Digital Business & Sports: Breaking the Innovator’s Dilemma- Oscar Ugaz

It is a very interesting situation with opportunities no less interesting. How to break the innovation dilemma in what is regarded as “digisport”? Please allow me to suggest some advice:

For clubs / sports organisations:

• Work to find the connections between digital business and other marketing areas, and look for positive externalities. How can these new assets help enhance sponsorship deals? Is there a new pool of potential subscribers for the membership program? Can it help to distribute our video content (maybe ad supported) in a cheaper and wider way? If digital is evaluated only by itself, you will only see a modest amount of money generated in comparison with other mature and tested business models.

• Don’t set weak benchmarks and get frustrated about them. It’s not only about numbers of fans, followers, comments or tweets. It’s about engagement and conversion. They are ratios that put big and small organizations to “compete” side by side. Its not about the size. Its what you do with that size.

• Spin off a team inside your organisation with resources and leave them to experiment in this new environment. You don’t require an army of experts, just a very small group of clever people. It’s not about big budgets; it’s about intelligent, insightful and focused approaches. “I’m too small for digital” is a lazy excuse.

• Demand information, insights, knowledge and cooperation from other areas. Use this to get ready for the future. In that future (in some cases this is the present) sponsorship relationships will demand new ways to activate in digital (you will need data to make your pitch and assets to deploy it). It’s possible that you will negotiate TV match or highlights rights with new digital bidders (are you going to understand how they work and your opportunity cost to make a good deal or walk away?). Maybe you will be required to understand new licensing models and the opportunities around them or find new ways to create and develop products or services.

• Stop playing it safe. You will only produce lame content, mediocre products and zero new knowledge. No one will pay attention, or buy, no matter the shield you put on top. Nowadays, the most dangerous option is playing it safe.

For digital marketing professionals:

• We are in an economic crisis because banks and brokers sold one another bad debt. Today, social media “experts” are trading connections and actions unlikely to yield anything meaningful also. Stop bragging only about tweets, comments, likes and number of fans. By itself, they are irrelevant. Start talking also about business: traffic, conversion, membership affiliation programs, merchandising sales, saves in the aforementioned activities.

• Be honest if the business numbers are not already “big”. The worst thing we can do is generate false expectations.

• Don’t concentrate on yourself. The only way to succeed is to cooperate with other areas and produce not only direct business, but also externalities. By ourselves, we are not meaningful. Demand that interaction and cooperation.

Sports, especially football, produce some of the greatest content of our time. In a chaotic and in some ways “uncertain” time for digital business, the opportunity will be only for those who are serious and get focus enough. If we do it well, it is going to be a great time. Digital Business & Sports: Breaking the Innovator’s Dilemma. 

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About Oscar Ugaz:

Oscar Ugaz is the Regional Project Director at Phantasia Wunderman, a digital business consultancy.

Prior to joining Phantasia Wunderman, Oscar enjoyed a extremely successful spell as Digital Business Manager for Real Madrid C.F, where he managed the club’s e-commerce, online video business, commercial strategy of realmadrid.com portals and social media strategy. He is responsible for launching the club’s Facebook (currently 25millon ‘likes’), Twitter (currently 2.5million followers) and YouTube channel (currently 54million views).

With a career in digital marketing spanning over 15years, including projects with major brands such as Movistar, SABMiller and Toyota, Oscar often travels the globe as a keynote speaker, often participating at events and conferences on Digital Business Strategy.

He has an MBA from Universidad del Pacifico (Lima, Perú) and has been Consultant and Teacher Assistant of the Wharton Business School GCP Project.

Twitter: @oscarugaz

Oscar Ugaz’  

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