Marketing payoffs and challenges in a cross-platform world

Reaching sports fans on a wide range of platforms has never been easier, but creating an authentic and lasting impression is still a challenge for marketers, said panelists during the final panel of the 2012 Sports Marketing Symposium. Brands and leagues that employ smart and targeted messages that are native to each platform will do the best, they said, but speed is also important. “You can tell stories as they are evolving,” Waller said. 

 

IMG’s David Abrutyn pointed at the London Olympics as proof. “Historically, in the Olympics, the top sponsors have always done well, but the big story this year was [that] the local sponsors were activating on platforms like Yahoo, Facebook or Twitter,” he said, referring in particular to British Airways’ sponsorship of team Great Britain. “They made a lot more noise than they historically had because they were able to tap into these platforms.”

 

Mark Wright of AT&T talked about the challenge of creating well-crafted targeted marketing by referencing his company’s promotion of Olympic champion Rebecca Soni after she won the 200-meter breaststroke event. AT&T was not a LOCOG sponsor, but had USOC rights. 

 

“Actually being able to air that right after on NBC took an immense amount of coordination — getting approval from USOC legal [and the network],” he said. “It did great things for the brand.”

Fisher talked about State Farm’s “Discount Double Check” platform with Packers QB Aaron Rodgers, and said the decision to extend the advertisement came due to immediate fan feedback, which used to take more time to measure. “You now have instantaneous feedback with customers,” he said. “Public perception was clamoring for more – more brand messaging, more understanding of what Discount Double-Check was.”

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•