Sports Marketing – Forget the Logo on the Hero

In 1985 South Africa saw a total corporate sports spend (including direct sponsorship and leveraging) of R113 Million. In 1998 the figure was R1, 625 Billion. In 2002 the figure is R2, 731 Billion (Source BMi-Sport – www.bmisportinfo.co.za). A runaway growth curve, in anyone's book.

But before you get too excited, consider this:

The adult television audience rating (AR) for the Proteas versus Sri Lanka match at the ICC World Cup Cricket was 14,6. Generations, The Bold and the Beautiful and Yizo Yizo (all aired during the same week) outscored the national team with 18,4, 15,6 and 15,1 respectively.

So, just how effective is sports sponsorship from a branding perspective? Well, it depends on how you go about it. Sports Marketing Surveys in the UK found that 52 percent of British sports fans said they saw no difference between sponsors and organisations that advertised on the stadium boardings. Significantly, 64 percent of the fans said sponsors should do more for the sport.

Clearly, the big winners in sports sponsorship of the future will be the brands that really climb into the industry and start to deliver value to fans and sports bodies – as opposed to merely associating their brand with winning teams or figures. In short, the increasing commercial saturation of the sports sector is making it very difficult for brands to differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack.

Generations, The Bold and the Beautiful and Yizo Yizo reach the mass market audience, while it could be suggested that sports such as rugby, cricket and soccer have the ability to reach and influence the higher reaches of the LSM scale – target audiences with disposable income and passion for their team (and hopefully their team's sponsor). But in the new century, simply stamping your brand on the winner is not going to do much to build your brand – all winners (and in fact, most teams) are heavily branded. You might score associative points, but it is highly doubtful whether your target audience will respond with much more than a quick backward glance at your logo.

In addition, there is the rather nebulous factor of defining exactly what a winning team is, or might be in the future. Sponsors of the Proteas, for example, undoubtedly received minimal rewards from their substantial investments, thanks to a dismal South African performance on the pitch in the recent Cricket World Cup.

Clearly then, sports marketers have to move past the old 'brand the winner' paradigm if they are going to show real ROI (Return on Investment). In this regard, brands dealing in emerging technologies seem to have been gifted a head start on the pack.

A case in point is local brand, Nashua Mobile, who deliver a bouquet of data and voice services to consumer and business users, across the three South African cellular networks.

Nashua Mobile sells products that are based on current and rapidly emerging technologies, such as SMS and MMS (camera cell phones). One of the major challenges for the brand is to introduce consumers to the value that its products offer. More to the point, Nashua Mobile needs to get away from the 'techno mumbo jumbo' that turns so many consumers off, and move towards how fun, funky and downright useful its offering can be. For a brand that has always leaned heavily towards sports sponsorships, the opportunities to move into an entirely new dimension of sports marketing seem endless.

"We are in the fortunate position in that our products lend themselves to interactivity, and consequently we moved away quite a while ago from one dimensional sponsorships, such as the logo on the shirt or the field," says Doug Mattheus, Nashua Mobile Marketing Director. "We try and get the team and the fans to interact using our technology as a platform. This is our philosophy – to use our technology to facilitate the lifestyle and enjoyment of sport."

Nashua Mobile is involved in a range of interactive sporting sponsorships, from the Southern Gauteng Women's Hockey team to the Springbok Rugby Supporters club and the Activate TV show on Supersport. These campaigns are facilitated by partnerships with other industry leaders, such as with Vodacom and Nokia, in the case of rugby.

While Nashua Mobile's sports marketing initiatives are all underpinned by traditional elements, such as logos on shirts and on-field branding, they all make substantial use of personalities, sporting bodies and fans in promoting the products, and the brand.

So, the sports stars are equipped with the latest cell phones, and they snap away while on tour - emailing pictures back home or to relevant partner web sites. When a rugby player is injured, for instance, he will visit the corporate boxes during the game, cell phone in hand.

Given the significant entry barriers (the most important of which are cost and user education) to emerging technologies such as MMS, the Nashua Mobile approach to sports marketing wins on all counts. Crucially, it rests on a high degree of interactivity between the brand, the sports personalities and the fans themselves - leaping quite easily over the high entry barriers.

"The players are young, and are very techno savvy," says Mattheus. "So they can demonstrate the product brilliantly with what is generally an older market – which is also where the learning curve is the highest. I nearly fell off my chair when we gave first gave the rugby players these phones and saw them whizzing around on them!"

The principle of interactivity can be extended to meet almost any sporting situation. So while most golfers could probably care less about MMS technology, they might well be captivated by the promotional team on the course taking pictures of them in action - and emailing them directly to their inbox at home, or the office.

Regardless of the sport, the interactive element of the sponsorship introduces naturally resistant target audiences to the value of the offering. The interaction with the brand also happens in a fun filled, de-stressed sports environment. Where better to be interacting with your consumers?

"In the near future we will be offering fans an electronic pre-paid top up service, on the stands," says Mattheus. "This is geared at the guys at the game, and gets away from selling these services from a kiosk. Other services we have in the pipeline include allowing people who are watching the Sundowns / Wits game, for example, to get the score from Chiefs / Pirates game, via SMS. Here we're talking about a whole range of services, such as team selections, half time scores, full time scores, 'the captain's view' and so on. Obviously these services will focus initially on SMS, but will also feature a strong focus on MMS technology as well."