AEG Inks Multi-Tiered Deal With Syntax-Brillian’s Olevia

AEG has signed a four-year sponsorship with Syntax-Brillian Corp. to place its Olevia brand HDTVs and other products into public spaces at AEG-owned properties including L.A. Live, Sprint Center, Staples Center, Red Bull Park and Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, California. The deal, announced at the National Sports Forum at a dinner at Staples Center Tuesday, makes Olevia a Founding Partner of each venue, receiving exterior signage, scoreboard and concourse exposure, hospitality and other usage of entertainment spaces, and category exclusivity at each location. At L.A. Live, Olevia will receive exposure on advertising towers, rotational displays and fixed signs. Olevia also becomes a sponsor of the NHL Kings and a Founding Partner of the Amgen Tour of California. AEG will also integrate the brand into company presentations, meetings and receptions, including the pre- and post-Grammy Awards reception at Staples Center next month.

MOVING TOWARDS SPORTS: Hope Frank, CMO of Syntax-Brillian Corp., which bought Olevia in December ’05 and relaunched the brand on September 1, 2006, said that the four-year deal was a “second pillar” in the company’s sports marketing plan that also includes the media buy it has with ESPN. The company’s low-eight-figure deal with ESPN ends this spring and the two sides are discussing re-upping. The deal, which took effect in September, includes buys on all of ESPN’s platforms, including presenting sponsorships of “SportsCenter.” Frank: “We feel comfortable with the quality of the two teams that we have partnered with, they are two extraordinary entities in ABC and AEG.” Frank said the AEG deal matched up with Olevia because “we’re both about content, hardware and software, we’re pretty similar. We wanted to be where there was real passion, and L.A. Live will have that. We wanted to get in first. You go in large or you go home.” Frank added, “We’re trying to show people that this is not your dad’s TV.” Frank stressed the attractiveness of getting involved early, “in the pre-launch of a project that has a global foundation.”

BACKGROUND: The deal’s genesis was via a correspondence between Olevia exec Rainer Kuhn and AEG New York President Nick Sakiewicz. Over a phone call in October, Sakiewicz felt the two should talk more and what started as a product placement deal eventually morphed into a larger, more comprehensive sponsorship. Frank first met with AEG in December when she flew to L.A. and met the entire AEG team, including AEG Sports President Shawn Hunter and execs from N.Y., K.C. and L.A. She said they talked more extensively at the CES show in Las Vegas in January. Field: “We really got to know each other at CES and we could see the global reach of the deal.” The final points of the deal were agreed to on Monday night. Hunter: “This is the biggest and most comprehensive marketing partnership in our history.” Frank handled the deal internally, as Olevia has no sports marketing agency (THE DAILY).