Sports Marketing 2.0 | Pat Coyle

If you had $1 million to spend on sponsorship, which program, event or cause would you sponsor and why?

I think sponsors should look for the right mix of “reach” and “passion”. Passion is revealed by supporters who are ACTIVE and VOCAL, not just emotional. Of course passion can be dangerous because sometimes people can get passionate about stuff that not everyone cares about, or things that are contraversial. So sponsors need to guard against sponsoring things that can cause too much division, or at least go into such deals expecting pushback from folks who oppose that cause.

But finding a passionate audience alone isn’t enough. Big-brands need reach. The bigger your brand, the more MASS you need in your marketing. But if you’re going the “sponsorship” route, it’s important to balance size with passion. But further you try to “reach” the easier it becomes to buy media rather than activate a sponsorshp. I see too many brands buy national “sponsorship” deals that look more like pure media buys. Brands put their logos on sports leagues, for example, but rarely activate well at the point of biggest passion, at the TEAM level.

So what is the right mix for your brand?

If you agree that you lose passion as you gain reach, and you might lose reach as you gain passion, which property might give you the optimal mix? Perhaps there’s a way to plot your sponsorship strategy along this grid to find the best possible mix of passion and populaiton (i.e. reach).

I would submit that NFL team Websites might be the answer.

The NFL is the most popular sport in America. 60% of Americans are interested in the sport. Before the Web came onto the scene, however, it was impractical for national brands to customize sponsorships for each team in league, so many national brands bought “LEAGUE” sponsorshps.

A league-side sponsorship gives the sponsoring brand the rights to use league marks in their ads. Tyypically, these sponsors buy in-game TV spots to ‘activate’ their sponsorships. This strategy sometimes becomes diluted as the programs behave more like glorified media buys than pure sponsorships. Slapping a logo in your TV spot isn’t the BEST way to activate a sponsorship. Still, if you’re managing a national brand and you want to connect with fans of the biggest US sport, sponsorship at the league is an easy decision to justify. At least it was before the Web.

But thanks to the Web, sponsors can now more easily customize their sponsorships across all 32 teams sites, gaining direct access to tighter and more passionate affinity groups without giving up reach. On the contrary, add all 32 teams together and because you’ve increased your PASSION levels, you CAN get something more impactful than the sum of its parts (i.e. the league).

So what are you going to do with your $1 million?

To use a topical example: If you could buy a :30 TV commercial during the Colts vs. Patriots game this weekend or sponsor the game center on NFL.com or have a commanding presence on both the Colts and Patriots Web sites, which would you choose? I’m not saying you wouldn’t want to mix any / all of these together. I belive integrated programs can be the best. But what if you had to choose?

Before you answer, realize that your $1 million would let you buy both team sites for the entire season, not just one Sunday. Teams sites can give you banners, content sponsorships, E mail, video and even off-line suppot through events and hospitality.

When you connect at the team level, your sponsorship becomes a co-branding effort, aligned directly with a cause that fans support passionately. And you don’t risk alienating Colts fans by sponsoring another team too. Most Colts fans will never know you’re sponsoring other teams to. My point is that if you execute your sponsorship at the league level, Colts fans may notice, but they won’t care as much.

Go back and look at the grid. I’ve thrown a few “causes” onto the grid merely as thought starters. Where would you place them? Why?