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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So there it is, all over. 100 days and 2400 people later; today marks the final day of Antony Gormley’s live art installation ‘One & Other’.

34,520 people applied; 1208 men and 1192 women aged between 16 and 84 were randomly selected to take part. People from every walk of life from across the UK, spent an hour alone on the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square creating a collective portrait of humanity.

And not a single ‘celebrity’ or former Big Brother contestant in sight.
Marvellous.

The project - the focus of articles, photos, tweets and blogs well before the first person took to the plinth on 6th July 2009 – has been deemed a success. In Gormley’s own words, “Whether you see the plinth as a protest or pole-dance platform; studio or stocks; playpen or pulpit; as a frame for interrogation or for meditation, it has provided an open space of possibility for many to test their sense of self and how they might communicate this to a wider world.”

So did we like it? The art critics did not.
Me? I loved it.

I first wrote about the project last July on this very blog. I didn’t get picked in the ballot but I have enjoyed watching those who did, including three people I know. ‘A snapshot of Britain’, the creation has been described as. Well certainly it showed off the great British sense of humour - as well as raising over £24,000 for charity through plinthers performances.

A brief snapshot of just a few of the plinthers who caught my eye:
- A modern day naturist Lady Godiva astride a child’s rocking horse in only a pair of boots (Gormley himself had said that ‘he would be very upset if somebody didn’t take their clothes off’)
- A 26 year old dressed as a giant turd in a plea for cleaner water, resulting in some nice PR & awareness for Water Aid
- A Stringfellow’s dancer whose pole dancing performance apparently caused the Sky Arts website to crash
- An 8ft Godzilla
- A bent over skin-tight morph suit
- A number of folk advertising themselves in a ‘Give me a Job’ bid to gain work most of which resulted in employment
- The girl who led an impressive flash-mob audience in a world-record bid for the most people dancing to Thriller (Michael Jackson, RIP, would have been proud).

The list goes on. Right up to the very final plinther, Emma Burns from Liverpool who used the last hour of the people’s plinth (08.00-09.00 today) to remember the victims of the Hillsborough disaster.

The good, the bad, the ugly and the downright bizarre have all been up there.

The art critics may not have raved about it.
Stuff ‘em.

Over 720,000 people watched online - a huge figure for an arts website - with 7.5 million page impressions during the 100 days. And the project will live on through a TV documentary due to be screened on Sky Arts; a book produced by Random House; and within the walls of the Wellcome Library who plan to store the footage and interviews with every participant for future historians and academics.

Antony Gormley never actually made it onto the plinth having been rejected four times in the public ballot (and refusing to insist on a slot). One suspects he won’t mind. Without a shadow of a doubt, he will be kept busy over the coming months regardless, his profile further elevated by the successful way in which One & Other has truly brought art to the masses. And if you need further persuasion, take 4mins out of your day - right now- and have a watch of the final highlights video on Sky Arts. It’s emotive stuff.

- Next month, Sir Keith Park, a Battle of Britain hero will take to the Fourth Plinth in a more conventional memorial statue format

By Stephanie Branston on October 14th, 2009

Tags: Blogging, Communications, Flash mobbing, Media, Public relations, The Arts

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Being half Aussie, one of the stories in yesterday’s Brand Republic email caught my attention.

The Australian Government recently announced that it is looking for an agency to develop a new brand identity to embody Australia in the 21st century with a budget of A$20 million over four years.

In response to this, agency DesignBay has launched a competition challenging people to submit their own logo and strapline for the chance to win a A$2000 prize. The global competition, which opens today, will run for two weeks, with the winners and short-listed entrants announced in the marketing industry’s B&T magazine in November.

DesignBay founder Alec Lynch, has been quoted saying: “Australia’s brand is important. We want to find the best logo and tagline ideas that Australia’s creative talent and the world can come up with and we’re going to offer them, for free, to the government. We want to give people the opportunity to contribute to Australia’s brand and we want Australia’s brand to be the best it can be.”

In this day and age we are all used to brands and media outlets asking for our contribution and I’m right behind giving the public the chance to translate their patriotism into what could become the new identity for their nation. However on this occasion, I can’t help but think that the aim of the game is more to drive publicity for the design agency than to give consumers a voice. Although hats off to their PR team, as I’m writing about them and I’d certainly never heard of them before reading the article this morning.

The Australian government are due to launch the new identity domestically in February and internationally in May and I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled along the way to see whether the Design Bay competition has any impact on the outcome.

Either way, you’ve got to be in it to win it so I’ll be off to the drawing board…..

By Kelly Russell on October 14th, 2009

Tags: Brand marketing, Communications, Media, Public relations

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I’ve just rushed to get the tube and I’ve amazed myself with how much access to information I need for my 20 minute trip home. I left the office frantically grabbing marketing press, to make sure I’m up to date with the ever changing marketing environment in which we live. On the way to the tube I picked up the (sadly only remaining) evening free sheet to stay in touch with London, sport and news. Not forgetting hastily refreshing my Twitter feed before I head to the depths of the underground to ensure I’ll be up to speed with all the goings on with my many new online buddies. They’ll be fixing the signal down here soon right?

All this for just 20 minutes? And in that time I’ll guess I’ve had 200 plus brands trying to talk to me.  The problem being (particular at this time of day) I don’t feel that up for a chat. I just want my facts and stats to keep me up to date. I don’t need info overload.

My short journey home provides a small example of the millions of channels available to me - but hopefully you see my point - engaging with your target can be more and more challenging each and every day. I recently heard someone with supreme intellect profess “It’s not the message, it’s the medium”. Wise words I thought. But, then two days later, I was at a fabulous talk when the online guru said “The channel is secondary, it’s all about the content”. Two quite different views and further weight to the challenge we face in the future of marketing.

All of this got me thinking. How would I engage with me if I was a brand? A quite simple task you’d think. I know the target audience reasonably well. I’ve got a good grip of what makes me tick and can tap in to the inner brain that is so important to both influencing behaviour and planning the most opportune moment for interaction.

I’m quite a simple being. I love sport, cooking, a bit of music, the odd drink and going on holiday is right up there. I want short and relevant bits of information and, if you can give me something with added humour or something of genuine interest I’m hooked. Simple.

Now, the challenging element is finding how to give me this gift of humorous/interesting content along with the brand’s message. How do we know what media I’ll be consuming, how much time I’ll have and what distractions I’ll have along my way? The truth is we don’t, but we do know I’m loyal to certain media platforms, albeit ones that change and fairly regularly too. At the moment I’m hooked on Twitter and I scan the free sheets on my way to and from work, so get your message to me there and I should get it (as long as it intrigues me). Through Twitter I might even respond and you’ve suddenly gone beyond just a message and I’m in dialogue with the brand.

Now if that message was to invite me to an experience or event that floats my boat, the brand’s on to something. By engaging me further with one of my passion points, I’m happy to interact but I won’t hit the dance floor on my own. I need to be invited.  As soon as I’m hooked, I’m loyal and I’m long-term - the perfect consumer. And for me, here lies the true power for the future of marketing; an integrated approach to communication leading to an immersed brand experience to drive powerful long-term consumer relationships. 

Partnerships between brands and content/experience platforms strengthen the opportunity and that is why sponsorship is increasingly becoming the core of many major marketing strategies.  I certainly see it as the future, but am keen to get some opinions; if you’ve read this far please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.

Now, all this thinking has made me miss my 20 minutes with the London Lite, Marketing Mag and Twitter. I’m also questioning the content I’ve just produced. I guess if no one reads it I could always blame the medium?

By Ben Wilkinson on September 29th, 2009

Tags: Advertising, Communications, Digital marketing, Experiential marketing, Sponsorship, Sport

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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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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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When we started out as Karen Earl Sponsorship in 1984 we had little idea what the future held, nor did we realise just how far sponsorship would develop as a global marketing phenomenon.

What a ride it has been. So many wonderful clients and sponsorships, so many great friends and memories. Lots of hard work too of course, but always great fun - and is still. I’m so proud of our work, our people, and the unique reputation we’ve built.

Looking ahead, we’ve never been in better shape. We have the most talented and committed group of people in our history, and a client list that’s unrivalled in the industry - and growing. Our international work has grown exponentially in the last few years. And as part of The Engine Group, we are ideally placed to continue to spearhead sponsorship’s unique role in modern marketing.

Easy to say, but let me explain.

We evolved into Synergy a year ago and moved into Engine’s new building just north of Oxford Circus. This meant that, as well as our three existing specialist units - Consultancy, Experiential and Communications - we were able to offer four new services: Branded Content, Digital, Employee Engagement and Sales Promotion. And all under one roof.

Our clients all tell us the same thing: they love it!

We now provide them with the broadest, most flexible and most relevant toolkit for 21st century sponsorship. Successful sponsorships are those which are truly integrated into brand marketing campaigns. Truly outstanding sponsorships are those which act as a catalyst for this integration using compelling ideas which both cut through the media clutter and effectively engage consumers.

We help our clients do that every day.

You can see numerous examples on our website. Two that immediately come to mind are the Guinness Premiership and the Powerade InnerGear campaign, each of which completed a clean sweep of the three major sponsorship awards in the last two years.

Our 25^th year makes this a landmark year for Synergy, but there’s going to be a lot more to shout about. We’ve already announced, for example, that we’re now working with Philips on their global Formula 1 sponsorship and with Betfair to develop their sponsorship strategy and portfolio. There are more announcements in the pipeline - watch this space.

Here’s to the next 25 years!

Karen Earl, Founder and Chairman of Synergy

Ed Kemp from Marketing spoke to Karen about the last 25 years - read his blog here

By Karen Earl on June 4th, 2009

Tags: Branded content, Communications, Consultancy, Digital marketing, Employee engagement, Experiential marketing, Guinness Premiership, Olympic sponsorship, Sales promotion, Sponsorship, Sponsorship consultancy, Synergy

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