino’s Pizza sponsored television coverage of the World Cup and Britain’s Got Talent, and it has been reported that the company has seen sales rise to 237.1 million – an increase of 21% in the last half year leading up to June 27, making a £17.5m pre-tax profit. Even more impressive, sales were said to have been up 65% on the day of England’s only World Cup win, increasing by a whopping 333% during the hours the match was shown! To find out more about Domino’s recent successes, click here to read Domino’s Pizza Plc Half Yearly Report.

• If you would like to find out more about measuring and monitoring the effectiveness of advertising, please click here.

Posted in Advertising Research, Alex Clements, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Return On Investment, ROI, Sponsorship, Sport, Thursday Night Insight |
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Different Strokes for Different Folks

In her first Thursday Night Insight of 2010, Caroline Harrison takes the opportunity to go back to basics.

I’m sure – at least I hope – he won’t mind my telling you this, but I had something of a hand in my colleague Oliver Truman’s last Thursday Night Insight. Whilst knowing that Oliver had “volunteered” to write (I guess some might say “been coerced into writing”!) an article for the B2B International blog, I was also aware, with just a couple of days to go, that other commitments meant he hadn’t yet got around to it. So, when I happened upon an article in the marketing press about the possible rebranding of Newcastle United’s beloved football ground, St. James’ Park, and knowing Oliver to be something of a sports aficionado, I forwarded him a link to the said article, wondering if it might inspire him.

Inspire him it did, and some two days later, Oliver treated us to his latest Thursday Night Insight, which I read with interest.

But, while Oliver did use the article I had sent him as the basis for his ‘Insight’, what struck me the most was the specific content of his piece. His blog talked in a broad sense about many of the lucrative tie-ins between a company’s brand and the world of sport – be it shirt sponsorship, providing half-time refreshments or prizes, ‘pure’ advertising at the stadia…and, of course, buying the naming rights to the venues themselves.

While I could not disagree with any of the points Oliver raised, these were not the issues that had first jumped into my mind when I read about the possible selling of the naming rights to St James’ Park. I immediately focused on, if you like, the more ‘emotional’ side of things – the likely reaction of the fans to any proposed rebranding of their stadium and the potential risks or rewards for any company brave enough/rich enough/stupid enough/inventive enough to take on such an opportunity. In a nutshell, Oliver and I, when given the same basic trigger, had very different thoughts and approaches to the issue.

And so, with this in mind, the message of my Thursday Night Insight today is really very simple. Nevertheless, it is absolutely critical.

We can never forget that people are all different. Their various upbringings, culture, language, values, education, interests, priorities, desires and much, much more all combine to affect how they think and how they will react to certain situations and stimuli.

For example, as we all know only too well, the product or service you provide is never going to meet the exact needs of everybody out there. That is why segmentation of a target audience is so crucial to deciding which markets you can serve successfully and profitably.

Equally, if you show a room full of prospective customers your latest product for launch, I guarantee they will all have differing views on it. You may think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread – but so what? That doesn’t necessarily mean any or many other people will agree!

Even with the customers you already serve – you can’t assume everything’s always hunkydory with them, nor that they will stay loyal for life. Their needs may change, their expectations will likely shift. That’s one of the things that makes your job and mine so difficult.

But that’s also why we turn to market research. While we can never presume to know what all people are thinking all of the time, the great thing is that we are usually able to ask at least some of them how they are feeling.

It’s not that difficult to grasp that people can be unpredictable. Fortunately, nor is it that difficult to use market research to make things more certain.

Incidentally – for anyone who is even remotely interested – as of November 2009 until the end of the current season, Newcastle’s stadium is temporarily known as Sportsdirect.com @ St James’ Park Stadium. Personally, I think that’s a bit odd – but that doesn’t mean everyone will agree with me, of course…!

Posted in Caroline Harrison, Customer Satisfaction, Oliver Truman, Promotion, Sponsorship, Sport, Thursday Night Insight |
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Not Howay’ To Do It

Oliver Truman this week takes a brief look into the topic of sports sponsorship.

As is de rigueur in the UK, hardly a weekend goes by when at least some of my time isn’t occupied by watching football (or “soccer”, if you’re that way inclined). After all, it’s Britain’s main pastime and is firmly ensconced as part of the national consciousness.

Colleagues, friends and rivals up and down the land talk of the beautiful game as often as they do the weather. And as if to prove the pervasiveness of football, several e-mails have just landed in my inbox informing me of updates of the various online fantasy football games I take part in. (For the record, I should point out that I was the resounding winner of the B2B “Supercup” last season – A fantasy football mini-league that several of us here participate in – Despite Nick’s protestations that he should have won by virtue of scoring the most goals…).

Marketers have long understood the lucrative tie-ins that can be realised by associating their company’s brand with sport. Over the years certain household names have grown to become synonymous with the folklore of football in Britain. Bovril and Holland’s Pies may be evocative of a simpler time – when footballs were made of cast iron and players managed to “run off” broken limbs – but they were early examples of the big business that sports sponsorship has undoubtedly become.

Shirt sponsorship has been part of the game since the late 70s, when Liverpool became the first team to have a company’s name emblazoned onto their jerseys. Recent deals, worth £20m a season between Liverpool and Standard Chartered Bank and Manchester United and AON demonstrate that the football sponsorship bubble shows no sign of abating. (As a related aside, judging by the image below, I reckon you can guess why the 1986-1988 Wimbledon shirt holds particular fondness for me, even though I don’t support them!).

Only this week came the news that Newcastle United Football Club were looking to sell off the naming rights to St. James’ Park, the team’s stadium. That Newcastle should be looking for new commercial opportunities should come as no surprise – The team has recently been relegated from English football’s top-flight, their current shirt deal with government-owned Northern Rock is due to come to an end, and embattled owner Mike Ashley has failed in his attempts to offload the club.

Selling naming rights to sports stadiums is hardly a recent development, however. As early as 1953, the Annheuser-Busch company proposed re-naming Sportman’s Park, the home of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team to the “Budweiser Stadium”. The largest stadium naming rights deals in the US are now extremely big business. In 2006 CitiGroup announced that they would be buying naming rights for the New York Mets’ new ground, in a deal worth $400m over 20 years. A world away from pies and hot beef extract.

Like many marketing ideas, what started as a US-initiative has since arrived on this side of the Atlantic. Bolton’s Reebok Stadium, Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium and Huddersfield’s Galpharm (formerly McAlpine) Stadium are just a few famous examples from the world of English football. So why, then, do many Newcastle fans regard the proposed selling of stadium rights as being far from “canny”?

The distinction to be drawn, it seems, is that in almost all of the successful cases of stadium sponsorship, the naming has generally been of new grounds, where no established appellation exists. This is clearly not the case with St. James’ Park – home to the team since 1892.

The effects of corporate sponsorship of stadiums can be made more palatable to fans, however, if the company has a strong local connection. York City’s Kit Kat Crescent (after the chocolate bar first produced by Rowntree’s in York) or Leicester City’s Walkers Stadium are two good examples of this.

In the case of Newcastle United, one might think that there can think of no better “local” sponsor of the stadium than Newcastle Brown Ale – A drink that was first produced in a brewery adjacent to the ground in the 1920s. Except for the fact that production is soon to move to North Yorkshire.

On balance, therefore, it should come as no surprise that one bookmaker is offering odds of 4/7 on St. James’ Park being called just that at the start of next season.

I suppose, therefore, the lesson to be learned is this: In the world of corporate sponsorship, branding and marketing it’s almost always the finer details that matter. The damage of unintended consequences that can result from an injudicious marketing campaign can wreak havoc on a firm’s standing. Under such circumstances, research is very much your friend!

Posted in Marketing, Oliver Truman, Sponsorship, Sport, Thursday Night Insight |
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