Archive for May, 2009

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Sweeney Sports Report 2008/09

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

Sweeney Research released their annual sports report for 2008/09 yesterday.

Below are the key findings + my thoughts in blue for sponsors.

  • Australian cricketer Ricky Ponting is Australia’s most marketable athlete for the third consecutive year.

Despite bad behaviour (on or off the pitch) Australian sports fans are very forgiving, especially if you’re winning. (Shane Warne is ranked in the top 20)

  • Australian cricketers hold four of the top ten rankings for most marketable athlete.

Cricket is a bankable sport. It gets enormous exposure every 12 months at a time of year when nothing else is on TV and everyone is off work.

  • Seven out of the top ten most marketable athletes are retired.

Don’t be afraid to invest in athletes nearing the end of their careers. It takes years to build a credible brand and that credibility doesn’t disappear overnight.

  • There are no Socceroos in the top ten.

Don’t expect this to change anytime soon. Socceroos need free to air coverage desperately. The current anti-siphoning list expires 31 December 2010

  • Swimmer Stephanie Rice is the highest ranked female in seventh place.

Swimming remains one of the few sports that can provide the public with a genuine female sports star.

  • Cricketer Andrew Symonds has taken the biggest fall, from 10th place last year to 36th place this year.

It’s not difficult to go from hero to zero in a short time. If you stuff up, the Australian public and the media will cut you down, just as quickly as they built you up.

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Sponsoring a League/Event vs. an Individual

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Which is more effective? Sponsoring a league, club and/or event, or sponsoring an individual athlete?

It depends on who you talk to. Nike will tell you that individual sponsorship has built their brand. Meanwhile, Harvery Norman would argue they have benefited enormously from their sponsorship of Rugby League’s State of Origin series, with a spike in sales to prove it.

What is good for one sponsor isn’t always best for another sponsor. There are a million things to consider.

Both strategies have their own pros and cons. Sponsoring a league or event offers guaranteed and consistent coverage, more marketing and advertising resources, and some protection from competing brands. Meanwhile, individual sponsors are more at risk from red tape, inconsistent exposure, injury or bad behaviour.

However, don’t underestimate the power of individual sponsorship. When you think Shane Warne, you immediately think of Nike or even Advanced Hair. But can you name the Australian Cricket team’s sponsors during Warne’s playing days? Probably not.

On the flip side, Toyota has a great recall for it’s sponsorship of the AFL.

Of course, you can always do both. In fact, most players’ associations push for this strategy. When a sponsor signs with a league or event, they are often forced to spread the budget to include 2-3 ambassadors within that team or sport.

This negates the risk of being trumped by one athlete. A good example is adidas. They were an official worldwide partner of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. But they were blown away in the pool by Speedo sponsored Michael Phelps.

If you’re thinking about a league or event sponsorship, identify the standout athletes within that league or event. And ask yourself, do they have the star potential to overshadow your brand with their own endorsements? If so, you may want to re-think your strategy.

Posted in Cricket, Olympics, Rugby League, Sponsorship, Strategy | No Comments »

Why Not Combine?

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

A hairdresser cuts hair. A mechanic fixes your car. A florist delivers flowers. A taxi cab transports you. A baker sells you bread. A lawyer offers you legal advice.

A lot of businesses struggle to differentiate their services or products in a crowded marketplace. One solution to this problem is giving your customers a combination of services or products.

Not only can this give you a point of difference, but it can open up new markets.

Imagine a hairdressing salon that also offered an in-house fashion consultant? A coffee shop that also offered dry cleaning services? A restaurant with a roaming professional photographer? A gym that offered healthy cooking classes? Or a soft drink with an energy hit (Red Bull).

What business are you in? And what other services can be combined to add value to your customers and differentiate you from your competition?

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Good vs. Bad Customers

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Any business is good business. Wrong.

Why can a customer pick and choose a product or service based on their wants and needs, while a company or brand is expected to open their arms to whoever walks in the door?

No one likes to turn away new business, especially in this economy. But sometimes we have to, for the better good.

Bad customers (there is such a thing) can be detrimental to your business. They can waste your time and resources, give you a bad reputation, force you to miss out on other business opportunities, impact your quality of service to your existing loyal customers and cause stress and low moral among your staff (to name just a few things).

The best businesses pick and choose their customers carefully. Why? Because they know by cutting out the bad customer they can over-deliver to the good customer, which leads to increased loyalty, repeat business and word of mouth with other good customers.

Don’t waste time with bad customers. Cut them loose before your good customers walk away.

pdr0101l

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Reach vs. Frequency

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

There are many ways to attract sponsors. One such way, is to build an athlete’s brand in a specific market using specific media to attract a specific brand.

This is a long term strategy requiring patience and frequency. The athlete has to understand this – so make sure it’s what they want.

So let’s say you want to target a high end watch brand for an athlete? First you need to target the consumers who buy those high end watches. Once you’ve captured the attention of the consumers, then your chances of a watch sponsorship increase ten-fold.

The best way to capture the market’s attention is through the media. And the best strategy is to concentrate on frequency verse reach.

This means you target very specific media of the watch consumer and hit those people over and over with the same message.

Imagine if an athlete had a regular side column in GQ Magazine. Do you think a watch company would be more inclined to sponsor this athlete? You betcha.

It’s better to communicate your message to 100,000 consumers over and over as opposed to 500,000 consumers once or twice. Eg. Having your athlete appear in multiple fashion / lifestyle magazines will have a bigger impact on the watch sponsor than one appearance on Channel Seven’s Sunrise.

When building your athlete’s brand to attract a specific group of sponsors, concentrate on frequency over reach in your communications.

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Posted in Communication, Media, Sponsorship, Strategy | No Comments »

Australia & The 2010 Winter Olympic Games

Monday, May 18th, 2009

With the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games only six months away, let’s look at who the spotlight will be on for Australia.

The main medal contenders are:

  • Torah Bright (snowboarding)
  • Holly Crawford (snowboarding)
  • Jacqui Cooper (aerial skiing)
  • Lydia Lassila (aerial skiing)
  • Dale Begg-Smith (moguls)

What if Australia only had half dozen genuine medal hopes at the Summer Olympics? Imagine the wide-spread attention those 5-6 athletes would be given in the lead up to and during the Games by media and sponsors.

Well this is exactly the scenario we have for the Winter Olympics. An uncluttered opportunity for sponsors on a global scale.

Australia won’t produce multiple medal winners like the Beijing Olympics. This means the one or two athletes who do well for Australia in Vancouver will be glorified by the media and their profile cemented much like Alisa Camplin and Steven Bradbury in 2002.

So who should Australian sponsors be looking at?

Jacqui Cooper has a good profile with a great story and will find a lot of public support for her gold medal quest.

Lydia Lassila was famously injured at the last Olympics so has the profile and will be the subject of a media fairytale if she can win.

Dale Begg-Smith is a great chance at back to back gold but the accent and fact he lives abroad leaves him little warmth from the Australian public.

Holly Crawford is good chance but stopping her might be….

Torah Bright, arguably the world’s best female snowboarding talent. Bright ticks all the boxes, good looking, clean cut, super exciting to watch, great with the media and a smile to die for. She is a super chance for gold. Watch the media and public go berzerk if this girl wins.

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Athlete or Celebrity?

Friday, May 15th, 2009

Take two athletes. One features regularly on the back pages. The other shares time between the back pages and the social pages.

Which athlete do you think is more attractive for sponsors?

The second athlete of course. They have what advertiser’s call ‘reach’. They reach more demographics’ than the athlete who remains on the back pages.

There is no doubting the celebrity factor was a key influencer in Gillette’s appointment of Michael Clarke as an ambassador. This is Gillette’s first Aussie ambassador so you can be sure the decision was well researched. I’m guessing the bulk of Clarke’s responsibilities with Gillette lay in the use of his name, image and likeness for print ads and a possible TVC.

That means Gillette will look to take out ad space across as many mediums as possible. The more ‘reach’ an ambassador has the more cut through for Gillette.

Razors appeal to the fashion conscious guy as much as they do to the cricket fan. With Clarke’s celebrity profile, Gillette can run their ads in both Alpha Magazine and Men’s Style – with much the same impact.

Being a celebrity is nothing to hide from as long as you become a sports star before you become a celebrity. This gives your ‘celebrity status’ credibility. Ian Thorpe took a similar path and it seems Clarke is doing the same.

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Posted in Media, Sponsorship, Strategy | No Comments »

How Does Player Behaviour Affect Sponsors & Customers

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

Sport and sponsorship news reports that 60% of sponsorship managers have made, or plan to make changes to their sponsorship agreements to guard against negative brand impact caused by inappropriate off-field player behaviour.

On the flip side, a number of sponsors believe that the public is able separate player behaviour from sponsor brands.

So what does this all mean?

I believe the public does separate player behaviour from sponsor brands. When images of Michael Phelps were released smoking marijuana, the average punter at home didn’t stop buying Kelloggs. The public are smarter than that. What really matters here is HOW the sponsor REACTS to a player behaving badly.

This reaction by the sponsor is what the public is more interested in. The public want to know if this type of behaving is acceptable in the eyes of the sponsor? Sometimes a sponsor has no choice but to cancel a contract because of public backlash. Other times, the public is looking for a sponsor to have compassion. A brand can win votes both ways.

The reason why sponsorship managers want to amend agreements in this area is because tighter contractual control, gives brands flexibility to strategise the best approach to every crisis. The key word here is flexibility. A one glove fits all approach doesn’t work when it comes to dealing with a crisis. Sponsors need breathing room to craft the most appropriate response or action. Remember their customers are watching closely.

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Posted in Communication, Sponsorship, Strategy | 1 Comment »

Brand Building Part 2

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Most brands start off by targeting a niche market before they go for the masses. Coke was originally a patent medicine targeted at those with health ailments before it went on to appeal to a broader market.

For athletes it’s the other way around.

Athletes often burst on the scene appealing to a broad demographic which allows them to capitalise on a number of sponsors across different markets. But if they want to continue a successful brand post retirement they must concentrate on appealing to a niche market.

At the peak of an athletes career it’s easy to be everything to everyone. But eventually they will lose the qualities that made their brand and they will have to adapt and narrow their target market to attract sponsors.

So the trick to prolong the brand life of any athlete is to move into a niche market – make their name stand for something.

When you think Robert de Castella you think health and nutrition. When you think Nicole Livingstone, you think expert swimming commentator. When you think Greg Norman, you think business and golf course design.

For athletes nearing the end of their career, work on aligning yourself with a very niche passion that will stand you out from the crowd. Give your name credibility in one special area and watch as your popularity continues (albeit in a smaller market).

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Brand Building Part 1

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Brand trust and loyalty takes years to build, sometimes lifetimes. But a high profile athlete has the ability to build a successful brand overnight.

As an example let’s compare two brands.

1.    Chiko Roll
2.    Stephanie Rice

One has been around for nearly 60 years, the other about three years. One has spent millions on marketing and advertising, the other has coasted on free publicity. Yet both brands are equally recognised in the public eye and hold much the same loyalty and respect from consumers. How did this happen?

The emotion of sport backed by huge media exposure makes it easy for an athlete to achieve what most brands take 20 years to do.

The biggest challenge for an athlete though, is to change, adapt and evolve to prolong their shelf life. Athletes retire, they stop winning, they grow older. Suddenly all the qualities that made them attractive no longer exist.

In my next post I will tell you the secret to prolonging the life of an athlete’s brand.

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