Posts Tagged ‘Athlete’

Car Sponsorships

Friday, March 13th, 2009

When you sit down with an athlete and ask them for a dream list of sponsors (effective way to learn about the products they believe in and admire) one of the most popular answers is a car sponsorship. Sounds reasonable, but is it worth it? Well if the car company is a manufacturer as opposed to a car yard, is a combination of cash and product and the partnership adds value to your athlete’s overall brand positioning then go for it. Otherwise tread carefully.

Firstly, if the car brand doesn’t align with your athlete’s brand then don’t do it, that’s a no brainer. If the car company is a car yard, they won’t have the budget to do quality advertising around the partnership, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try, and your talent will look ordinary. And lastly, if there is no cash incentive then you’re selling yourself short.

Unfortunately most car sponsorships in Australia are product only. What a great deal for the car company! While other sponsors are paying market value to be associated with your talent, the car company gets all the same rights for the price of a car that really doesn’t cost them much. If I’m an athlete do I really want to be doing X number of appearances and photo shoots for the equivalent of $35,000 (or less) when my market value is six figures?? I’d rather give my time and energy to sponsors who are paying me market value and then buy my own car without the headaches of additional commitments.

It’s also important for athlete’s to remember that managers don’t receive any benefit from product only deals, yet they have to service the relationship. This takes up valuable time and resources that could be better spent on more lucrative deals. Don’t get a car deal for the sake of getting a car, make sure it makes sense.

fire_cartoon_character_driving_a_blue_car_and_waving1

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Sponsorship, Strategy | 2 Comments »

Think like an Elite Athlete

Friday, March 6th, 2009

Having worked alongside elite athletes you soon realise they are incredibly disciplined, focused, and competitive and have a laser vision of what they want to achieve. You might not be an elite athlete, but if you want to achieve something then you need to think like an athlete.

The first step is to know what you want to achieve. A good question to ask yourself is what would you do in life if you couldn’t fail? Dream big, because the more desire you have for something, the more you’re willing to fight for it.

Next step is to believe you can achieve it, imagine you have it, Olympians won’t tell you but they believe they are gold medallists long before they get to stand on the medal dais.

Take one step at a time. Do this by chunking your dream into achievable goals with dates to achieve them by.

Brainstorm a list of ACTION items you can do to achieve each goal, pick the best ones and here is the secret……take action. It’s amazing the power one little step will give you, the energy and confidence you get from taking any sort of action strengthens your belief to achieve it.

Stand on the shoulders of giants, that’s people who have achieved what you want, successful people love to give advice, simply ask.

Review your progress but don’t dwell on the strategy, as your desire, belief and willingness to take action will get you there. P.S. 90% of people won’t do this, and that’s why the top 10% get all the rewards.

Tags: ,
Posted in Personal Development | 1 Comment »

Twitter

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

twitter-birdMore and more celebrities are starting to take advantage of the social networking site Twitter. For those who don’t understand the platform watch this video or read this text. Now why should an athlete be on Twitter?

Firstly, let’s look at one of the basic reasons why brands sponsor athlete’s. Athlete’s help put a face and personality to a product or service, and that human element helps the brand CONNECT with their target market. Brands try to achieve this connection by way of athlete appearances, consumer promotions and above the line advertising etc. These are all great, but are often expensive and sometimes a scatter gun approach to actually REACHING key customers.

So how does Twitter reach key customers? To give you a rough example of the power of Twitter, let’s say you’re selling a product and want to make 2,000 sales. Using your ambassador you decide to put an ad in the sports section of the paper (hoping it hits some of your target market), it costs you $30,000. A small percentage of your target market reads the paper, an even smaller percentage see your ad, and a smaller percentage actually take action. You make the 2,000 sales but it cost you $30,000. Now, just imagine your ambassador has 10,000 followers on Twitter, but these aren’t any ordinary people, they are fans who are INTERESTED and PASSIONATE about your ambassador. The ambassador has built incredible trust with his/her followers through daily tweets about their lives. Now instead of spending $30,000 on a newspaper ad, you ask your ambassador to tweet about your product with a direct link to a page that allows consumers to purchase that product. How many of these passionate followers do you think will click on the link? A bloody big percentage and all of a sudden they are at the check out counter. You easily get 2,000 sales (probably more) and it cost you nothing.

Twitter isn’t for everyone, but for those athletes that want to better connect with their fans and add value to their sponsors then I don’t see a better platform.

Some quick rules. Please don’t use a PR person to Twitter on behalf of your athlete, fans see right through this which defeats the power of Twitter. What you put in is what you get out. And don’t let your athlete abuse the service by over promoting their sponsors, they need to interact first, then promote, then interact some more.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Social Networking, Sponsorship | No Comments »