How to delight event sponsors
A pub quiz gem – you’ll thank me later (mine’s a stout and mild) – the question being, who was the first company to sponsor a football team shirt. The deal was brokered by the newly appointed chief executive Derek ‘The Doog’ Dougan - an iconic figure who secured a ‘four-figure’ deal for the lowly Southern League side (the common misconception is that Liverpool were the pioneers with their Hitachi deal in 1979).
Nowadays, multi-million pound deals are common place, with seemingly every inch of the kit recognised as prime real estate (sleeve logo anyone?). It could be argued that kits actually look ‘wrong’ without the sponsor - my memories recall the 1997-98 season, when the Hammers looked positively naked in their logo-less kit.
For a classic example of sports sponsorship, one need not look any further than Red Bull - the Austrian company created in 1987 now generates sales of 6.790 billion cans in a year. Rather than following a traditional approach to mass marketing, Red Bull has generated awareness and created a ‘brand myth’ through proprietary extreme sport event series such as Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series, Red Bull Air Race, Red Bull Crashed Ice and stand-out stunts such as the Stratos space diving project.
Red Bull's marketing also includes multiple sports team ownerships (Formula One teams Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso, football clubs RB Leipzig, FC Red Bull Salzburg, FC Liefering, Red Bull Brasil and New York Red Bulls), celebrity endorsements, and music, through its record label Red Bull Records.
And this unique strategy of sponsorship activation, branded content and endorsements started back in 1989, with… you guessed it, a one-year shirt sponsorship deal – ‘The Doog’ would have been proud of that one!
Having worked on the original branding for Extreme Sports, I realised early on the attraction and appeal of this sporting category, something obviously not lost on Red Bull who focused on this and everything ‘round the edges’ such as art shows, breakdancing and video game events. It didn’t take long for the brand to become synonymous with high-octane, thrilling and cutting-edge properties - connecting with a young audience and sharing their brand identity as an enabler of such events.
All of the Red Bull events and sports they are responsible for, have helped Red Bull raise their profile within the sports industry, with each event essentially acting as branded content, they’ve been able to present content to millions with engaging products.
A perfect example of this is perhaps the Red Bull Stratos project, which saw Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner freefall 128 kilometres from the edge of space. No branded advert could have achieved what Red Bull did with over 8 million people watching the live Youtube stream. Costing an undisclosed amount, the price of Felix Baumgartner’s fall has been estimated at approximately $30 million, only a fraction of the $300 million Red Bull annually spends on sports marketing, but if Red Bull have managed 40 million views on a single YouTube video, one would hope it’s an investment!
The theory of all this is great. Red Bull writes a big cheque and that money translates into brand value that dwarfs the sums invested. Easy if you say it quickly, but there is a bit in the middle where the magic is created.
At some point someone has to create the brand assets that define a brand’s presence at an event. Look at a typical stadium at a big event. Hoardings scream brand messages over multiple tiers, the concourse is festooned with brand images and the stadium itself is adorned with imagery that gives the brand sponsors the best exposure. That’s all before you get to the web site, social media, programmes, event TV, merchandise and more.
Pulling all this together in a harmonious way so that collectively the imagery is bigger than the sum of its parts, isn’t just any old design agency job. It’s highly specialised and requires the expert eye of a company that has done it many times before.
I’ve worked with the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) and the LTA (Lawn Tennis Association) for over ten years and fully understand the important role that sponsors play in delivering World Class sporting events. Recently we completed the Tournament branding at Queens Club for the Fever Tree Championships, a brand that entices us to ‘Discover the perfect blend’ with the aspiration to ‘mix with the best’. We believe we delivered on every level.
Who would have thought the G&T would have reached such heights since it’s inception as a military drink to combat malaria – British officers in India in the early 19th century took to adding a mixture of water, sugar, lime, and gin to the quinine in order to make the drink more palatable. Thus the cocktail of gin and tonic became the iconic drink of the British Empire.
If you get it right the sponsors make handsome return on their money.
Things going wrong doesn’t mean no return for sponsors, the consequences can be much uglier. Sponsors will run away from a toxic situation like rats from a sinking ship.
Last year Cricket Australia were clean bowled when one of their biggest sponsors pulled out due to the ball tampering scandal. Nike suspended Maria Sharapova following her doping conviction, and it was reported that Adidas and Nestlé ended their relationship with the IAAF following governance issues; Nike terminated its agreement with Manny Pacquiao as a consequence of his homophobic slurs; and Pepsi reportedly ended its deal with the Indian Premier League citing issues with governance.
Consequences are swift and expensive. Event branding and management may not get you out of bed in the morning, but it can certainly keep you awake at night. We like to think of our decades of expertise and our deep understand of event branding as a way to help our clients sleep well at night.
Paul Emery
Owner, Junction Design