In-Depth
The Gatekeepers: Maggie Chan Jones
Chief marketing officer, SAP
SAP is different from most other sponsors in that it is not pitching a consumer product, but using sports to show corporate clients its technological know-how.
While SAP enjoys branding with the sports properties it sponsors, its primary mission is developing software to do
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Jones' work has her crossing paths with the likes of Martina Navratilova.
Photo by: Steve Lewis |
everything from running websites to managing tablets for on-court coaching in women’s tennis. It can then use those examples in marketing business outside of sports.
“For us it is no longer about sponsorship. It’s about strategic partnership,” SAP’s Maggie Chan Jones said. “We want to have partners that truly see SAP can help them grow their business as well.”
On SAP’s website, the software giant features six business leaders touting how the technology company worked for them. Four are leading sports executives: NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, WTA Chief Executive Officer Steve Simon and Under Armour founder and CEO Kevin Plank.
“This is a live business and it is all about live information,” Silver said in a video testimonial, describing how the league uses SAP to drive fan engagement and build its business. “What we are trying to do is take [our] enormous amount of data and translate it so our fans have it in a usable form.”
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| Photo by: SAP |
What Jones said she hears from other CMOs is the drive to get one view of customers across a business’ different units, from sales to marketing to finance, that often use different software systems.
“We are looking at how different companies are doing their digital transformation,” she said, “and the way you engage with fans continues to evolve.
“We are seeing partners say we want to reimagine the way they engage with their fans,” she added, “and what the one view of the consumer or customer will look like.”
■ A TREND SHE’S WATCHING: “It is the use of technology, because nowadays every business is a technology business.”
■ A RECENT PROGRAM/CAMPAIGN THAT WORKED: “With the NBA we worked with them digitizing the 70 years of games that they have and stats that they have and really building the website, which is on nba.com/stats. … We know that on average over 80 percent of people watching TV also have a mobile device in their hands. The NBA was able to increase the engagement with their fans.”
