A couple of weeks ago my brother and I set off for the Saracens vs. Harlequins match, safe in the knowledge that the game would definitely be going ahead (despite the freakish sub-zero weather conditions) due to the artificial pitch,  and keen to experience the new Allianz Park. Saracens‘ vision is ‘to be the most innovative, hard-working and caring rugby organisation in the world’, so at this official opening of their new stadium I was interested to see how close they are to meeting this ambition.

The Build-Up

Earlier in the week I had received an extremely clear and helpful email from Saracens detailing the match day itinerary, the travel options and any other info we might have needed. If one of the key objectives of a rights holder’s ECRM is to improve the customer experience, then this email certainly ticked that box. Whilst it was by no means ground-breaking, it is striking how often this is either absent or uninformative in the build-up to a big event.

Pre-Match

Following our travel instructions, we were warmly greeted at Mill Hill East tube station by one of the Saracens Pioneers. These volunteers have been selected to help deliver the perfect match day experience, no doubt inspired by the widespread acclaim for the Olympic Gamesmakers and to position Saracens as a club for the community.

Then a free (and spacious) shuttle bus whisked us to the stadium and we collected our tickets without any fuss. Again, these are perhaps small things that a sports fan should expect on a match day, but which can so often be sorely lacking.

The Match

It must be said that we weren’t totally blown away by the Stadium: although the new East stand is impressive, the existing West Stand and temporary seats on the Barnet running track didn’t exactly scream out ‘new stadium’, but there was no lack of effort from the club to make their opening feel special. A Legends match (featuring among others Jason Leonard and Thomas Casteignede) took place before kick-off, adding further value to our £20 match ticket.

In the innovation stakes, (aside from the pitch), Saracens have installed two giant video screens which provided a fantastic picture throughout, and for this fixture they also took a 360 degree fan-pic at the game for fans to tag themselves on Facebook (I’m the one in the red hat in the middle!).

Whilst a fan-pic at an event is now familiar territory, Saracens added an interactive element  by offering the chance to win a signed shirt for spotting Sarrie the Camel, and also gave fans who were unable to get a ticket (the match was sold out) the opportunity to add their profile picture to the shot. Perhaps Saracens could have done even more with this by promoting the picture on the big screens and asking fans to smile for the camera! I also think the big screens could have had a more interactive element to them – for example Saracens could look to add a Twitter ticker-tape running along the bottom of it so fans can add their thoughts on the action. As we saw at the Olympics, initiatives such as the kiss-cam and bongo-cam are great ways of getting the crowd involved in the action and these big screens offer this opportunity. If Saracens really want to become the most innovative rugby club around, then the most obvious first step for them will be to provide free wi-fi at the ground (a topic that we have discussed many times on this blog). A partner deal like the recently announced MLB and T- Mobile and Liverpool F.C and Xirrus initiatives would really allow fans to interact at the stadium, and Saracens already have a mobile app which could, in time, become the tool that gives supporters the ability to interact with the game in real time.

In terms of the sponsor activity on the day, there was a clear winner: despite Allianz’s naming rights deal, it was Domino’s Pizza who stood out. They have given fans the chance to get pizzas delivered to their seats at half-time (which seemed to be a popular option in the freezing cold) and their half-time catching challenge between Saracens and Harlequins fans also proved to be popular. It will be interesting to see if Allianz remain passive in their activation and apparently happy to rely on the media value driven from the stadium name and shirt sponsorship, although I have since spotted that they are running a reporter competition on Facebook for their next home game.

Post-Match

After the match, fans were encouraged to take to the pitch and kick a ball about (taking me back to the days of bringing my bat and a ball along to The Oval for some throw-downs on the outfield). As you can see this proved really popular with the kids (both big and small) and reinforced Saracens’ positioning as a community-friendly club. We went to de-frost with a few pints (with our souvenir cups – see below) in the longest match day bar in the UK, and there the Saracens band played and the Man of the Match (Mako Vunipola) was presented with his award. This was a really nice way of allowing the fans to get closer to their heroes in a relaxed, family friendly atmosphere after the game. On the way out of the ground, a large Pepperoni Passion pizza for a fiver capped off a really great fan experience for us!

It really seems that Saracens have considered the fans’ journey every step of the way, and we had a great debut experience at Allianz Park. On the day, their stars on the field didn’t disappoint and faster, better rugby was produced due to the 4G pitch. Whilst Saracens may still have a little way to go on the innovation front, they are certainly ahead of the game in terms of putting the fans and the community at the heart of everything they do; more rights holders should definitely take note.

By Matt Kiernan on April 4th, 2013

Tags: community, Experiential marketing, Naming Rights, Rugby, Sponsorship, Sponsorship Activation, Sport

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In the debate about how to best enjoy watching sport, most would agree that those at the stadium have it best. The proximity of the live action amplified by the collective reactions of the crowd combine to generate a priceless “I was there” experience that most people dream about experiencing even a few times in their lifetime, let alone week in, week out.

Celebrating with strangers in the away end at a football match, waving Union Jacks at the Olympic Stadium, seeing the sweat drip off a boxer as he slaves towards the end of another punishing round, or relaxing with a drink while watching the cricket at Lord’s on a summer’s evening – all unique experiences to which sitting in front of the television can hardly compare.

That said, there has been some significant press attention of late focusing on the escalating price of watching live football. Rising ticket prices, along with the additional associated costs of the matchday experience (travel, food, etc.), all add up to create an expensive day out. And it’s not just the prices that can make sitting in front of the TV seem a bit more appealing; a better view of the action, replays, punditry (even if of often dubious quality) and the ability to go online and join a community of others watching the same event all contribute too. While recent focus has emphasised the plight of match-going football fans, many of these issues are common to all those who watch live sport.

Up until now, any complaints expressed by those lucky enough to regularly attend live top-level sport would have been dismissed as spoilt whinging from people who don’t know how lucky they are; however, the extent of ticket price rises, especially in football, and the simultaneous observation about the importance of fans to the health of live sport have started to make people sit up and take notice. Sport not only unites and inspires, but also represents big business. If fans stay away, clubs and stadia lose out on income, the atmosphere flattens (with potential impact on both the players and the excitement conveyed in the broadcast), and fans miss out on a potentially fantastic experience; in other words, everyone suffers.

And while the message is still filtering through to clubs and venue owners (though as a previous blog reported, innovative pricing schemes are becoming increasingly common), smart brands have already been stepping in redress the balance. With live events a central asset in many sponsorship platforms, focusing on those who attend is a vital pillar of a strong activation plan.

For example, to reward fans of Capital One Cup finalists Swansea and Bradford – travelling hundreds of miles to Wembley with fuel prices notoriously high – Synergy created the Capital One Convoy, thanking fans for their loyalty by providing them with free transport, another cost contributing to the high price of following a football team.

And recognising that the actual viewing experience at live sport events can often be compromised, with key incidents happening in a flash and without the benefit of televised action replays, Barclays, title sponsor of the Barclays Center in New York – home of the Brooklyn Nets – created an app that gives users a live stream and instant replays: the best of the live and televised experiences rolled into one.

Of course, one thing compromising the live sport experience (well, depending on your point of view) is the lack of internet in many stadiums, something else we’ve passionately questioned on this very blog. This is something that obviously distinguishes the live and televised experiences quite considerably, with TV audiences able to follow punditry on Twitter, interact socially with their mates, and engage with a whole host of branded content as they watch sport. Were WiFi to become widely available in stadiums, the opportunities for brands to step in with apps that improve the live viewing experience for fans would be manifold.

Indeed, some forward-thinking brands have already started to step in to fill this gap. At the Betfair World Matchplay Darts and the Betfair Masters for example, Synergy worked with title sponsor Betfair to install wireless internet in Blackpool’s Winter Gardens and Alexandra Palace respectively – allowing event attendees to bet online and interact socially in just the same way television viewers. A bonus for the brand – after all, they want as many people as possible to be betting on the action – and fans alike. And given the existing online inventory of many sponsor brands, be it content, websites or apps, it is surely in the brand’s interest to allow fans at the venue to make use of them (as well as boasting about their attendance!).

No doubt, the smartest brands will be those that enhance the sporting experience for those watching any touchpoint – be it at the ground, on the sofa or in the pub. With the size of the televised audience for major sporting events, only a very naïve sponsor would forget about the legions of fans in front of the TV. Hence the success of the RBS 6 Nations Live Challenge app, for example, which capitalises on the second screen phenomenon.

The atmosphere is ripe for rewarding those who attend live sport, and the message is clear: wherever they may be, don’t forget the fans.

By Jessica Enoch on April 4th, 2013

Tags: Default, Social Media, Sponsorship, Sponsorship Activation

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This is shaping up to be a bumper year for England Cricket (whether you agree with the scheduling or not). Our boys are set to face the Aussies home and away with two back-to-back Ashes series and 10 Test matches within four months.

The question is: what can we expect from sponsors during this cricketing feast?

There have been some great sponsorship campaigns in the UK over the years including Betfair, Adidas, Marstons and Buxtons, and in our view, the conditions are in place to take it to another level again to create something really ground-breaking.

Secondly, it will attract a big audience. This year’s Ashes are already looking to be a record-breaking sell-out across all five venues staging Tests, with a rush for tickets as soon as they went on sale. And across TV, radio, print and the web the crown jewel of cricket will as always pull in enormous audiences in England, Australia and beyond.

Thirdly, the appeal of England versus Australia goes way beyond the traditional Test cricket audiences and into the realms of the Casual Sport Fan. What’s more, The Ashes is a tournament that combines a strong mix of banter, patriotism and humour, which is the perfect platform for creating unique and amusing social content that celebrates one of the most famous of all sporting rivalries.

And finally, social media has reached a critical mass. The way that audiences engage with cricket is expanding beyond the traditional channels. Modern sports fans have embraced technology: it’s a core part of their increasingly fragmented media consumption diet plan. Nothing will replace TMS, but Twitter has made cricket easier than ever to follow and the variety of content is unmatched. Where else can you find out both the latest score and who on the team is having a bad hair day? This gives brands that want to use cricket to reach their audience far more exciting opportunities.

The campaign Synergy created for Betfair in 2009 was one of the earliest socially-centred campaigns in cricket. We used social channels to fuel the banter while Jason Gillespie and Phil Tufnell brought the Anglo-Aussie Ashes rivalry to life. Great content, big promotions and physical rewards (tickets and merchandise) attracted fans and kept them engaged throughout the summer of cricket. And that was in the early days of social media – imagine what is possible now.

We can see more great examples of cricket campaigns from around the world.

Coca-Cola provided a great example of what is possible in cricket when they built the ‘Coca-Cola Beach’ at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG).  Not only did Coca-Cola create a brilliantly orchestrated experiential zone within the venue, they also developed a fully-integrated campaign using Facebook, POS, online, PR and TV. By using Sydney residents Shane Watson, David Warner and captain Michael Clarke, Coke’s campaign encouraged consumers to buy a bottle and win a spot on the beach – the ultimate seat in the SCG.

A cricket tour, which can last for 3 months, gives a brand plenty of time to stage a slower-burn, wide-ranging campaign. In India, Nike capitalised on this by creating ‘Streets to the Stadium’. The campaign focused on a set of young Indian cricketers who were offered a chance to join the roster of the National Cricket Academy by winning the Nike Cup. Along the way, they engaged over 8,000 cricketers and 2.5m Facebook fans via the brilliant content they released on their social media channels.

Mobile is another rich area for cricket sponsors. Vodafone’s Live Cricket app currently offers fans the chance to chat to the commentators and get up-to-the-minute stats and scores – whilst this is all useful, it’s nothing ground-breaking. Brands could go so much further. With its rich tactical nuances, deep statistics and frequent breaks in play (between every ball), cricket is the perfect platform for a brilliant second screen experience.

Apps also have the opportunity enhance the in-stadium experience. Imagine the perfect cricket app that allowed you to order a pie and a pint from your seat, to rewind and watch replays, send messages to the big screen and switch to a front row seat camera view. All possible. The one thing holding all this back is the availability at Test match grounds of free WiFi. But things are starting to change, and Lord’s is leading the way by launching free public WiFi last summer in the media centre, hospitality and public areas, which will be rolled out across all stands in 2013.

There is no doubt that the conditions are right and the ingredients are there for a brand to shake up cricket sponsorship. And the even better news is that there is a property available: principal sponsor of the England Cricket Team.

Brit Insurance, the current sponsor, has already announced that they will not renew their deal at the end of their contract, citing a ‘strategic change in business objectives’. They have also made it clear that they are prepared to terminate their deal early if a new sponsor can be found. In many ways, it’s a surprised that no-one has stepped in already to take advantage of the Ashes double-header. In fact, the new sponsor could be looking at three high-profile series against Australia, a Champions Trophy and a World Cup, all in the next three years.

This type of opportunity is simply too good to miss. Let’s hope the next sponsor, whoever it might be, gets the delivery right and then smashes it out of the ground.

By Lisa Parfitt on February 28th, 2013

Tags: Advertising, Ashes, Branded content, Consultancy, Content, Cricket, ECB, Experiential marketing, Facebook, India, London 2012, Mobile, Social Media, Sponsorship, Sponsorship Activation, Sponsorship consultancy, Sport, Synergy, Twitter

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By Oli Richards on February 1st, 2013

Tags: Athletics, Blogging, BMW, Brand marketing, Branded content, Brazil 2014, Broadcast sponsorship, Commonwealth Games, Communications, Consultancy, Content, Cricket, Digital marketing, Engine, Football, Football Sponsorship, Glasgow 2014, grass roots sport, London 2012, London 2012 sponsorship, Manchester United, Olympic sponsorship, Olympics, PR, Public relations, RBS 6 Nations, Rugby, Rugby World Cup, Ryder Cup, Sponsorship, Synergy

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On this blog just a few months ago we discussed how the Red Bull Stratos, Red Bull’s ambitious project that saw Felix Baumgartner breaking the sound barrier in a jump from space, showed the ABCDE sponsorship framework executed to near perfection.

Now it’s the turn of Lynx, a brand traditionally less associated with extreme pursuits and adrenaline, but nevertheless targeted at the same male thrill-seeking audience, to blast off into space. To launch its new Apollo range, Lynx is launching a competition that will ultimately send one would-be astronaut from the UK, along with 21 others from around the globe, into outer space on the Lynx SXC (Space Expedition Corporation) shuttle.

Of course this differs in several important respects from Red Bull’s activation a few months ago. Felix’s jump was one (particularly awesome) part of a coordinated and years-old approach by Red Bull towards marketing that emphasises differentiation of their brand via a unique association with thrill-seekers like Felix and other adrenaline junkies who take part in the various Red Bull-created sports.

For Lynx, this is way ahead of what it has ever done before – the Lynx effect taken, quite literally, to the extreme. The Lynx effect is all about helping men up their game to win over the ladies by looking good, feeling good, and – and this is where Lynx has traditionally come in – smelling amazing. This has been demonstrated throughout the years in a series of ads that show the devastating impact of the Lynx effect on the female population. One would have been forgiven for wondering if a scent could genuinely have this sort of impact. But the Lynx Space Academy represents the ultimate substantiation of the Lynx effect – after all, as the advert that launched this activity in the UK makes clear, nothing beats an astronaut.

Of course, another important difference lies in the protagonists of these respective activations and the ultimate importance of them scientifically. Red Bull was out to make history, with Felix, already a noted record-breaking jumper, becoming the first person to break the sound barrier without using any sort of machine. Lynx isn’t doing anything new in terms of space travel. But with space tourism a distant reality for all but the very wealthy few, giving normal people this chance to go to space is genuinely boundary-pushing.

And at a time when national government budgets for space exploration are being slashed as cuts begin to bite, it is brilliant that brands are taking up the mantle in terms of supporting scientific endeavour and taking initial steps to widen space travel. This blog has already discussed the merits of brands stepping in to safeguard public services, and, whilst it would be wrong to pretend that private companies’ intergalactic efforts could get anywhere near to the endeavours of established national space agencies like NASA, this is still an encouraging, and very exciting, trend.

For now, I will look out with interest to see how the participants fare at each stage of the Lynx Space Academy – and (of course) keep an eye out for any astronauts, to see if this particular Lynx effect really works.

By Jessica Enoch on January 17th, 2013

Tags: Advertising, Default, Experiential marketing, Red Bull

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What is it?

Selfridges has never been just a shop. In recent years we have seen a number of experiential installations from brands utilising the space Selfridges offers. In 2011 it was the The Truvia Voyage of Discovery, a boating lake and cocktail bar that lived on the Selfridges rooftop, and last summer the roof was occupied by Jellymongers Bompass and Parr’s crazy golf course. Non-Olympic sponsor Nike marked the Summer of Sport in the store with their House of Innovation experiential retail space, and for last September’s London Fashion Week, Mercedes and Bompass and Parr created the ultimate drive thru in the lobby of the old Selfridges Hotel.

Since then it has been a case of waiting until the next installation is revealed.

Attention on the store has reached new heights of late following the release of Mr Selfridge, the ITV drama focusing on the shop’s founder Harry Gordon Selfridge, with the first episode attracting 7.2 million viewers. So what better way to play on this wave of interest than by re-creating a concept Mr Selfridge himself launched in 1909? Over 100 years ago the Silence Room at Selfridges was born, and now it’s back in the form of a partnership with meditation gurus Headspace and the creation of No Noise at Selfridges.

No Noise is visible throughout the store with four of the shop windows designed by conceptual artist Katie Paterson, the Food Hall emphasising simple and honest food, and Headspace pods delivering meditative messages in all departments. However, the main focus is on the reincarnation of Selfridge’s Silence Room and the development of the Quiet Shop. Designed by architect Alex Cochrane, this inner-sanctum asks customers to leave all their 21^st Century distractions at the door and escape from the hustle and bustle associated with modern-day high-street shopping.

While the Silence Room – a completely shopping-free space – is unexpected from a retail giant, it is the accompanying Quiet Shop that is the most innovative component of No Noise in terms of support from brands. Selfridges have in fact persuaded them to de-brand. Stripped of their logos, Marmite, Heinz, Beats by Dre and Levis are just a few examples of brands whose logo-less products are available to buy within the Quiet Shop. Selfridges too have removed their name from their own illustrious yellow shopping bags.

Why we love it?

In the month when everyone is trying to get over both the excess and expense of Christmas, and dispel memories of stressful present buying, Selfridges have created a pop-up experience that puts the pleasure back into shopping.

No Noise works on so many levels: it certainly has a PR stunt element which has led to its initial coverage, but this installation is not to be short-lived; running until the end of February, a plethora of shoppers will have a unique consumer experience that is sure to lead to continued press for Selfridges.

Although only a item that has recognisable packaging could get away with de-branding, by icons such as Heinz buying into this concept they are themselves gaining publicity, with many suggesting that the logo-less items will also soon become collector’s items. However, it is the Selfridges brand that is the ultimate winner, with the buy-in and support from so many giants of the retail world delivering No Noise the shout out it deserves.

No Noise at Selfridges does have many separate elements to it, but the store has ensured that focus sticks to the theme of de-cluttering the shopping experience. As we know in our industry, simple ideas are often the best ideas and what could be more simple than silence.

By Fiona Watherston on January 14th, 2013

Tags: Default, Experiential marketing, Fashion, Food & Drink, Public relations

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Around 60 years ago modern sponsorship was born, driven by the mass penetration of television and broadcasters’ simultaneous discovery of sport as premium entertainment content. Brands, naturally, followed. Subsequently there have been three major evolutions of sponsorship, and we are now at the start of the fourth, which is in many ways the most exciting and far-reaching yet.

In the first evolution, in the 1960s and ’70s, sponsorship was a dark art: a minority activity among brands and, inevitably given its newness, more than anything a leap of faith. The sell was all about how much on-screen coverage you could achieve for a logo. Tobacco led the way by embracing motor racing and just about every other sport, and stadium naming rights deals in the USA began to multiply.

History is made at the 1968 South African Grand Prix with the first fully-liveried tobacco-sponsored F1 cars, for Winston's Gunston brand

And as with every evolution of sponsorship, this type is still very much around today: the architect of Emirates’ sponsorship strategy, Mike Simon, for example, freely admitted a few years ago that Emirates’ sponsorship strategy was totally predicated on how many media impressions a sponsorship achieved.

The second evolution began in the late 1970s, when Horst Dassler and Patrick Nally created the multi-sponsor event model for the FIFA World Cup, and sold it to Coca-Cola. The IOC followed, so did just about every other major event organiser in sports, and the model became the template for how most sponsorship is still sold today.

Coca-Cola's pioneering sponsorship of the 1978 World Cup created the template for brand partnerships with major events

In the third evolution, which began in the 1990s, sponsorship took off and brands got strategic about it. Sponsorship was everywhere, if you did it right it worked, and if you weren’t doing it – especially if you were a global brand – your competitors almost certainly were. This drove intense competition for key assets and big increases in rights fees. Sponsorship became seriously big business, so big business began to think and act seriously about sponsorship. QED: by the end of the ’90s, for the first time, you could see brands beginning to adopt global sponsorship strategies based on platforms rather than on individual sponsorships. When I look back at this shift, I think in particular of Nike and they way they planned and activated football worldwide, and of Red Bull, who created a global portfolio of owned assets to drive their brand USP. Familiar behaviour now, but very new at the time.

Red Bull Stratos was the latest episode in Red Bull's long term global brand activation strategy

I believe the fourth evolution of sponsorship has started, and that it’s the social evolution, in two senses. First, in only a few short years, social media has come from nowhere to play a starring role in the sponsorship mix. It is transforming consumer behaviour and brand marketing strategies, especially around sponsorship, with an impact not seen since the advent of TV. Second, the ability of sponsorship to help brands drive and showcase their social responsibility programmes is now everywhere you look in the sponsorship landscape. And it’s no coincidence that these are simultaneous developments, because there is increasing evidence to suggest that social media is accelerating brands’ social behaviour.

When we look back at this fourth evolution, I believe that London 2012 will be seen as a defining moment of these two seismic forces in action in a big way together for the first time: the transformation of Olympic and Paralympic Games marketing in the shape of the Socialympics (a term Synergy coined back in February which subsequently went viral globally) coming together with an unprecedented array of activities by the Games’ sponsors to use sport, through the Olympic and Paralympic Games, for social good.

Welcome to the evolution.

By Tim Crow on December 13th, 2012

Tags: Brand marketing, Default, London 2012, Naming Rights, New Product Development, Olympic sponsorship, Social Media, Socialympics, Sponsorship, Synergy, Television

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Here at Synergy, we’ve all been very impressed with Marmite’s Christmas lights activation just down the road from us on Oxford Street. Marmite’s sponsorship of the lights is all about giving exposure to the new Marmite Gold. But it’s certainly not just a badging exercise; Marmite has gone the extra mile, creating a campaign that engages customers while reinforcing its traditional brand territory around Love and Hate, and at the same launching a new product. Impressive stuff.

So what has Marmite done? Never afraid of innovating, it has created an ambitious campaign with a strong online / offline link. For the first stage of the campaign it invited lovers and haters to have some fun with a new app on Facebook, allowing them to submit photos of themselves expressing their feelings about Marmite to then appear on a large digital screen within the famous Christmas lights.  But it is the next stage of the activity that has really caught our imagination. A photobooth has been installed at an Oxford Street bus stop, allowing customers to take their own photo and once again become famous for just a minute, with their picture appearing within the Christmas lights. Check out Synergy’s very own Luke Auty below. Clearly not a fan…

Why does this work? Well, everyone loves taking photos, and few can resist the lure of fifteen minutes of fame. But it also works for Marmite as a brand, with Love and Hate central to the photo activity as people are asked to show their emotion about the product. All this comes together in a great piece of experiential activity that provides genuine fun for customers while also landing the brand message. Acknowledging that people hate it has always been a bold approach, but one that Marmite clearly finds fruitful from a long-term brand-building perspective.

This isn’t the first piece of photobooth activity we’ve seen this year. As part of its Olympic sponsorship, adidas installed a photobooth at the athletes’ kitting-out event, showing a softer side to Olympic athletes and generating significant media coverage. The booth was also installed for shoppers in Westfield shopping centre – with a surprise visit by David Beckham to unsuspecting customers a high point of the campaign. With clear potential to create meaningful touchpoints with customers it is no surprise we are seeing more of this sort of activity by brands. This is the opposite of brands forcing content on customers – here they are providing a platform for customers to become brand ambassadors themselves.

With the popularity of photobooth-type activity and its clear potential to engage with customers, we expect to see it forming part of brands’ campaigns to a greater and greater extent. Look out for innovations in the space too, with 3D printing set to become more commonplace, and brands becoming ever more inventive about where customer photos are displayed and how they are used. Marmite has given us lots of (dark, salty and spreadable) food for thought about experiential innovations. And even for those Marmite-haters out there, there is a lot in this idea to love.

By Jessica Enoch on December 5th, 2012

Tags: Advertising, Default, Experiential marketing, Facebook, Food & Drink, Sponsorship, Sponsorship consultants

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Analysis of industry data suggests that the F1 ecosystem raises over £1b per year from sponsorship. This includes Team Sponsors and Suppliers (ranging from £100m for the big boys to £20m for the smaller teams), F1 Partners (around £25m per year in cash or Value in Kind from each of the 6 global partners) and Race Sponsorship (around £10m for each of the races with title sponsors plus trackside advertising).

To put that into context, the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games raised around the same amount (£750m from domestic sponsors plus around £250m contribution from the IOC for TOP partners) – but that was for a 4-year cycle.

So here’s a question: Given how much is spent on it from some of the world’s leading brands, why is F1 Sponsorship not at the leading edge of sponsorship thinking and activation?

It’s fair to say that F1 is ahead of the game in virtually everything else it does. So surely F1 Sponsors should be cleaning up at the major sponsorship industry awards.  In fact, over the past 5 years, an F1 sponsorship has won only once out of a possible 47 SIA awards (Vodafone’s Best Sponsorship of a Team or Individual in 2009). Case studies from F1 should be inspiring sponsors in other sports.  Here at Synergy, we should regularly be showcasing examples from F1 in the ‘What We Love’ section of Synopsis. But this just isn’t the case – at least not to the extent that one would expect.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some great pieces of activation in F1 (I’ll point out some of them later), but as a whole, F1 sponsorship is pretty uninspiring.

Having run the Reuters sponsorship of WilliamsF1 from 2000 – 2003 (yes – I agree – it was nowhere near ‘award-winning’!), I thought I would have a go at answering that question based on my own personal experiences.

1. Most Formula One sponsorships are B2B

Reuters primarily used F1 for B2B relationship building. A quick scan of F1 sponsors shows that over 40% have significant B2B businesses. There is little better than F1 if you have a relatively small number of high-value, global customers who you reach through targeted sales and marketing programmes.  Travelling around the world to all the key markets, Formula One and Paddock Club™ are the absolute gold standard of corporate hospitality. With this being the focus of the brands’ activation programme, it is little wonder that it remains unseen by the mass audience, award panels and the Synopsis editors.

The activation challenge for the B2B partners, however, is to create the most compelling brand stories and event experiences to attract their audience.  Because the fact is, especially in the small markets, most of the B2B sponsors are going after a very similar audience, in some cases exactly the same people.

2. There is too much focus on brand exposure and logos on cars and not enough on activation

Whenever brand exposure is such a critical part of the sponsorship package, it is easy to rely too heavily on it at the expense of all the other things you can do with the sponsorship. I absolutely hate the “media value” figures that are at the heart of so many F1 sponsorships.  However, it is easy to measure and as long as the media value is bigger than the cost of the sponsorship, brands can be tempted to think “job done”. In comparison, Olympic sponsors can’t rely on any media value to justify their sponsorship.  That’s why they have to work much harder and be far more creative with their activation.

A knock-on effect of this over-emphasis on media value is the fact that it can lead to an under-investment in activation.  Typically, the rights fee is so high (because brands are paying for the exposure) that there isn’t enough left over for activation. I’m not a big believer in any rule-of-thumb ratios, but the proportion of rights fee to activation spend when I was at Reuters is definitely not going to make it into any how-to textbooks. I suspect this isn’t unusual for F1 sponsors up and down the Paddock

3. The calendar gives you no time to plan and develop great campaigns

The F1 season is relentless. The first race is in early March and the last race is in late November. In between is a never-ending cycle of travelling and managing the day-to-day execution of race weekends. Everyone goes on holiday during the 4-week summer break and at the end of the season, which then leads into Christmas. Trust me, if you want a year to fly past, get a job in F1.

Which basically just leaves January and February to do any sort of campaign development. But even those months tend to be dominated by tactical planning for the season ahead. There just isn’t the time to think about a season-long campaign or a brilliant piece of activation.

Another challenge is the global scale required by an activation campaign. Japan, Abu Dhabi, Britain, the US and Brazil have very little in common with each other from a marketing perspective.  So as an F1 sponsor you are sort of in limbo between creating and delivering a global campaign that doesn’t quite work in loads of markets and developing local campaigns which feel a bit ‘small’ and short term.

4. The F1 community is too closed

There are some great people who work in F1.  However, it needs more ‘churn’.

For example, when I needed a sponsorship agency, everyone I invited to pitch was effectively a specialist F1 agency. I understand why most sponsors do that, but it leads to a form of ‘groupthink’ where new ideas are thrown out in favour of “what we did last year” or “what we do with our other clients”.

This happens up and down the paddock. If an F1 team needs a new Account Manager, they are likely to hire someone from one of the other teams. If a brand needs an F1 Sponsorship Director, they are likely to hire someone who has done a similar job at another sponsor. If an F1 agency hires a new Account Director, they typically hire someone who already has F1 experience.

The danger of this ‘closed’ community is that it loses the fresh influences and perspectives that drive creativity.

I know it’s tough (I’ve been there myself) but I think F1 sponsors need to be braver and set the bar higher for their activation campaigns. The benchmark should not be: “we want to create the best F1 sponsorship campaign”, but rather “we want to create the best sponsorship campaign”. And to do that, I think that it is critical for sponsors to look for inspiration outside the very small world of F1.

The point of this blog is not to say that there are no good F1 activations – because clearly there are some great examples.

My point is simply that given the number of world-class brands who are sponsors in F1, the amount that they invest and the possibilities of F1 as a platform, there should be far more ground-breaking activation programmes than there are.

Some of our Favourite F1 Activation Case Studies:

Johnnie Walker – Step Inside the Circuit Series

Johnnie Walker extended this campaign with some experiential activity in Travel Retail environments but at its core was some great behind-the-scenes content, from Monte Carlo (below), India, Singapore and other races

Vodafone:

One car, no team:

Camping:

Santander:

London Grand Prix:

The Silverstone Chase

Hugo Boss - Dress Me for the Finale

Using a special online configurator, consumers in each country could create bespoke designs of the drivers’ race suits. The drivers wore the designs during qualifying for each race, while the best two designs as voted by the audience were worn on the Sunday during the Brazilian Grand Prix. Boss also did a good job of connecting this activation to their social media and retail channels:

Red Bull – Faces for Charity

In exchange for a donation to charity (which Red Bull matched), consumers could upload a photo which was then put on the car for the British Grand Prix.

Vodafone –  Drive to the Big League

Vodafone introduced this initiative at the British Grand Prix in 2010 which offered one of their small business customers the chance to put their logo on the car for the British Grand Prix.  Vodafone have taken it to a whole new level in India now, where they have combined it with a Dragons Den style TV programme to select the winner – watch it – it’s brilliant!!!

See – it is possible – more of that please!!!

By Carsten Thode on November 15th, 2012

Tags: Advertising, Alcohol, Awards, Brand marketing, Branded content, Consultancy, Content, Default, Digital marketing, Experiential marketing, Facebook, Formula 1, London 2012, London 2012 sponsorship, Olympic sponsorship, Olympics, Red Bull, Sponsorship, Sponsorship consultancy, Sponsorship consultants, Synergy, Synergy Loves, Synopsis

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Having been slightly underwhelmed by certain pop-up venues away from the official Olympic events, a visit to the Mizuno Performance Centre was met with a certain level of trepidation. On approach, the grubby windows of the building did little to attract passing footfall, and it was only through strained eyes that the extensive Mizuno window displays could be made out. This seemed a shame and a missed opportunity, yet we were greeted inside by friendly staff decked out in striking purple uniforms. They directed us up the Mizuno-adorned stairs to an exhibition room that was filled with staff but noticeably short on visitors.

The concept behind the ‘Mizuno experience’ was first hand consumer involvement with the brand. This was achieved through three sporting tests, each performed wearing a different set of Mizuno footwear from their new ‘Seiei Collection’. The football and handball challenges involved measurements of accuracy and speed; we were issued with a pair of boots for football and, perhaps slightly unnecessarily, a pair of trainers for the handball. Nevertheless, all the footwear received unanimous nods of approval for lightweight feel and comfort. The technology raised the challenges above other similar, simpler experiential events and it was the athletics experience that represented the most impressive area of the centre. We were each handed a pair of Mizuno spikes and invited to record our quickest times over 20 metres on the custom-made indoor track. Accurate times were recorded and replays of the sprints were shown on surrounding widescreen TVs.

Away from the challenges, an exhibition showcased Mizuno’s Japanese heritage, whilst the VIP rooms provided the brand’s athletes and corporate guests with a place to unwind, away from the Olympic hustle and bustle. Part of this included a Mizuno wall, where athletes had scrawled notes of thanks to the brand for their continued support. It seemed a nice touch and lent the lounges a more personal feel.

Due to Olympic regulations, Mizuno were unable to leverage any of their ambassador assets around the Centre, and instead cleverly relied on sketched sporting artwork on the walls. This presented a slight issue when it came to any of the Synergists naming a Mizuno athlete, which in turn reflected a bigger issue for Mizuno: as impressive as the centre was, do ventures like this provide real value for smaller sports brands when breaking into Western markets so dominated by the larger companies?

The Performance Centre represented a display of how a brand can showcase itself in a simple yet effective manner. The challenges allowed a level of immersion into the brand in a way that did not feel overly gimmicky, and the crisp and clean technological delivery was thoroughly impressive. It was a fine showing from Mizuno through a series of athletic experiences, which, when handled differently, can so often lead to indifference and disappointment.

By Rob Guppy on August 15th, 2012

Tags: Athletics, Brand marketing, Experiential marketing, Football, London 2012, Olympic sponsorship, Olympic sponsorship consultants, Olympics, Running, Sport, Synergy

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