In an area with so much opportunity, many fail to maximize their efforts in sports event marketing.
Walk around any major sporting event. Look at the brands: Who are they trying to communicate with and how? Are their brand ambassadors really connecting their messaging to their audience? Does it appear as if their event footprint is simply a regurgitated offering that spent the previous few days at another event, only to have been broken down, moved and then reassembled?
It doesn’t have to be that way. It shouldn’t be that way.
No matter the industry, event marketing is more than a pop-up tent, carnival games and giveaways, yet that is exactly how many brands view it. In truth, event marketing is a tactic within experiential marketing, and the one word that perfectly defines experiential is a form of itself: experience.
There are many misconceptions in sports event/experiential marketing. First, it’s too expensive. Not true, if brands know how to negotiate and have a clear understanding of the assets they are looking to obtain. Second, brands are just buying a sign or place at an event. If you believe that, the word “marketing” better not be found near your title. Third, brands can only participate in events that are currently in existence. Strike three. Rights holders can create new properties and spaces at events that brands can own.
These misconceptions, plus others, contribute to brands devising ineffective event marketing programs. Failures are easy to spot. They are the ones where success was not defined with the property prior to a contract. They are the ones that didn’t budget adequate funds to activate the partnership. They are the ones that did not have a clear understanding of the assets needed to accomplish goals. They are the ones that did not establish a means to measure a return on the experience during and after the partnership.
To succeed at experiential marketing, every event must provide value, be educational, be unique and elevate consumers’ passion for the sport. That means you cannot have dull games and tchotchkes in your 10-by-10 tent at a golf tournament. You must create a positive, interactive experience between the brand and consumer, and that experience must be designed with the consumer in mind. Experiences have to be about the people with whom the brand is interacting, and they must celebrate the passion event attendees have about the property. If you do it right, you’ll create a stimulus for the consumer to learn about a brand, sample it and build loyalty.
■ Preferred venue
Before you decide on what to include in your initiative, you must first decide on the proper venue. Of course, you need your target consumers’ presence, but that alone shouldn’t be the mitigating factor. You need to determine how highly engaged the consumer is about the sport and the event. If your target consumer does not have an overly passionate engagement level, look elsewhere.
Determining Geico’s preferred venues, for example, is difficult because any consumer who drives can be a potential customer. Whether through PGA Tour golf, NHRA Powersports or PRCA rodeo, Geico’s event programs work, however, because the brand develops partnerships with properties that deliver large audiences and Geico events create engaging activations. Geico’s events give consumers a reason to start a conversation with the brand through the lens of the sport.
In determining what events to engage with, marketers also need to analyze potential ROI and determine whether there is own-able space for the brand to occupy, based on the category and the event’s geographical setup. Your brand cannot be lumped in with the others.
 |
Red Bull’s marketing around Rajon Rondo’s King of the Rock provides fully immersive interaction.
Photo by: GARTH MILAN / RED BULL CONTENT POOL
|
■ Memorable experience
Once an event is determined, create a memorable experience (physical and digital) that engages consumers and initiates conversations about the brand as it relates to the sport. A great example is Red Bull, which takes endorsers and drives online and offline traffic through their properties, including Rajon Rondo’s King of the Rock (one-on-one tournament on Alcatraz). This experience provides a fully immersive interaction at every touchpoint: visual, auditory and sensory.
A successful experience begins by creating an authentic personal relationship with the consumer. Incorporate items like green-screen technology that allows consumers to take unique brand photos. Encourage consumers to share them via social media. Incorporate interactive touch screens and augmented reality.
Create ways that enable the customer to make the experience about themselves by, for example, using RFID that captures data on what interests a customer and provides them custom communication following the event, not mass emails. Train brand ambassadors that are as passionate about the property as the consumers and can talk about it like an aficionado.
Don’t rely only on giveaways. Giveaways provide good mechanisms for recall but they rarely result as the sole reason for the interaction between the consumer and brand. Instead, provide an experience that will build buzz among your target. One of Geico’s programs designed by RedPeg Marketing is called Geico on the Green, which has stops along the PGA Tour and is housed in a 30-foot dome shaped like a golf ball. Geico on the Green integrates the brand and brings brand attributes to life in the experience. Consumers interact with brand ambassadors, golf enthusiasts, who provide equipment tips and challenge guests to test their skills. In addition, Geico uses its current assets by having their endorsed PGA Tour golfers appear for signings and basic instruction.
While the consumers are interacting with the brand, collect data for further outreach. Registration cards, however, really don’t allow you to get to know the consumer, but an enticing engagement opens the door for more robust data capture because the experience attracts consumers rather than pushes marketing on them.
Consumers want to be in the conversation. They want to be part of brands they believe in. Purchase decisions are rational, emotional, personal and relevant. Far too many brands in sports don’t get that. They create a cookie-cutter footprint and schlep it around like some carnival attraction. That’s an experience no brand or consumer deserves.
Mercedita Roxas-Murray (mrmurray@redpegmarketing.com) is executive vice president, strategy/brand planning and operations of RedPeg Marketing, an experiential marketing company.
