Michelle Palmer was recently elevated to president of sports at The Marketing Arm, with Dan Belmont becoming CEO of the Dallas-headquartered Omnicom sports, promotion and consumer engagement agency. Palmer has been at TMA for 16 years, working on a variety of accounts, with a focus on AT&T. Prior to TMA, she worked for SBC/AT&T in corporate advertising, and for fellow regional agencies Bates Southwest and GSD&M. TMA’s client roster includes such sports-centric clients as AT&T, Frito-Lay, Hilton, State Farm and Nissan. Palmer spoke recently with staff writer Terry Lefton about industry trends.
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Palmer’s top issue for 2016: marrying digital, experiential marketing.
Photo by: COURTESY OF THE MARKETING ARM
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■ What do you see as the biggest issue or issues in sports marketing for 2016?
PALMER:
There’s a digital imperative for every marketer, but I think we’re still trying to figure out what the next important digital manifestation in the sports world will be. So much has been in the experiential side. You need to marry those two sides. They should go hand-in-hand, but combining the ability for consumers to touch and feel a brand at an event and extending or complementing that experience digitally to a wider audience is something we’re all reaching for.
■ And, of course, there’s an increasing marketing imperative for “the ‘c’ word.”
PALMER: It’s all about content, so you see those holding strong content rights, like BAM, leading the pack. It’s different on the brand side because not all brands have the same relationship with content or consumers. A brand like AT&T delivers content, so they are all about the pipeline and getting it to the audience. Another [TMA] client is Hilton: Their place in sports is going to be different as far as leveraging sports to their benefit. It’s a totally separate approach.
■ Marketing to mobile devices is another mystery that needs to be solved for marketers …
PALMER: I worked at [SBC/AT&T] for three years and on the AT&T brand here at The Marketing Arm for another 16 years, and we’ve seen quite an evolution there. The development of live sports and mobile devices has already been fascinating and it will continue to be. We’re heading toward a time when you can watch anything, any time, on any device. Figuring out those rules, the rights issues, and how to monetize all of that is going to be fascinating and have a lot to do with who profits the most. Getting the right content into the right hands at the right time and at the right price will determine the winners and losers. … Of course, everyone’s still experimenting with what works and what doesn’t as far as advertising on mobile devices. That’s still unclear, but it is another content question: What you do and what consumers allow you to do will depend on the brand and what products and services are being sold. It’s a big puzzle now, but a fascinating one.
■ As the new head of sports at TMA, we’re obligated to ask you the “woman working in sports” question …
PALMER: I was one of pretty few women in the agency when I started [16 years ago], and we had maybe 25 people. Now we have more than 550 and we have a lot of women and a lot of senior women. That [equal opportunity] has never been an issue here. … On the property side, there are fewer women, especially from a visibility standpoint. That may be part of the issue: Some women are maybe not as aggressive and verbal. Men’s sports get the eyeballs and the money, so one follows the other to some degree. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of opportunity for women in sports and sports marketing.
