Albeit that we’re not sure if we’re glad or sorry(!) to read that we missed out only ’by a whisker’ on Marketing’s Sponsorship Agency of the Year for 2008, we’re very proud to have either won or been shortlisted every year since the award’s inception in 2004, so it was great to be recognised again this year, and to see that our work with Guinness received yet another commendation, this time for the Guinness Honesty Bar.

Thank you to Marketing and the award panellists, and congratulations to Octagon on their debut win.

By Tim Crow on December 10th, 2008

Tags: Default, Sponsorship, Synergy

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It’s good to see that UK Sport and LOCOG are taking Medal Hopes over, and back to the drawing board.  As I wrote back in August when it first surfaced, Medal Hopes was clearly a flawed concept that needed a radical re-think.

I wasn’t alone. Peter King, CEO of British Cycling, was quoted by the Evening Standard as follows after listening to a Medal Hopes briefing by Culture Secretary Andy Burnham:   

“I don’t think it will work - it’s an absolute non-starter. Even if it does generate income it will not generate £79million. Athletes are supposed to give three days of their time (per year) to support the lottery programmes. But it will be an extra demand on their time and there will be conflicts of interest between athletes’ own sponsors, their governing bodies’ sponsors and the sponsors of the Medal Hopes scheme.”

The mystery is why it took DCMS and Fast Track over two years to come up with something that would be so obviously problematic and unpopular.

Now, with UK Sport leading, and LOCOG advising, the global and domestic sponsors of London 2012 will be reassured that whatever finally reaches the market will not dilute and ambush the Olympic sponsors’ territory in the way that Medal Hopes was clearly going to.

Indeed I hope that UK Sport will explore non-sponsorship solutions, and take inspiration from innovations which others have already created to fund the Olympics without ambushing it, such as Team Business West Midlands and BeNumber 1.

They could also look at why it is that our Olympic athletes’ contractual appearances for the National Lottery are, as The Times’ Olympic Correspondent Ashling O’Connor revealed recently, ‘rarely used’, and how they might be used to drive additional funding via the Lottery rather than being re-sold as part of Medal Hopes.

By Tim Crow on December 4th, 2008

Tags: Ambush campaign, DCMS, Default, London 2012, London 2012 sponsorship, Olympic sponsorship, Sponsorship, Team GB

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If you get the product right, everything else follows.

So General Motors has inevitably parted company with Tiger Woods. Some commentators have claimed that this somehow proves that endorsements of this type don’t work. Nonsense. In Tiger’s case, Nike and Accenture in particular disprove the point. Tiger may be a miracle-worker, but not even he could have saved GM from its current predicament. The problem isn’t Tiger, it’s GM.

Also this week, the PGA Tour announced the FeEx Cup’s third format overhaul in as many years. As I wrote back in September, in this case, the problem is also the product - the Cup format. Only time will tell if, this time, the PGA has got the product right.

Which brings me to the latest example of NPD on the PGA Tour, the Kodak Challenge. Like both the FedEx Cup and the Red Bull Final 5, it’s a competition-within-a-competition, its USP being to link great holes on different courses, with $1m going to the player who posts the lowest score on the Kodak Challenge Holes over the season.

Again, only time will tell if Kodak has got the product right - on which point I suspect they’ve missed a trick by not adding a cause-related overlay to counter-balance the $1m prize  - but there’s a lot to like here, in particular the integration of Kodak’s ‘Kodak Moments’ heritage; the opportunity to leverage the wonderful imagery that great golf courses provide; and the season-long campaign platform. What I most like is that, as the Kodak blog reveals, Kodak planned their activation upfront - one of the keys to successful sponsorship.

By Tim Crow on November 28th, 2008

Tags: Branded content, Default, Experiential marketing, Golf, New Product Development, PGA Tour, Public relations, Sales promotion, Sponsorship, Tiger Woods

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Bravo Lewis Hamilton, cue media frenzy - with, as ever on these occasions, a predictable focus on Hamilton’s future earning power. Thus we find Max Clifford in the Telegraph (not an everyday occurrence in itself) predicting that Hamilton will be ‘bigger than Beckham’ and this, my personal favourite to date, from the Mirror:

He is already on a £75million five year contract with McLaren and has a £10million three year sponsorship deal with Reebok. But extra sponsorship deals could see him on £1billion next year.

Now that would be bucking the credit crunch.

There is, of course, much more interesting territory to be explored here. For example, how will the nascent ‘Brand Hamilton’ be evolved?  To what extent does Hamilton’s appeal extend beyond F1? And what effect is Hamilton having on the F1 brand and audience?

In the UK at least, we already know some of the answers. Yesterday’s Grand Prix drew an average audience on ITV of 8.8m, way ahead of the channel’s slot average for the year so far of 2.6m, with a massive peak audience of 12.5m watching at 18:45 as the race went down to the wire.

Ironically, it was thus easily the most watched race since ITV started broadcasting F1 in 1997 – the irony being that coverage reverts to BBC in 2009, ITV having opted out of F1 earlier this year in order to retain its UEFA Champions League rights.

By Tim Crow on November 3rd, 2008

Tags: BBC, Formula 1, Media, Sponsorship, Television audiences

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With the £79m shortfall now apparently down to £59m, and (not coincidentally) Medal Hopes still merely a soundbite, it was nonetheless surprising to see Beijing golden girl Rebecca Adlington, interviewed in The Times the other day, declaring that her success had not led to any endorsements. 

“Nobody has called to help with any funding…nobody has come forward to help. People mistakenly think, ‘She must be well-off now’, but it’s not quite how it works.”

So not surprising then, in an ever-crunchier world, to see many of our London 2012 medal hopefuls doing the fundraising for themselves, in the shape of the Be Number 1 online campaign, which uses the pixel marketing model pioneeed by Alex Tew’s now-famous Million Dollar Homepage to give donors the opportunity to sponsor individual athletes, including including the ‘Yngling girls’ Sarah Payton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson, BMX ace Shanaze Reade and gymnast Beth Tweddle, by buying pixels on their Be Number 1 pages for as little as £20.

Clever – good luck to them.

By Tim Crow on October 29th, 2008

Tags: Beijing 2008, DCMS, Default, London 2012, London 2012 sponsorship, Olympic sponsorship, Olympics, Sponsorship, Team GB, grass roots sport

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One Games ends: the road to another begins. Since the curtain came down on Beijing 2008, VANOC has launched an array of Vancouver 2010 initiatives, including a new Vancouver 2010 brand identity, a new motto (‘With Glowing Hearts’), and the release of the first tranche of Vancouver 2010 tickets.

Another recently-launched initiative is ‘The Vancouver 2010 Club - A Patron’s Programme’, a limited-edition high-rollers’ Olympic experience, which includes premium tickets, a car and driver, a concierge service and a place in the Olympic Torch Relay. VANOC is marketing 100 of these packages at C$285,000 (£140,500) each, and is reporting strong demand.

VANOC has rebuffed inevitable criticism of the concept by pointing out that the tickets involved do not come from the public allocation, and that the scheme is underpinned by philanthropy, as each package automatically donates 100 event tickets to the Vancouver 2010 Charitable Ticketing Fund, which is distributing 50,000 tickets to underprivileged children.

I applaud VANOC’s initiative. It’s a win-win for all concerned, and is simply a logical extension of a major NPD trend of recent times - products and services created specifically for the super-rich.

And what all commentators on the scheme have missed is that without this type of philanthropy, the Olympics would not have been re-born.

Two-thirds of the funding for the Athens 1896 Games, the first of the modern era, came from private donations, and the largest expense of the Games, the refurbishment of the Panathanaiko Stadium, was financed by a single benefactor, George Averoff.

By Tim Crow on October 24th, 2008

Tags: Beijing 2008, Brand marketing, London 2012, London 2012 sponsorship, New Product Development, Olympic Torch Relay, Olympic sponsorship, Olympics, Vancouver 2010

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I’ve posted before about the fact that NPD has been one of the key drivers in modern sponsorship, with virtually every week seeing new platform and property models being unveiled. NPD being what it is however, they don’t always work out, and the most recent example of this is golf’s FedEx Cup.

Launched by the US PGA Tour two years ago as an attempt to reinvigorate the final weeks of the Tour and counter audience migration to the start of the American football season, the FedEx Cup has had a difficult start to life.

For two years in a row, the Cup has been won anticlimactically early, last year by Tiger Woods (remember him?), this year by Vijay Singh, who has only to finish the final tournament of the season this weekend to claim the title. As one columnist from the National Post put it:

‘Under the current FedEx points system, Singh would have to step in a gopher hole or assault a rules official in order to lose the event. He could play all 72 holes with a belly putter and a persimmon three wood and still take the title, even if his card went into three-figures four days in a row.’

And despite changes introduced this year by the PGA, the format and credibility of the FedEx are still being roundly criticised by the media, in pieces with headlines such as ‘Once again, playoffs are a snoozefest’ and ‘FedEx Cup ending with a whimper’.

Tim Finchem, Commissioner of the PGA Tour, admitted that it was a case of back to the drawing board for next year in a recent media conference, although I suspect what he said will have done little to reassure the players, the media and most of all, his sponsor (whose current tagline is ‘Relax, it’s Fedex’).

Using the analogy of golf course designer Donald Ross and his work on the famed No. 2 course at Pinehurst NC, Finchem said that even a second set of format changes to the FedEx might not get it right:

“[Ross] made 213 or 220 changes in the first 12 years of [Pinehurst No. 2's] existence. Sometimes to get perfection, you have to keep working at it, and we intend to do that.”

Let’s hope, for the sake of FedEx in particular, it’s a case of third time lucky in 2009.

By Tim Crow on September 25th, 2008

Tags: Brand marketing, Default, Golf, New Product Development, PGA Tour, Public relations, Sponsorship, Sponsorship consultancy, Sponsorship consultants, Television audiences, Tiger Woods

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Following on from my post about Culture Secretary Andy Burnham’s statement on how he intended to tap into private sector sponsorship to plug the £79million hole in the Government’s budget for funding Olympic athletes’ training, I was interested to see the good corporate citizens of the West Midlands announce an innovative new Olympic funding model, the first of its kind in the country, which may provide Mr Burnham with a solution to his problem.

A group of businesses in the region, led by the West Bromwich Building Society, have united under the banner of Team Business West Midlands and aim to raise £60,000 each over the next four years in the run up to London 2012 to help fund local athletes’ training. Hats off to Team Business West Midlands, and great news for the athletes.Good news for Mr Burnham too - and an opportunity.

Not only is Team Business West Midlands extending an invitation to other local businesses to join the funding scheme, it’s also inviting other UK regions to follow its lead.

If DCMS were to get behind this initiative by incentivising businesses with matched funding, maybe, just maybe, that £79m is achievable after all.

By Tim Crow on September 25th, 2008

Tags: Default, London 2012, London 2012 sponsorship, New Product Development, Olympic sponsorship, Olympics, Sponsorship, Sponsorship consultants, Team GB

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With AIG, shirt sponsors of Manchester United, now having followed Northern Rock, shirt sponsors of Newcastle United, into nationalisation, it occurred to me that the sponsors’ lounge at the next Toon versus Reds match could bring a whole new meaning to the term Premier League. Because, of course, the effective heads of the teams’ two sponsors are now the Premiers of the US and UK.

But who’ll be in those respective hot seats come next March? Over there, will it be John McCain or Barack Obama. Over here, will Gordon Brown still be around? And whoever it is, will they use the occasion for a pow-wow at St James’ on Wednesday March 4? Lovely thought, but somehow I doubt it.

Maybe Gordon could send noted Toon Army member Tony Blair - remember him? - to deputise…

By Tim Crow on September 18th, 2008

Tags: Barclays Premier League, Brand marketing, Default, Football, Football Sponsorship, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Public relations, Sponsorship, Sponsorship consultancy, Sponsorship consultants

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With perfect timing in the week when the Large Hadron Collider became part of the global zeitgeist, a new sponsorship category was also unveiled to the world: Dow Chemical has become the ‘Official Chemistry Company’ of the PGA Tour.

Sponsorship has been adopted by a myriad of product categories in the modern era, but ‘Chemistry’ is a new one on me. Let me hasten to add, I think Dow has done a very clever deal with the PGA, creating a perfect showcase for its agroscience and technology products. And I’m sure that the guys at Dow and the PGA thought long and hard before landing on ‘Chemistry’. But it does lead your imagination in some interesting directions…

Talking of which, the scientists involved in the Large Hadron Collider project have taken a break from attempting to discover the ‘God Particle’ to star in their own hit viral video. The ‘Large Hadron Rap’ has become a favorite on YouTube.

By Tim Crow on September 12th, 2008

Tags: Branded content, Digital marketing, Golf, Media, New Product Development, PGA Tour, Sponsorship, Sponsorship consultancy, Sponsorship consultants, Viral Marketing, YouTube

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