Welcome back to The Activation, where we breakdown branded worlds across sports and entertainment. Our aim, to make you the smartest person in the room when it comes to sports and entertainment sponsorship activation. Thanks for reading. |
Happy Monday!
Small admin update, we are here with a new structure to The Activation newsletter.
Monday: Hidden Gems - Bitesize activations that haven't been plastered all over LinkedIN packaged up to share and inspire
Thursday: Breakdown - A sponsorship breakdown from across sports and entertainment
Lets get into it
#1: The Rolex Hour - When the sponsor is the good guy
One of the most underrated branded activations in sports is also one of the simplest.
Rolex has a long standing relationship across the professional golf ecosystem, but I think their 'Rolex Hour' has the most impact.
Its a carved out uninterrupted hour of ad free broadcast coverage for golf fans, executed not only for the majors but also other PGA events.
Its a win win for fans and Rolex.
Fans love it as ads interrupting live coverage at critical moments often brings groans - golf coverage in the US gets a lot of stick for this.
Fans vocally love it on socials.
And for Rolex its such premium, confident real estate - no fluff, not forced activation - just giving fans what they want.
Plus the commentators are well versed now to thank the Rolex Hour for this uninterrupted coverage.
More branded activations could start from a place of "how do we make the experience better for fans" vs "how do we insert ourselves into the experience to grab attention".
There is a reason they keep doing it year after year.
So simple.
As sports continues to get pulled away from free to air TV, I think sponsors can play a huge role in being the ‘good guy’ in an ad free/increased access way.
A neat example of this a few years ago. US fintech brand Ally told CBS they'd increase their media spend if the NWSL Championship moved to primetime on broadcast television. CBS agreed. It was the first-ever primetime NWSL Championship. 915,000 average viewers, 71% up on the previous year. Fans loved it.
#2: Bare Performance Nutrition - Brands building owned assets
Red Bull set the model many years ago for brands owning their own competitions and content and we are now entering an era where this is becoming much more common place.
Enter Bare Performance Nutrition who are setting the new template.
They are currently in the middle of the 2nd iteration of their ‘Go One More Ultra’ which sees 145 runners complete a 4.12mile loop, every hour, last man/woman standing, until there is one person left (at time of publishing its day 4, coming up to mile 300 and there is 2 people left).
They are not only setting a benchmark for branded activation but they are pumping out content which matches and in some cases exceeds elite rights-holders.
It’s a brutal, gritty, emotion heavy format, which gives has carved out this compelling place for BPN as a nutrition brand in the community, and aligned with the Rolex example above, the content quality serves fans in such a way it’s creating real brand stickiness.
They document each loop live on Instagram every hour, the Instagram shots are raw and real, but the showcase is their real-time YouTube long form content.
Daily 10-20 minute episodes produced to the same levels as the hey day of YouTube daily vlogs.
Brands - the new standards are being set.
#3: Bank of America - The nostalgia formula to create sponsorship idents people love
We’ll end with some feel good.
Making unique sponsorship idents isn’t easy. They can often feel formulaic and serving only to the brand.
But these Masters idents from Bank Of America really stood out.
They paid homage to iconic Masters moments, by recreated them with kids, which perfectly aligned with a grassroots golf initiative.
Whilst kids involved in activation is always a feel good cheat-code, the nod to them recreating famous moments with the commentary really grabbed the attention of fans.
It’s often assumed when you become a sports sponsor, fans will instantly love you for it - I think we all know that’s rarely the case - good on these brands for bucking the trend.
Have an amazing week.
See you on Thursday for a breakdown on AWS B2B sponsorship masterclass.
Rich
PS: This ones for the rights-holders - I’ve been building a Sponsorship research agent for lean, time poor, sponsorship and brand partnerships teams.
It conducts comprehensive brand research and builds bespoke pitch strategy in minutes.
We already have some of the biggest rights-holders in sport using the tool and finding time savings of 80%, and we have a launch offer currently live where access to the tool costs just £1.62 a day.
You can watch a demo here for more, or to claim the offer head to sharmidon.com