The Sponsorship Challenge for Football – Andy Kenny

The new Barclays Premier League football season is about to start and its commercial success shows no sign of slowing down – 1.46bn people across 211 countries follow the League, with 615m fans globally supporting a specific team. On average fans spend 4.5hrs a week keeping up to date with the League through a multiple of channels. TV rights revenues are up 70% in the UK, and 300%+ in the US. Despite warnings that the ‘Premier League bubble’ will burst sometime soon, it is only showing signs of speeding up.

And so the Premier League makes for a very attractive platform for brands – global reach, relevance across demographics, high volumes of media coverage and key associated values such as performance, passion and success. These are the qualities and benefits that major companies want to associate themselves with. But there are challenges that the Premier League, FA, clubs and brands each need to overcome.

For brands, they need to demonstrate that they understand football, and the football fan, if they want to get meaningful cut through and generate a return for their business. Built off fan insights, they must develop creative and engaging campaigns that meet their needs, emotions and passions – and provide fans with benefits and rewards which will make a difference to them. It’s an often used example but the work Coke did around their Football League sponsorship a few years ago is a perfect case study – a global brand made relevant across each of the 72 clubs, and the ‘Win a Player’ campaign was a creative way to deliver what fans wanted (and coincidentally increased sales). Barclays’ Ticket Office promotion, where fans could win a pair of tickets every 90 minutes, is another example. In short it’s about enhancing fans’ football experience, not interrupting it. If you follow that through as a brand then your audience will grow to trust you, and are then more likely to purchase your products and services. Building and maintaining brand trust is the Holy Grail for any business these days.

But there are a lot of brands in football, especially those who are involved outside of the big clubs, who appear to be involved because of the coverage from their logo being on TV, and the associated media value. We have seen this across the betting sector for example, where brands are clamouring to grab our attention and gain credibility. But this is a short term approach and these sponsorships risk becoming nothing more than regional sponsorships as logos become ‘wallpaper’ very quickly. This approach has led to the frequent churn of sponsors at those clubs outside of the big Premier League teams – brands need to be proactive, creative and invest in the partnership if they want to build trust in their company on a national or global level.

For those governing the League there are issues with protecting the positive values associated with football, and promoting all the good things that happen in the game from the grass roots upwards. Let’s face it the image of the modern Premier League footballer amongst the general public isn’t always the most positive. In today’s world where the value of a brand and its associated values are so important, then I think it would be naive to think that there isn’t a concern amongst some companies about associating themselves with football.

There is also concern over the increasing costs for fans to follow the game they love – last season we saw clubs returning allocations of away tickets as fans protested at the prices. Those in charge need to ensure that the fans’ needs and concerns, especially in a tough economic climate, are heard and addressed where they realistically can be. Under a League wide commitment to improving the experience of away fans, we have already seen the likes Stoke and Fulham bringing in new initiatives around offering free travel for away matches, and more are likely to follow – and there is an opportunity for brands here.

The Clubs are now receiving an increase of £25m each year from the new TV deal but they need to use this money wisely and seek out new marketing opportunities by embracing digital and social media trends and technologies, and target new markets. In addition it’s vital that the rights holder has a robust CRM programme in place so that they have a clear understanding of their fans and their background and habits – this is invaluable data for brands to access, and the least they should expect.

And importantly Clubs need to focus on building closer, longer term relationships with their commercial partners. This is based taking the time to understand the brand, building a close relationship and in being open, creative and flexible in how they work together. It should be a genuine business partnership and not an ‘us & them’ situation.

Of course the football commercial juggernaut will no doubt continue to grow and brands will want to associate themselves with the ‘beautiful game’ given its huge reach and appeal. However, all the stakeholders have challenges to ensure that they maximise the return for their business, and to protect the values and image of the game.

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Andy Kenny has over 15 years’ experience in the industry, and is Managing Director of brandRapport Sport & Entertainment. With offices in the UK & Asia, the agency develops and implements creative brand engagement campaigns for the likes of Allianz, Barclays, Chivas, Heinz, Jaguar & Samsung.

Andy’s

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