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How United uses content, and why being interesting matters

Smart points of view from United Airlines CMO Tom O’Toole and Chicago Blackhawks President and CEO John McDonough interested me from our Brand Engagement Summit held late last month in Chicago.

O’Toole offered an inside look at where analytics and sponsorship fit within the No. 4 domestic carrier, while McDonough touched on his organizational and management style. Here are a few of their comments that stuck with me:

First, O’Toole said that when he was asked to defend his annual budget last year, the focus was on analytics and sports sponsorships. “The only line that the CFO said, ‘Are you sure you’re spending enough money? If you need to spend more, do it,’ was analytics,” he said. “The line that produced the greatest scrutiny, the greatest discussion, the greatest skepticism was sports sponsorships. Those were the two lines we spent the most time on. Are we doing enough in analytics and are we really getting our value out of our sponsorships, and are you really sure in how you are demonstrating that value?”

Asked how he justified the sports sponsorships, O’Toole said it was through proving the value of the deals.
“We can demonstrate the business value of these investments,” he said. “It also doesn’t hurt that we don’t just rotely renew these things when they come up. We have canceled some big, long-standing deals in the last couple of years, and that has the effect of giving us a lot of credibility when it comes time to defending the remaining ones.”

O’Toole implores properties to think about a sponsor’s target audience.
Photo by: DAVID DUROCHIK
O’Toole offered sound advice to the property representatives in the room about the type of relationship he seeks.

“Properties need to think in terms of multidimensional relationships,” he said. “In a three-dimensional relationship, we think of conventional elements, like signage, but then there is customer data, and third is content. … More and more, what we’re looking for are multidimensional relationships and different types of assets, and these are raising new questions.”

One such area is issues over content rights. “This is challenging for our sponsorship partners, but this is how we are creating more value that lets us answer the question of what is the value of these sponsorships to the business of United,” he said.

Exclusive content has become a differentiator for United, and O’Toole stressed that teams look to deliver more.

“Most of the teams, if not every team, with whom we’ve had relationships have great production facilities these days. Many are better than most local news studios,” he said. “They are all producing content. All of that content can find its way on United Airlines planes. It’s been my hypothesis that proprietary content can be a competitive advantage for airlines — meaning, the proprietary content that our sponsorship partners can provide, delivered on our aircraft and only on our aircraft, can be a competitive advantage for United Airlines. … We are introducing this into every one of our sponsorship conversations these days.”

He also stressed how properties must remember the target audience of the brands with which they do business, and made a clear case for audience segmentation.

“Please think of our target audience,” he said pointedly. “Our target audience is upscale, high-yield business travelers. Upscale, high-yield business travelers. Who does United Airlines market to? That’s it. So how do you take a sports property and orient it to producing business value specifically among upscale, high-yield business travelers? That is a conversation that can sometimes leave the sports property shaking its head and saying, ‘I don’t know quite what to do with that.’ Others get it immediately and can quickly think of ways to hit our target market, and that helps us immensely.”

The problem is that while all properties market to fans, it’s not all fans that most brands want to reach. In his direct message, O’Toole challenged the properties to develop assets that address his segmentation needs.

Meanwhile, McDonough offered a compelling message on management and leadership philosophy, rooted in a simple, yet challenging, premise: “Hire great.”

“I want young, enthusiastic, dynamic people that want to be part of something that has never been done before; people who pull for each other,” he said. “I want them to succeed, first and foremost, collectively. The individual part will take care of itself. I told [senior executive director of human resources] Marie Sutera, ‘Bring me great. I want people with high ceilings that are going to get along.’ We’re not going to out-Ivy League others; that’s not what I’m looking for. I’m looking for people who fit the way we’re going to run this organization.”

Photo by: DAVID DUROCHIK
During the interview process, he focuses on personality.

“I like people that are personable. I like people that engage,” he said. “If someone were to come in and basically just talk about how quickly they want to ascend through the organization as opposed to being part of something that is going to be — or is — great, that is always a red flag; if all I hear about is how they think their career is going to accelerate. But in an interview, I like to be knocked out, I love to have that personality tsunami challenge me. I like spirited, enthusiastic, dynamic people.”

McDonough also believes in a personal, approachable management style.

“I try to make sure that I stay in touch with everybody,” he said. “I want to make sure everybody has a voice. I don’t like the cascading effect that all the ideas come from the top. I love a lot of organic decisions. I want to make sure that everybody in the organization has a pulse. They know they matter. You know everybody’s names, you try to know everybody’s children’s names, you know about their parents, you know about their family — it’s important to remember these things. That personal touch goes a long, long way.”

He stressed to the audience the importance of listening.

“Listening is critical,” he said. “One of the things I tell our players and people in our organization all of the time is be interesting and be interested. Be interesting and interested. By being interested, ask people about themselves. Because we work in sports, everyone wants to talk about you, and it’s a real skill to be able to turn that around and 15 to 20 seconds later say, ‘Tell me about you, tell me your name, tell me where you are from.’ You come away from a conversation richer when you ask people about them. So be interested. And by being interesting, [it] means trying to read everything you possibly can … to be a good conversationalist and be able to talk very fluidly about a lot of different things, and make sure you listen to people and their story. Those things are critical touch points for me.”

That hit home for me, as my greatest frustrations are a lack of engagement, self-absorption and one-dimensionality.

Two views on two totally different subjects worth sharing with those who might not have joined us in Chicago.

Abraham D. Madkour can be reached at amadkour@sportsbusinessjournal.com.

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