Watch iSPORTCONNECT’s Feature Interview With Rory Stewart-Richardson, Founder & CEO of Connexi.
iSPORTCONNECT recently talked to Connexi’s Rory Stewart-Richardson to hear about how Connexi has been able to grow throughout Covid, brands and athletes better understanding the power of their voice, Esports in sponsorship and more.
Brandon Garcia, iSPORTCONNECT’s Head of Consultancy, has picked out his three key points noted from this week eMasterclass ‘The Key Role of Short-Form Videos in Digital Content Strategies’.
I would like to share with you, our iSPORTCONNECT community, a number of key-learnings from a very experienced and innovative panel discussion at our latest digital content strategies webinar.
Content segmentation
Using Artificial Intelligence and Automation is key to reach every layer and target audiences especially in a day and age when we are flooded with a constant flow of content. The quality also plays a big role in this efficiency exercise.
Available vs Behind the paywall
The right balance tried and tested by many leaders in the space.
All platforms aiming to have a profitable business but taking the step too abruptly on placing most content behind the paywall can have a serious detriment in the number of subscriptions generated and retained.
The human element
There are times when technology cannot replace that moment and the capture driven by emotion. The element of finding and connecting the story around the game is a gift that keeps on giving for a loyal fan.
Wasps Rugby Club are delighted to announce the launch of an innovative digital business club and networking platform with the help of Bundeling.
The new initiative, developed in conjunction with Bundeling and sponsored by long term club supporter Genesis Wealth Creation, will provide a unique business hub enabling existing Wasps partners to be connected to the club 365 days a year, meet new contacts, share business opportunities, and receive invitations to exclusive events.
Bundeling, headquartered in the Netherlands, focus on creating solutions to transform the way in which people come into contact with one another, how they maintain their business network and how they stay informed.
Genesis, a team of well qualified financial advisors, have been part of the Wasps family for several seasons now, initially sponsoring Wales International Bradley Davies and then supporting Thomas Young. Last season they continued their sponsorship of Thomas and agreed to support winger, Zach Kibirige. They are also loyal season ticket holders and often travel to away games to support the team.
Adam Benson, Wasps Chief Commercial Officer, explained: “This new digital offering provides a fantastic platform for our partners to engage with the club and its many stakeholders. It is vital, particularly in the current climate, that we continue to evolve our offering for the companies we work with. We are delighted that the team at Genesis have already seen the potential benefits of this and agreed to become an Official Business Club Partner.”
Genesis Wealth Creation partners, Roy and Sarah Perry, said: “We are delighted to extend our relationship with Wasps by committing to a multi-year agreement as their Business Club Partner. Over the past five years, we have made many strong business connections through the club’s sponsorship programme and are looking forward to building upon this.
“We would like to thank Wasps for this opportunity to build on our strong relationship, and also the players and fans who have accepted us as part of the growing Wasps family.”
“We’re thankful to iSPORTCONNECT for helping to facilitate the creation of this deal”
Bundeling CEO, Elroy Jansen, added: “We at Bundeling have a passion for helping clubs connect smarter with their new and existing partners. With the signing of Wasps, we aim to bring their communication with their partners to the next level! We from Bundeling wish Wasps a successful season and are looking forward to this great partnership. We’re thankful to iSPORTCONNECT for helping to facilitate the creation of this deal, our first with a major rugby club in the UK, and we look forward to creating more deals and helping to benefit more organisations within the sports industry.”
Ray James, iSPORTCONNECT’s Chief Relationship Officer, stated: “We’re delighted to be able to play a part in this new partnership, by utilising our industry relationships we believed there could be synergies between Bundeling and Wasps. From our own knowledge of having a digital community, we know the benefits a platform such as Bundeling can bring to an organisation.”
The cooperation of Seyu and CD Leganés shows that generating extra revenue does not necessarily depend on the stadium experience, but rather on a good idea.
Branding is crucially important to every company, but in sports it often carries an even greater weight in the significance of a franchise with its history. In this week’s Meet The Team piece, our CRM and Membership Manager Raghav Chawla looks at the importance of branding in sport and some recent major changes across the sporting world.
What lies at the core of all the marketing efforts? It’s branding.
In sports, brands are everything. Fans like us find identity in logos, those unique emblems elevate the singular symbol of the emotions and experiences of fandom. Branding gives a fan that unique identity and provides a personality with which we can relate to.
From a business point of view, there comes a point where the brand has to reconnect with its audience and needs to be updated to match their evolving personalities or to engage a new market with a different identity, and this is where the concept of rebranding comes into play.
Rebranding is a tool that could be used to recapture the excitement or to expand boundaries. The concept of rebranding in sports is risky since it requires a change in the existing culture, and a change of culture in a sports organization is not always welcome due to the sentiments involved. However, when executed correctly, it has been seen to induce a positive effect on customer engagement.
There is no particular formula for recreating a brand, it all depends on the situation and what an organisation wants to achieve with its brand.
Thankfully, we have a company like Cravens to ease out the process, it gives the audience insights that really help the rebranding process to eventually position one organisation stronger and better in the market. In addition to that, it helps the organisation to connect with brands, which facilitates the process of branding.
Here are some of the positives and negatives from prominent rebranding campaigns by some of the major Rights-Holders:
City Football Group
With more money being poured into the industry, the owners of Manchester City have begun to invest in multiple teams. A few years ago, with Manchester City having a rebranding, we also saw a somewhat similar New York City Football Club logo pop up, emphasising the uniformity within the brand.
New York City has a worldwide reputation as a city, but not so much as a football (soccer) city. This alliance with Manchester City aims to clamp down on the US market and make New York City FC a well-known club nationwide.
This is a multi-directional strategy, as it not just helps the flagship club, i.e. Manchester City to build its brand globally, but it also gives a reputation boost to the other clubs owned by the City Football Group.
From New York City FC to Mumbai City FC to Melbourne City FC, all of these clubs reap the benefits of shared Manchester City FC’s vision.
WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment)
When it came to their branding way back at the turn of the century, WWE (formerly WWF) had a fascinating conundrum.
They were already facing a legal battle with the other WWF (World Wildlife Fund) and also had to face a reputational issue, with professional wrestlers drinking beer, being generally violent and occasionally foul-mouthed. Hence, during the late ’90s, Wrestling was considered to be a product for teenagers and above.
What was fascinating about the whole rebranding was what it allowed the company to do:
The transition to WWE made it possible for them to remove the stigma attached to its brand and helped them to open the floodgates to a mass family market; something that the brand’s image was missing before.
The transition from the word federation to entertainment also helped the brand to claim that it’s not just about wrestlers, WWE can offer an “action soap opera” where the matches occur between “superstars.” And those “superstars” might not be just wrestlers.
They could be karate experts, parkour experts, ninjas, acrobats, street brawlers, Thai boxers, kick fighters, anything at all, notoriously having Floyd Mayweather ‘fight’ the Big Show at Wrestlemania.
Los Angeles Chargers
A classic example of reactive rebranding: minutes after the Chargers announced that they were leaving San Diego for Los Angeles, the team unveiled a new alternate logo incorporating the letters “LA” with a lightning bolt on its Twitter page.
The logo was immediately and widely ridiculed/mocked by fans, the media, and even other professional sports franchises, in part for its resemblance to the Los Angeles Dodgers logo. By changing the colour scheme of the new logo before scrapping it completely after two days, the team sought to defuse the controversy, by sticking to the mantra- “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
There is not always a need to discard a proven brand.
Cardiff City FC
Under new ownership, it was decided to change the Cardiff City’s brand as much as possible.
The football team which was known as the “Bluebirds”, always had blue kits and a blue logo.
In 2012, it was announced that forever blue Cardiff City would change their home kit to red with the traditional bluebird crest dropped for a dragon too. The Bluebirds had to play in red with their kit logo being a red Welsh dragon. This rebranding move sparked strong opposition from some fans who have held previous demonstrations.
Following the pressure from fans, it was then decided in 2015 that the club will be moving back to its original colour, i.e. blue and the club also redesigned its badge which featured a bluebird as the primary focus.
It could be understood from the above example that how history and heritage play an imperative role in branding and why it should be respected.
Major takeaways from the above examples
There are plenty of things to be considered when it comes to sports branding. The situation needs to be assessed and identified correctly, only then can it be figured out whether a reactive or a proactive approach is required to rebrand, or whether it is best to not try to fix something which is not broken.
The consumer or the fan needs to understand what the organisation is trying to achieve, while the organisation should know that if it tries to change every rule, it will lose its audience.
“Branding is not purely visual, it’s cultural, and a logo is not just an emblem, it’s a story.”
REFERENCES:
https://blog.designcrowd.com/article/818/10-sports-associations-which-recently-rebranded
On 19th November 2019, Ajit Pai, chairman of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), announced a public auction of the C-band spectrum (about 500 MHz of bandwidth between 3.7 to 4.2 GHz) to facilitate the development of 5G. The C-Band, a swathe of satellite spectrum that has been historically used for fixed wireless services, plays a crucial role in broadcasting and live production of content such as news reporting and sports feeds.
The Covid-19 pandemic has catalyzed all sectors to bet on technology. As a historical club and pioneer in Europe, SL Benfica has not been left behind but has decided to upgrade its purchasing process for both single tickets and Business customers. To do so, the club partnered with 3D Digital Venue (3DDV), which has virtualized the Estádio do Sport Lisboa e Benfica in every detail.
From on the scene in Melbourne, Michael Pirrie looks at how The Australian government and Australian Open organisers have battled to keep the event Covid-free, as it takes place with spectators back in the grounds.
Channel 4 will show exclusive free to air live television coverage of England’s Test series against India.
Starting with the opening Test from Chennai on Friday the 5th of February, ball by ball coverage of all four Tests will be shown live on Channel 4 and All 4. And for viewers who can’t manage the early 4am start, highlights will be available on All 4.
This will be the first time live Test cricket has been on free to air television since Channel 4 showed England’s momentous Ashes win in 2005.
Channel 4’s Chief Content Officer Ian Katz said: “This is fantastic news for all cricket fans in the UK. It’s been a long 16-year wait for the return of live Test cricket to free to air television but it couldn’t have come at a better time. What better antidote to the lockdown blues than an England Test series in sunny India.”
Channel 4’s Head of Sport Pete Andrews and Penny Mills, Head of Sports Rights, led the broadcaster’s negotiations to secure the deal.
Pete said: “We’re delighted to be showing live Test cricket on Channel 4 again and given the recent performances of both sides this series is set to be a cracker. We’re thrilled to have struck this deal with Star Sports”
Captained by Joe Root, England will be bolstered by their convincing 2-0 series win over Sri Lanka which takes them to five consecutive overseas Test wins.
England will face a buoyant Indian side which pulled off a remarkable Test win in Brisbane which saw them secure a 2-1 series win on Australian soil, despite not having all their first-choice players available.
The series schedule is –
New Balance used Hookit data and insights to identify its most valuable content to reach ROI goal of 300%.