So you think golf is a dull sport with a lack of characters? Think again – this ‘Synergy Loves’ needs little explanation beyond a watch. PGA Tour players Ben Crane, Rickie Fowler, Bubba Watson, and Hunter Mahan have produced their own song with accompanying video.

The Fab Four, performing under the name ‘The Golf Boys’, have done this in support of Farmers’ sponsorship of the Farmers Insurance Open, where for every 100,000 views Farmers will donate $1,000 to charitable proceeds that will support both Farmers and Ben Crane charitable initiatives (currently just short of 1.5m views on youtube).

What we really like about it is that it delivers against our last two Synopsis articles. Obviously it’s entertaining content, while the charitable angle provides benefits that go beyond their brand.

Brilliant – especially Crane’s wetsuit look.

By Dominic Curran on June 17th, 2011

Tags: Content, Default, Golf, Public relations, Ryder Cup, Social Media, Sponsorship, Sport, Synergy, Synergy Loves, Synopsis, Viral Marketing, YouTube

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When people find out I work in sponsorship, I always get asked two things:

1. Do you have any decent tickets?
2. Do you have any decent gossip?

There was a time when I had plenty of the latter and little of the former. Unfortunately these days my gossip is about as revealing as a Tiger Woods press conference. The reasons for this are twofold due to changes that have happened over the last few years.

Firstly, the lines between sportsman and celebrity have blurred. Any star worth their salt should now be able to change their first name to ‘Brand’ and sound believable – think Brand Beckham, Brand Murray, Brand Schumacher. Could you ever imagine Brand Botham or Best?

The worlds of sport and entertainment celebrity, or ‘Sportainment’ as it’s naturally called in America, are now firmly linked and in more then a few cases by marriage (or separation). This means you become a front page story rather then a back page one, especially if it’s for the wrong reasons.

Secondly, and this is the significant recent change, with the rapid rise of digital and social media our appetite for instant news and our ability to create it has never been so strong.

Sports stars and clubs themselves are in on the act – basketball player, Shaquille O’Neal has a whopping 2.8 million twitter followers, while Barcelona FC has 1.3 million Facebook friends – but the real control lies with the person on the street.

After Tiger’s conference (streamed live on YouTube), we didn’t need to wait for the papers’ reaction the next day to gauge public opinion – in just the hour after there were over 93,000 tweets about it.

The headlines of Messrs Cole, Terry and Woods show us that the sports stars haven’t really changed – in fact the only surprise is that Tiger kept it quiet so long. The change is that now they are considered fair game by both a salivating media and an unforgiving public able to influence and drive the agenda. This means there few secrets that don’t come out eventually – or in other words not a good time to be straying from home.

Oh and before you ask – no I don’t have any tickets to the World Cup, Wimbledon or The FA Cup Final. No change there then.

By Dominic Curran on March 2nd, 2010

Tags: Andy Murray, David Beckham, FA Cup, Facebook, Public relations, Sponsorship, Tiger Woods, YouTube

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2009 is turning into a vintage year for Synergy: having already landed a raft of awards during our 25th anniversary, we’ve now added arguably the most prestigious of them all by scooping Marketing magazine’s 2009 Sponsorship Agency of the Year award.

Congratulations Synergists, thank you to the Marketing panel, and most of all a big thank you to our clients for your support.

By Dominic Curran on December 8th, 2009

Tags: Sponsorship, Synergy

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Who would have thought a simple name change could cause such a rumpus? St James’ Park, more a cathedral to the Geordie Nation then a stadium, has been given the catchy title by its beleaguered owner of ‘sportsdirect.com@St James’ Park’. Cue much uproar across the media and more importantly among the fans.

However, rather then add to the derision already rightly poured on this bizarre move, we think there could be an opportunity for a canny brand here. Any brand in sponsorship is fundamentally looking to engage, not alienate, fans and this naming rights debacle actually offers up a unique opportunity.

The answer is simple – try and strike a short term deal with the Newcastle United commercial team, buy the naming rights for the rest of the season and call it – this is the simple bit – ‘St James’ Park’.

In other words, give it back to fans: they’ll love you forever and no doubt you’ll get more than a few column inches to boot – for the first naming rights deal to get rid of the brand name.

By Dominic Curran on November 17th, 2009

Tags: Communications, Football, Football Sponsorship, Naming Rights, Newcastle United, Public relations

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OK so the news is bad – you’re the tournament organiser of the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand in two years and already you are having to re-forecast, again, the level of loss you expect the event to make (now up another $9.3 million to $39.3 million). Much of the increased loss is based on lower expectations around ticket sales.

But I suspect that the tournament organiser, Martin Sneddon, may see his latest stance on the situation quoted back to him in the coming years.

Asked recently by the media whether he expected a game between minnow nations from Europe and America in New Plymouth on a Thursday night would be hard to sell, Mr Snedden came out with the classic: “It will sell out. I am prepared to put my reputation on it.”

While admiring his passion, I just hope the good folks of New Plymouth see it the same way and turn out for both the sake of the sport and Mr Sneddon’s mortgage.

By Dominic Curran on October 19th, 2009

Tags: Communications, Default, Public relations, Rugby

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Read any of today’s national newspaper reports on Leeds United v Liverpool in last night’s Carling Cup and you’ll notice something – a total lack of any pictures of the match. Instead there is a box out in all papers saying the same thing, below is how The Guardian framed it.

Although, Leeds decided to allow just Action Images and a local agency in, they did allow national papers to send a photographer each which sounds fair enough until you listen to sports editors stating that they need a variety of photos from a game in order to chose the best shot.

Leeds may have sensible reasons for precluding leading agencies such as PA and Getty from the ground based on space, congestion, spectator viewing impairment etc but it does re-kindle an age old ‘debate’ between sports rights-holders and the media.

Here’s the problem – rights-holders have successfully packaged their product for television and make a vast amount of money from it, for example the latest Premier League / Sky deal is worth around the billion pound mark. At the same time, monetising the rest of the media has proved elusive.

You only need to look at the increased pagination of newspaper sports sections to know that sport is an important circulation and advertising driver, however, unlike TV and radio, newspapers don’t have to pay a penny for the right to air. This becomes even more acute with photographic and written agencies who directly make money by selling photos and copy from the matches without having to pay any sort of license to the rights-holder.

Agencies and media say they are providing the global publicity and coverage that is the oxygen of any sport and allows the rights holders to make more from sponsorship and in turn drives people to the television completing a virtuous circle. Are they right? Absolutely but it is almost impossible to actually equate that return. Is it frustrating for rights-holders trying to monetise all elements of their product? You bet.

While this argument rumbles on there will only be one loser, the team / event sponsors, missing out on the very exposure they paid for in the first place.

By Dominic Curran on September 23rd, 2009

Tags: Communications, Media, Public relations, Sponsorship, Sport

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Two things that I like – simple creative ideas and reading. Here’s a good idea that links the two.

Jumping on the tube last night, I noticed that there were a number of books spread around the carriage on the space behind the seats. I picked one up mentally admonishing the carelessness of leaving a book behind when the leaflet below dropped out.

The London Paper may have gone out of business last week but yesterday they went out with a bang with the first ‘one-day library of free books on the first day without the London Paper‘. Nice idea, but the question is, will the books stay in circulation longer then the paper?

By Dominic Curran on September 22nd, 2009

Tags: Communications, Default, Media, Public relations

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You may remember from the media coverage last week that Lance Armstrong decided to go for a bike ride in Scotland. Pretty unremarkable after all you would have thought he must go for the odd ride quite often. Except this time he invited some friends along with him – actually 1.8 million friends.

Armstrong sent out a tweet saying he was in Scotland and fancied going for a ride that afternoon. Cue pandemonium in Paisley (yes, Paisley) town centre with hundreds of cyclists and media turning out.

He’s at it again – a few hours ago I got another tweet from the seven-times Tour de France winner:

Armstrong, already the most followed sportsman on Twitter, is re-defining the barriers between sportspeople and the public. This is pretty much the equivalent of David Beckham saying he was going for a kick about at his local park, who wants to join him and bring your jumpers for the goalposts.

This is consumer engagement at its rawest – brands take note. This ‘mass exclusive’ event directed by Armstrong himself means that even sat at my desk, I feel part of it and if I lived close enough I’d certainly be down there on my bike. Imagine the power of a brand delivering and facilitating this level of interaction without diluting it?

By Dominic Curran on August 25th, 2009

Tags: David Beckham, Lance Armstrong, Public relations

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It’s the biggest worry for any newspaper proprietor out there. Actual paper sales are on a downward trajectory while traffic to their websites is flying upwards – but how can they make a viable business model out if?

A quick look at the numbers underlines this mounting difficulty. For example, digital revenue comprised less then 10% of Trinity Mirror’s regional revenue in 2008 and although newspaper sites are amassing huge numbers (MailOnline had 29.4 million global unique users in June), domestic advertisers are reluctant to pay for a largely overseas audience. On the flip side print ad revenue is falling fast – Associated Newspaper saw revenue fall 15% yoy in Q2. So something needs to be done and fast.

Last week, Rupert Murdoch declared that News Corp newspaper sites would soon begin charging for online access. The likely model is going to be charging for premium subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal while The Sunday Times in London is planning a stand-alone website.

Some rivals have been quick to dismiss the idea as there are so many free online news sites such as the BBC so why would consumers pay for it? However, Murdoch believes we will pay for celebrity news, major scoops and exclusive content.

So the key to success would seem to be having that content people are willing to charge for – and this focus on high quality, opinionated content and scoops could be the shot in the arm for under pressure (and sometimes understaffed) newsdesks. While the system of charging needs to be made as simple as possible with clear entry points and ‘walled-garden’ systems.

Murdoch won’t be the first to try – The FT have done it with some success while The New York Times had to rapidly u-turn on its first attempt at a charging system.  Critically though, he will be the biggest to try and there’s no doubt the rest of the industry will sit up and watch with interest.

Lest we forget he’s led the field before in proving people will pay for unique content – twenty years ago Sky was launched off the back of sport and movies.

By Dominic Curran on August 17th, 2009

Tags: Branded content, Communications, Default, Media

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In 2004, the Government outlined in a paper that they would like to get serious about bidding for international sporting events in this country. Five years on and this is one promise they’ve more than delivered on. With the recent announcements across both codes of rugby, the score is now 5-0 to Britain.

Not counting this year’s ICC World Twenty20, over the next six years we’re within driving distance of the following:

2010 – Ryder Cup; 2012 – The Olympics; 2013 – Rugby League World Cup; 2014 – Commonwealth Games; 2015 – Rugby Union World Cup

And if that wasn’t enough, we’re also bidding for the second biggest sporting event on the planet – the FIFA Football World Cup in 2018.

As a sporting destination, Britain ticks a lot of the right boxes – stadiums, infrastructure, a history of hosting huge events from Wimbledon to The Open, timezone (critical for the TV money) and a vibrant sponsorship sector. The economic and profile boost these events can give a country, if done right, is well documented so at a time when congratulatory headlines are scarce, Team Government has earned a place at the top of the podium.

By Dominic Curran on August 4th, 2009

Tags: Default, Glasgow 2014, London 2012, Olympics, Public relations, Rugby, Rugby League Marketing, Sponsorship, Sport

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