SPONSORSHIPS AND BRAND EXPERIENCE
SPONSORSHIPS AND BRAND EXPERIENCE
Monday, 30 August 2010 13:56
Sponsorship, Is it a tried, tested and tired and out of question for brands?
A branding enthusiast said, “Finally, the World Cup has come to an end. For me, one thing happened – the vuvuzela. That noise is still buzzing in my ears!” In the just concluded tourney Spain emerged as world champions and the excitement is over for another four years.
‘Brands and the World Cup’ made the theme for the recently held 17th Brandforum. The discussions were engaging and insightful and at the end of the forum, it was evident that as far as sponsorship goes, brand custodians should be able to couple the investment with a credible brand experience.
As 32 teams battled it out in South Africa for World Cup glory, brands were engaged head-to-head in a fiercely contested marketing battle in the form of sponsorship and promotions around the World Cup theme.
Sponsorship and promotions have always been brilliant for many reasons; supporting a great cause or event, building awareness of a brand with a new audience and changing opinions of brands through affiliation. It could create a relationship which could be an opportunity for consumers to relate or align to the brand’s objectives.
What was witnessed though put to test the conventional versus the new approach to sponsorship to leverage brand mileage. Typically we are coming from an era where sponsorship was determined by the CEO after a session with the beneficiary. Sponsoring ideas had no place but in the mind of the brand manager and so what the brand manager would work to guarantee as value to the organization was visibility in the form of merchandise distribution and logo displays.
The sponsorship landscape
A recent post-World Cup survey prompted the inevitable question – is sponsorship a waste of money? Many brand custodians are still grappling with possible answers to the question. Are consumers really connecting with the sponsoring brand? And if not, as is the case with so many badly-executed sponsorship opportunities how can brands turn this around?
Muthoni Maingi, Brand Strategist at Creative Edge talked of how in such a competitive and overcrowded marketplace we are in; brands ought to find the right match in terms of events and associations. For a brand to find the right sponsorship opportunity, they must first identify the objective for the sponsorship.
Frank Maina Managing Media Partner at PHD Worldwide added objectives are likely to differ enormously across the divide, but basic considerations can ensure the most brand value oriented sponsorship activation is implemented. For brands to get the most out of a sponsorship campaign they must focus on the relevance and value for the fan.
Much more than just slapping a logo on an event, which has been the practice of conventional sponsorship, brands really need to invest more than ever in creating powerful brand experiences that brings something more to the fore. This might mean anything but engaging the consumers at the experience level.
Sponsorship has greatly shifted from merely being present to creating an experience. Mr. Cedric Kaane MD of Springboard Marketing talked of how Visa approached sponsorship of the world cup to work for there brand. They aimed to leverage on creating a Visa usage experience. In doing so, they aimed to work with a two pointer strategy that was crystallised to have presence everywhere fans turned there heads to and second to drive the use of Visa cards. They acquired exclusive rights as the means of purchase around the world cup venues and ensured people were persuaded to buy with a Visa card. For those who didn’t have Visa cards, they had a booth that generated Visa cards instantly for specified amounts.
Esther Macharia, MD International Sales Training Institute was surprised that so many sponsors fail miserably to connect with their audience in a way which really reflects the brands qualities and key messages by creating campaigns that effectively marries the brand and the sponsorship and convey its key messages in a memorable way to gain a significant competitive edge.
Kenya for example take rugby and football. They are two very different sports played in two different environments and two very different target consumers. For many ‘non-sport’ brands rugby has offered a brilliant environment for sponsorship activation, with Tusker and Safaricom becoming almost synonymous with the sport. This is because they have their brand experience guide on point.
Compare that to the highly popular football and ask yourself why it is not able to accrue the same level of appreciation from sponsors besides Orange that demonstrated tactical engagement during the CECAFA tourney.
Rise of Guerilla Marketing
When the likes of Coca Cola, Visa and Adidas of this world are buying the opportunity for affiliation to a sport such as the world cup, how do brands smaller or not make a genuine impact in line with the atmosphere the tourney generates?
One thing is true they have to think outside the box and resist the temptation of sitting back and watch. Nike provided a classic example of a strategic approach. They went ahead and created a program that was more engaging with their consumer in South Africa and the global media. They established a new community Football Training Centre in Soweto, South Africa.
The centre aims at giving 20,000 young footballers a year the chance to develop their football talent while also having access to HIV/AIDS education through football life skills programming and combines football training with HIV/Aids awareness and testing.
Nike was off the world cup pitch in South Africa but there choice of sponsorship was planned with a long term engagement and brand experience and loyalty building in mind.
They effectively created an experience that not only lasts the duration of the event, but weeks, months and ideally, years after the finishing line is crossed. It was this strategic engagement that got the world asking, who was the real winner in South Africa between Nike and Adidas.
Frank Maina talked of how every brand marketing campaign should think about the relationship and media’s role within it as a given. When it comes to something as big as the World Cup, the link between sponsorship and promotions and the main event can appear just like any other campaign.
This is until you’re introduced to the “concept” behind the relationship through brand messaging for example, Coca Cola’s desire for people to celebrate goals with a beverage. However, communicating these concepts is no longer a mere public relations and media-buying activity.
The Media Challenge
Brands must be aware of the emerging technologies and media channels, in particular social media, which are forever changing the way in which people can choose to communicate and interact with brands. Take World Cup for example what is the place of exclusive rights airing the matches in this internet age?
When used appropriately and managed effectively, technology has the power to amplify a brand beyond the event itself, creating and maintaining a lasting impression with fans that doesn’t fade as soon as the final whistle is blown like in the case of the world cup.
With this in mind, I believe the future of sponsorship activation is via the digital platform. Take for example a budding NIVEA idea. Great Work! As consumers are spending an increasing amount of time on digital and social networks, this is where brands need to connect with them.
Frank talked of how social media is an essential part of the media mix and an effective way of maintaining communication post event. This could include capitalizing on photo and video content created during an event. Brands need to create opportunities for themselves to become creators of content and experiences, which their customers will enthusiastically share with their friends way after an event is wrapped up.
Many brands have been quite late to understand the need to communicate with the consumer over a long period of time. What are brands doing in order to exploit their relationship with the World Cup before, during and after the tourney? It’s about ongoing discussions; pre event invitation, experience on the day, capturing peoples data and then ongoing communication, whether that’s through a website forum, email newsletter, or social media. Safaricom with the Face Off campaign is a worthy attempt of communicating with consumers.
Me too or just like…factor in sponsorship
There is certainly no “one-size-fits-all” when it comes to choosing the right sponsorship deal. The most successful sponsorships are brands that are not distracting from the experience but are credible and add to the experience in that environment.
Whatever event you choose you need to do it well, and this means accurately matching the campaign objectives with the intended response; looking at who you’re trying to talk to and what you’re trying to talk to them about. When executed properly, sponsorship activation can be a powerful opportunity to engage fans, by creating access to unique content and experiences - which will subsequently be shared with others.
Which brand got to shine on the global stage?
When the final whistle was blown at the FIFA World Cup 2010, the president of the world’s largest sports brand, Joseph Blatter, summed up the event by saying, "I would like to compliment Africa and the continent, because Africa has proven that they really can organise the World Cup."
With it came the announcement that FIFA will launch five clothing ranges linked to football and the 2010 World Cup, in South Africa. This is a post World Cup opportunity. Does it mean the World Cup brand is doing better after its maiden visit to Africa?
Visa card did it right as far as creating brand experiences goes. What is you take on this? In coming years, how do savvy marketers get brand value through sponsorship?
Participation in the Brand forums is by invite. If you are interested in participating in the coming forum, e-mail your detail to: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
