Think of any brand associated with an athlete, and in most cases the brand will have approached the athlete as a result of the athlete’s brand/consumer fit and will be paying them a hefty sponsorship fee in return for a number of rights.

In “What We Love” this month though, we explore a brand who took a much more innovative and engaging approach to sponsorship by inviting a number of athletes to compete for a sponsorship contract, with their consumers ultimately choosing the winning athlete.

So who is the brand and what did they do?

In March this year, Sony Ericsson – a long time supporter of women’s tennis – launched a new format entertainment show, “Xperia Hotshots,” which followed the lives of six globetrotting, aspiring stars of the WTA, all of whom were competing for a sponsorship contract from Sony Ericsson.

The competition centred around the online buzz each tennis star could generate for themselves, with the player receiving the most number of votes on the official Sony Ericsson Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/xperiahotshots) receiving €100,000 of support from the brand.

In order to help with the challenge, Sony Ericsson gave the players exclusive access to major music, film and fashion events as they toured the globe playing tennis. The players were also able to use their own stardom and contacts to aid them in generating the most interesting content, as long as it was shared via social network sites using the Xperia handsets that were given to the stars.

As an extra incentive for fans to get involved and follow the series, all of those who “Liked” the ‘Hotshots’ Facebook page were also entered into a prize draw to win tickets to the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami

Over the course of the campaign, which ended on 5 September and was won by Wimbledon Semi-Finalist Sabine Lisicki, the competition generated huge awareness for Sony Ericsson including 820,000 friends on Facebook; 3 Million video views on YouTube; 100,000 mobile app downloads; 1,200 pieces of media coverage; 70 videos produced; and 530 hours of footage shot.

Why we love it

We love this campaign here at Synergy for several reasons. Firstly, by prescribing that the players must use their Sony Ericsson Xperia Android touch smartphones to communicate with their fans through Social media, Sony Ericsson were able to showcase the product’s unique features in real life situations, thereby providing consumers with a much better understanding of its unique selling points, benefits and potential usage occasions.

Secondly, by focusing on the use of the phone for entertainment purposes and social media (as opposed to purely a communication device) the perception of Sony Ericsson as THE communication entertainment brand was greatly enhance.

Thirdly, by engaging fans in the athlete selection process, Sony Ericsson were able to generate a much deeper bond between their potential consumers and the ultimate Ambassador than if the athlete were contracted behind closed doors, and fans who engaged in the voting process are now more likely to follow that athlete going forwards than if the athlete had been selected on the basis of whom the marketers thought would offer the best brand/consumer fit.

Finally, by profiling six players, Sony Ericsson very cleverly linked themselves to all of these world-class athletes when they only contracted one; six great brand endorsements for the price one . . . not bad going!

By Liz Brown on October 13th, 2011

Tags: Blogging, Brand marketing, Celebrity, Communications, Default, Facebook, Media, Mobile, Online communities, Sponsorship, Sport, Synergy Loves, Synopsis, Tennis, Viral Marketing, YouTube

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Do you ever get that feeling that you’re missing out on something? Well I am unfortunately one of those people who often gets attacks of what a colleague colloquially terms “FOMO”…that’s a “fear of missing out” to you and me. And last week, whilst sat in a presentation from social gaming company, Zynga, FOMO struck!

However, this time it wasn’t a fear of what I was missing out on myself, it was more about the opportunities that brands were missing out on by not understanding the potential opportunities presented by social gaming, and what our clients might be missing out on by not exploring the driving forces behind Zynga’s success.

Zynga is at the heart of the explosive growth of social games. As well as producing Farmville, Mafia Wars and Frontierville, its latest game – Cityville, has garnered more than 80 million unique users in just under a month.

Considering it took radio 38 years to reach 50 million users and Facebook itself about 1 year, what explains this rate of penetration? Other than being strangely addictive (there is always another challenge tantalisingly close), Zynga is free (who doesn’t like a freebie?), simple to play (there are no instructions), social (things are more fun when you do them with friends) and it is primarily based on Facebook (a platform that people use every day).

However, from a sponsorship perspective, the most compelling aspect to Zynga’s story relates to the results achieved by their brand partnership campaigns. We aren’t at liberty to publish the precise statistics, suffice to say they are staggering: campaigns by brands such as 7-Eleven, McDonald’s and Farmers Insurance are off the charts in terms of engagement results.

The campaign mechanics are all similar: if you engage with the brand (in the game or in the real world), you get some form of benefit in the game. And while the benefits may seem trivial (for example, if you visit the McDonald’s Farm in Farmville, you get a cup of ‘virtual’ coffee which gives you more energy for the game), it is quite a revelation in today’s world where most brand communications are entirely one-way.

It is this two-way value exchange that brands can really take out of the Zynga success story. When the only time that we seem to be able to escape marketing is when we are asleep, why should we invite a brand into our lives if we are not getting something of value back from them?

But what does this mean for sponsorship? As Alexander Orlov would say, the answer is “simples”…If sponsors want to be invited into their customers’ lives, they need to think beyond their brand to ensure that they are giving something of value back to their customers, the sponsorship property or society as a whole. The brilliant thing about sponsorship is that there are loads of opportunities to do just that.

Sponsors that give something back to their customers

Mobile phone network providers provide us with some of the best examples of brands who give something of value back to their customers through their sponsorships; you only need to say the word “Orange” and Orange Wednesday springs to mind, and similarly, 02 are synonymous with their Priority programme and Vodafone with their VIP Club.

In a completely different sector (but with a similarly homogeneous product), British Gas have recently provided value to their customers through the provision of free swimming vouchers. Their recent announcement as winner of the Hollis Sponsorship of the Year Award leaves us nothing more to say about the results that this programme generated for British Gas. Schweppes Abbey Well has also been running a similar, arguably simpler Free Schwim (get it?) promotion since 2009.

Sponsors that give something back to the property

While slightly more subtle, sponsors derive arguably the most credibility with their target audience if they give something of value back to the property they are sponsoring. As we highlighted in last month’s Synopsis, for example, Converse has taken this approach with their sponsorship of London’s iconic 100 Club. Converse has literally saved it as a venue and can therefore look forward to a positive impact on its brand favourability from its core audience of music lovers.

Coca-Cola is another great example of a brand that has used sponsorship to give something back to a property. As part of their partnership with The Football League, the “Win a Player” campaign was an ingenious way for Coke to strengthen their credible association with football by giving something of value to Football League clubs who were desperately in need of funding. Crucially though (and the reason why it worked so well), the campaign was orchestrated to make fans feel like they were the ones who were giving something of value to their teams and not Coke. Clever!

However, perhaps the best example of a sponsor giving something back to a property is Red Bull and their sponsorship of extreme sports. Take yourself back a few years and extreme sports were, to put it bluntly, only for the extreme. Fast forward a few years though, factor in Red Bull, and extreme sports have mass appeal. Red Bull have also not done too badly out of the (often self-created) partnerships with 4,204 billion cans of Red Bull being sold in 2010 and their brand having developed into one that is synonymous with energy, adrenaline and excitement.

Sponsors that give something back to society as a whole

Aside from designated CSR programmes which have very defined objectives and workstreams, a brand can also increase the impact of its sponsorship through a two-way value exchange with society as a whole. One such example is Orange RockCorps: a scheme whereby the brand gives customers tickets to exclusive, money-can’t-buy gigs in return for them giving four hours of their time to community work. Over a two-year period, 13,000 people engaged in the scheme and Orange were able to offer local communities 52,000 hours of support.

RBS RugbyForce and NatWest CricketForce are two further powerful examples of brands using sponsorship to bring people together for the benefit of their own communities.

So, given the undoubted success achieved by the brands highlighted above and the logic of the two-way value exchange model, are there really any brands out there who still don’t subscribe to the notion of a two-way value exchange and who remain intent on using sponsorship as a one-way communication channel to build awareness of their brand?…I think we all know the answer.

As the success of Zynga has shown though, the message is clear: customers engage more and generally respond much more positively when they are given something in return. Sponsorship gives brands amazing opportunities to do this and to think beyond their boundaries – good sponsors will take advantage.

For those of you out there who are still not convinced by this argument though, why not visit http://www.farmville.com/ and discover for yourself? And when you find yourself going to 7-Eleven to buy milk just so that your Farmville cows become more productive, don’t say we didn’t warn you…

By Liz Brown on April 20th, 2011

Tags: Facebook, Sales promotion, Social Media, Synergy, Synopsis

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