Inside Sponsorship

Player appearances can be immensely powerful as part of a sponsorship. And it seems simple enough - put a huge star on stage, in front of a room of people you are trying to impress, or in a marquee as part of an activation, and you’ll engage your audience and there will probably be lots of digital to help spread it all.

However, not everyone can afford the superstars and, even if you can, it isn’t always the best play when it comes to appearances. Like all sponsorship assets, it depends so much on what you are wanting to achieve.

Add to that that so many sponsorship deals get ‘topped up’ with player appearances, as a bit of an add-on and a feel-good gesture, and a lot of brands, and rights holders for that matter, can miss out on the huge benefits available through appearances.

This is an especially important point when you consider that many athletes are on the lookout for more paid opportunities and the chance to broaden their experiences and engage with the community.

One man who knows the space well is James Begley. Not only is James the Founder, and CEO, of Pickstar, the most trusted platform for facilitating paid engagements, large and small, but he’s also been on the other side, as an athlete, when he played 61 games of Australian Rules Football with St. Kilda and Adelaide. He was one of those athletes on the lookout for more paid opportunities and the chance to broaden his own experiences and engage with his community.

James joins us in this episode to discuss how rights holders and brands can maximise the use of appearances in their sponsorships.

You can connect with James on LinkedIn and find out more about Pickstar on the website.

Along with James, also joining us on the show is KORE’s Head of International Business, Mark Thompson, who discusses his latest blog which looks at The Changing Face of Broadcast and What This Means For Broadcast Partnerships.

Enjoy.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

2019 has been a great year filled with lots of amazing chats with sponsorship professionals from all over the world.

As such, we thought we’d wrap up 2019 and visit the other 13 episodes of Inside Sponsorship. You might have seen on social media that, for each show, we pull out a 30-45 second snippet and turn it into a video to help whet your appetite. As such, we’ve gone back and pulled the question and entire answer for that snippet and created a best of 2019 show for you.

Along with some great highlights from the 13 episodes of 2019, also joining us is KORE’s Head of International Business, Mark Thompson, who discusses his latest blog which looks at Expanding Competition Geographies And How Sponsorship Needs To Be Approached.

Enjoy.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The right look for an event can make or break the impact it has not only those attending but also those watching from afar and definitely on how sponsors, and even potential commercial partners, perceive the event.

Rights holders can significantly enhance the experience for fans and corporate partners with the right look, the right environmental branding, whether it is dressing whole cities, a stadium, or an activation space.

Obviously, on the partnership front, there are elements of the look of an event that will be assets or inventory that can be sold to sponsors e.g. signage, or, if you are a brand, assets that you can activate as part of your sponsorship. How the overall look is planned and executed, however, can really elevate the prestige and engagement of an event and, without putting to crude a point on it, means that rights holders can command more sponsorship dollars and brands can extract greater ROI and ROO.

Interestingly, when we are immersed in an event with a well planned and executed look, it is almost seamless; we don’t really separate it from the activity of the event itself. So, we aren’t often conscious of it. We become very conscious, however, when an event’s look is not up to scratch and we definitely feel its impact on our engagement. Remember, it isn’t just us - sponsors, and potential commercial partners, are also forming perceptions when an event’s look isn’t right.

One person who knows well is Sam Goodwin, Managing Director at CSM Sport and Entertainment. Sam’s experiences across events include Olympics, Commonwealth Games, and Rugby World Cups and he joins us on the show to share some great advice on how you can ensure the right look for your events and maximise your commercial revenue.

You can connect with Sam on LinkedIn or visit csm.com or csmlive.com.

Also, on the show, is Mark Thompson, KORE’s Head of International Business, to discuss his latest blog. Mark recently attended Leaders Week in London and has been mulling over some of the key takeaways which are very heavily focused on how data continues to dominate.

Enjoy.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are a lot of great minds working in the sponsorship space, across brands, rights holders, and agencies. We often see a lot of movement within the community, with people moving from one rights holder to another or maybe from brand side to the rights holder side or vice versa.

Although it does happen, it isn’t common, however, for someone to move from agency side to a brand, especially a large global brand with a wide-ranging sponsorship portfolio.

Someone who has made the move from agency land to the brand side is Katherine Butterworth who is Mastercard Australasia’s Director of Sponsorships. Not only does Katherine get to manage amazing, big-ticket sponsorships with rights holders such as the Australian Open, Cricket Australia, and the Opera House, and work with brand ambassadors such as Richie McCaw, Katherine and her team also get the opportunity to work on, and be exposed to, international properties such as the Rugby World Cup and the Grammies.

The whole Mastercard business works really hard to connect with each other, globally, and learn from and share experiences with each other. For example, Katherine and the European based team can share learnings and experiences around two of the Opens that Mastercard sponsor; the Australian Open and the French Open.

In the chat, Katherine shares some of the amazing Priceless Surpises activation Mastercard undertake. Check them out.

Australian Open 2019

• Example 1
• Example 2
• Example 3
• Example 4

Plus, there is the Rugby Wolrd Cup activity where a young rugby player from New Zealand received the ultimate Priceless Experience of experiencing Tokyo with Richie McCaw and attending the Rugby

If you'd like to keep the conversation going, you can connect with Katherine on LinkedIn.

Along with Katherine, also on the show, is Daniel Ferguson-Hill, KORE’s Commercial Manager – Australasia, who joins us to discuss his latest blog ‘Does This Sponsorship Suit My Marketing Strategy?’ which looks at the important things that brands should be considering to help them sift through all the proposals they receive. 

Enjoy

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s an age-old question, and challenge – how do we value our sponsorship assets? Unfortunately, there are still large parts of the rights holder section of the industry pedaling pre-determined packages, largely based on the income they are looking to generate and not necessarily the value that they can deliver.

Despite some of the best brains in the industry consistently counseling against such approaches, we still see it. Yes, there are many factors that come together in an organisation that means that end up just offering pre-determined packages, but not deeply understanding the value of their sponsorship assets, as stand-alone assets, is always a contributing one.

No one pretends there is a simple answer. We’ve had conversations with rights holders where they’ve been convinced there is some magic formula that can be applied that will spit out the market value of their sponsorship assets. They’ve begged us to share it with them. Sadly, there is no secret magic formula.

However, led by Rob Mills, Turnstile Group are tackling this issue head-on with valuations based on actual market rates.

While the industry spins in circles making subjective assumptions, Turnstile is making definitive valuations.

Turnstile uses actual prices being paid for rights globally to determine real-world market values of the three key components of a sponsorship deal - Benefits, Exposure, and Intellectual Property.

This unique approach not only provides realistic and quantifiable sponsorship valuations for buyers and sellers, but clear visibility across the three components of value.

And, on the show, as always we also look at one of KORE’s latest blogs, and this time around, Mark Thompson KORE Software’s, Head of International Business , joins us to chat about Sponsorship Measurement and Reporting – The Fan Data Way. 

Enjoy.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some brands are just constants in the sponsorship landscape. Sure, they may move properties from time-to-time but they are always part of the experience, somewhere.

How do these brands consistently figure out ways to stay relevant, engage audiences, and yet not distract from the experiences that audiences are actually there to experience?

How do they keep coming up with new ideas and not go stale, while still working as part of the brands overall marketing, because those brand’s objectives and goals don’t generally experience big shifts in small amounts of time?

Plus, how does sponsorship remain an important element of that overall marketing when the brands are household names already; we are highly unlikely to forget who they are?

Further, while the highly visible assets are obvious, the naming rights, the signage, the uniform branding, etc. what other assets are they utilising to help achieve their goals? What do they find most valuable?

To help answer all these questions, Alison Tyson, Senior Manager, Brand and Sponsorship, at Nissan, joins us on the show and provides some really interesting and insightful views into how Nissan approaches and executes their sponsorships. 

As usual, we also look at one of KORE’s latest blogs, so, also joining us on the show is KORE Software’s, Commercial Manager, Australasia, Daniel-Ferguson-Hill, who asks “Is Sponsorship worth it if we don’t need the ‘Branding’ play?”

Enjoy

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’ve all seen it; the awesome creative execution in a sports sponsorship. Sometimes it is big, bold, and complex, while other times it is so simple, both in idea and execution, that we think to ourselves: “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Those executions engage and excite us; not just as consumers but as professionals in the industry (even if you don’t work in the sports sponsorship sector specifically).

There is no doubt that the global sports sector is booming. eSports has quickly established itself as an important player with so much potential. That catches the eye of brands. Then there are sports that are venturing out of their homelands more and more as they try to engage with global audiences who can now stream games wherever they are. For sponsorship, it has been recently reported that global brand spend on sports sponsorships will grow to US$65 billion in 2019. That’s an average of 4% growth, per year, since 2014.

As a result of this continued growth, this year, Cannes Lions created a new category that focussed exclusively on Sport.

The Entertainment Lions for Sport celebrate creativity that taps into fan culture and leverages the power of sports in connecting people to brands with the jury rewarding excellence in breakthrough creativity within the sports marketing ecosystem. This includes the use of effective strategic planning, sponsorship, brand management, media, entertainment, and/or talent.

Our guest this episode is Ben Hartman, Managing Director at Octagon who was a judge for the first-ever Entertainment Lions for Sport. Ben’s job was to define what best in class work looks like in the category and ultimately, what was the standard that future work would be measured against?

Also joining us on the show, to discuss his latest blog, is KORE Software’s, Commercial Manager,  Australasia, Daniel-Ferguson-Hill, who has also taken a look at awards in asking ‘Is sponsorship keeping up with award trends?’. 

Enjoy

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Airlines have been major players in the sponsorship space for some time and their affinity with sports, fashion, and other major events makes sense considering some of their passengers travel to not only these events but also for business and other leisure activities.

Further, a lot of airlines in the sponsorship space have a global footprint and are transporting passengers both in and out of their home countries. As such, their audience isn’t just locals who are attending events in-country, it is also those traveling from outside their home country to attend events.

Finally, add to that how the travel industry has become so much more accessible to the world’s population, and utilizing sponsorship in their marketing, makes sense for a lot of airlines.

One airline that has been very active in the sponsorship space is AirAsia, a Malaysian low-cost airline. It is the largest airline in the ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, by fleet size and destinations. AirAsia Group operates scheduled domestic and international flights to more than 165 destinations spanning 25 countries.

Amazingly, they have been voted the world’s best low-cost airline for the past 11 years running.

Ben Rynjah is Regional Brand Manager and joins us on the show to take us inside sponsorship at AirAsia, including how they are involved with the ever-growing eSports sector.

You can connect with Ben on LinkedIn and learn more by visiting the AirAsia website.

Also joining us on the show, to discuss his latest blog, is KORE Software’s, Director for Customer Strategy and Success, Australasia, Sam Irvine, who after having watched an unhealthy amount of football, ponders the question: “Airline Sponsorship; surely they do more than just football?”

Enjoy.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Just like data and measurement, activations is a topic that comes up in sponsorship discussions a lot and that’s why we have been focussing a lot on activations at the moment, almost like a mini-series.

However, the last episode focused on physical activations, while this episode focuses on experiential activations. There’s no doubt that an activation that moves people from just engagement to one where they are truly touched by an experience is very powerful. Maybe, experiential activations are the equivalent of viral content on social media? With truly great experiential marketing, the brand and message are amplified so much by those who have experienced the activation, because, they really want to share how awesome it is and they’ll often be doing that with people in the same demographic.

It certainly leaves a lasting impression.

Sounds like an amazing thing for rights holders and brands to be working towards and the end goal sounds achievable, right? “Let’s create memorable experiences that get people talking, sharing, and have a lasting impact”.

In the cold hard light of day, however, that’s easier said than done. But one person who has a wealth of experience in helping brands and rights holders achieve just that, is James Ward, Head of Events and Consultancy at TLA Worldwide.

TLA Worldwide is a leading, fully integrated talent representation and sports marketing group. With over 140 full-time personnel, TLA serves its clients from 10 locations including its offices in London, UK; New York and Newport Beach, USA; Melbourne and Sydney, Australia.

And James Ward has over fifteen years sports marketing, sponsorship and public relations experience, working in Australia, the UK and China. James heads up a 40 strong team of experienced staff working for leading sporting bodies, sporting brands, and sporting events. He has worked on campaigns covering three Olympics, two football World Cups, and most recently the Cricket World Cup in Australia.

Also joining us on the show, to discuss his latest blog, is Mark Thompson, Head of International Business at KORE Software, with the topic of Evolution of Sponsor Activations And How Businesses Are Changing To Manage Success.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Activations, just like data and measurement, is a topic that comes up in sponsorship discussions a lot. Physical activations, the ones designed to engage with audiences, can absolutely drive massive ROI and ROO; when executed well. Those well-executed activations are the ones that bring us closer to a brand or compel us to share on social media even if we haven’t seen the activation in person. The best ones cross over into entertainment and that’s powerful for engagement and resonating.

On the other hand, however, we’ve all seen activations that appear to have just been thrown into a contract, probably because there was some unused space in a precinct, and audiences are greeted with bored looking staff, wearing corporate polos, standing outside a drab looking white tent, handing out flyers, and stress balls. Most likely, that's because the rights holder rang the sponsor a fortnight before and asked: “So, what have you planned for the activation?”.

Someone who has a lot of great experience, and executed some amazing activations, is Rik Conti, Co-founder and Managing Director, at MAAKE. MAAKE is an experiential agency who have been creating engaging experiences with iconic Australian and global brands for over a decade including Heineken, Jack Daniel’s, XXXX Gold, James Squire, and Lavazza and Rik joins us in this episode to take you inside what makes great physical activations.

Also joining us on the show, to discuss his latest blog, is Daniel Ferguson-Hill, KORE Software’s Commercial Manager for Australasia, who has been talking to lots of brands lately and there are four things that keep coming up that brands wish rights holders knew about activations.

Enjoy.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.