Social Networking & Sponsorships

When will sponsors tap into the power of social networking as part of their sports sponsorship strategy? Think about it. People at sporting events are already emotionally engaged and pre-disposed to interact (ever sit between a Sox and Yanks fan?). Although teams are slowly rolling out stand-alone sites (Cavs, Trailblazers), activity in this area has been slow to mature and disjointed. Corporate brands that pay millions for access to rabidly loyal consumers have yet to figure out a strategy to recycle and extend this expensive affiliation through social networking. What's the answer? Start by drawing 2 circles, one for your selfish brand desires (it’s OK) and the other representing the true attributes of how fans engage with their home team and express their passion. What's the relevant overlap? Somewhere in this shared space is the place to start thinking about a social networking strategy. Remember, overt plays are dangerous in this space…much better if consumers discover you and are surprised. Welcome to the community!

- Peter Stern

Stadium Sponsorship and Naming Rights

What’s in a name? It’s all in a name. Everything at every entertainment venue is for sale (with the exception of a select few--but we’ll get into that in a bit). The fact is, everything now offered at a sports venue is state of the art with the sole purpose of creating an ideal entertainment experience. This allows owners to market their team’s assets including sponsorship, naming rights and stadium deals. How did they make money years ago when they just sold tickets and hot dogs? Stadiums were once named for heroes and legends of the past, whereas now naming rights go to the marketers committed enough to engage in the ultimate partnership.

The cost to build a stadium exceeds the billion dollar mark. Owners and teams are finding ways to make the big price tags worthwhile by maximizing selling space in addition to naming rights. You can be sure your actual seat or even the toilet stall will soon be branded. With the rising costs of building a stadium, you can bet naming rights fees will go to record levels as well. Just this year, the New York Mets sold their new stadium’s name for $400 million over 20 years; a new record. In theory, at $20 million per year, the cost of stadium construction is already half-covered. Don’t worry, that record will be broken before next year by the NY Giants/NY Jets new stadium. It is currently expected to fetch $25-$30 million per year. Who knows what the new Dallas Cowboys stadium’s rights will sell for?

The new deals being signed in the marketplace are designed as such elaborate partnerships between brands and teams that the corporations themselves are embedded in the building. Car companies having whole sections branded with cars on display. Beer and spirits companies owning every consumption and purchasing area they can. Some teams now sell the name of the building and then separately package the entry gates and areas where fans enter. The time is soon coming when every piece of potential real estate will be sold with a branded name; it’s time that marketers and venues fully admit it and prepare for it.

- Robert Molloy

Extending the SuperBowl Beyond the Broadcast

The yearly anticipation leading up to the SuperBowl broadcast has increasingly focused as strongly on the commercials as the game. Whole segments of viewers tune in more to see what Budweiser will bring to Super Sunday than the athletes. Over the years, a select few ads have been indelible, remaining burned in our memories within the context of the uniquely American holiday that the SuperBowl has evolved into. The various Bud Bowls, the Cindy Crawford / Pepsi sensation, even GoDaddy.com used the bully pulpit of the game broadcast to launch their brand identities.

The cost of a spot has more than doubled from $1.2 million to $2.7 million over the last ten years. Many perspectives exist as to the value derived from this exposure…over and above the record-setting number of eyeballs and eardrums reached. Will dancing lizards sell Sobe Lifewater? Will gargantuan carrier pigeons drive shipping business? Will people inspired be inspired to try SalesGenie.com?

The truth is that SuperBowl spots cost what they do for one reason, because they are worth it and cut through the increasing trend of ratings erosion. But to sink all a brand’s hopes into this one shining moment on the national stage is only the beginning of an effective activation strategy. The reason for this is the innately scattergun nature of television “mass” advertising aimed at everyone and no one at the same time. While this approach takes advantage of the juice generated by the event and reaches an unmatchable audience, the interaction between the consumer and the brand is incomplete. In order to build a truly impactful brand connection, SuperBowl advertising is an ideal launching pad for engaging consumers with deeper touchpoints as part of a more complete strategy for consumer conversion. Only by combining this type of media push with below-the-line efforts can brands truly influence the affinities and preferences of today’s savvy consumers. An innovative 360 degree strategy can be anchored by a major media splash, but without an integrated strategy behind it including PR, event marketing, online / viral activity and promotional extensions, the effort is incomplete at best.

The SuperBowl ad competition is a yearly reminder of the power of both traditional and non-traditional marketing channels. As these costs and audience sizes continue to rise, results will only follow when brands find ways to find their audience on a number of levels and change the game.

Who will they be?

- Ken Seligman

Sundance Film Festival - Ambush Marketing

With the writers’ strike forcing cancellations of award shows, people are hearing more and more about how it is changing marketers’ plans. The obvious effects that everyone hears about include cancelling TV buys, altering creative, and migrating to non-traditional vehicles. But you don’t hear much about how it more residually changes the ambush marketing game.

I’ve been in Park City for a few days before Sundance Film Festival even starts and it’s already apparent how many more brands will be in town this year. It’s predominantly because this year, Sundance is where the influencers will be more than ever, as well as their legions of followers. With Golden Globes parties cancelled and other awards shows on the list of endangered species, movie stars, producers, wannabe stuntmen, directors, aspiring writers, groupies, and actors/authors/choreographers will soon converge on the snowy town. And the brands will follow.

On top of the official Sundance Film Festival sponsors leveraging the official marks of the property through official activations, there will be plenty of brands attempting to leverage the concept of Sundance through unofficial activations. It’s an interesting and continually evolving phenomenon that includes every type of gifting suite possible, influencer-only parties that everyone thinks they’re on the list for, brand experiences in the most random of places, and plenty of free swag.

The feeding frenzy begins...

- Jason Blake

Importance of Non-Linear Engagement in Reaching Younger Consumers

‘Traditional’ marketing has been altered (not broken).

No where is this more apparent than with younger males in today’s marketplace. The picture you see of your M18-34 customer is real and needs no touch up - gaming, on-line, mobile, broadband, YouTube, Facebook; they live in different places. So, it’s time to make your brand also travel to these places. Great examples in the marketplace exist because they respect the turf on which they are trespassing. Consider Pepsi’s integration with the Halo 3 launch and Nike pop-up stores; great examples of changing your brands mix to be relevant and achieve real engagement by immersing (and marrying) your brand into your customer’s lifestyle experience.

Time to rethink the ‘08 & ‘09 plan!

- Peter Stern

Fan Affinity

The same media types that decry the recent wave of questionable morality in sport are the ones who reap the greatest rewards from it. They take on a superior attitude when relating the latest indiscretion, skirting of rules or bonehead comment as if to instruct us in exactly what should offend us and to what extent we should feel slighted. They try to sap the fun and excitement from the field of play to bleed it into the off field story…making what happens outside the lines the big story in what is ultimately a blow to the sport. But what they can’t account for, what they’ve never found a way to contain and what they NEED to be focused on to grow their business in conjunction with the entertainment they cover is fan affinity.

Fan affinity is one of the most spectacular (think Lambeau Field on a Sunday) and most frightening (think European soccer riots) social and economic forces to develop as it is only barely predictable and can create a fierce loyalty between a consumer and a brand or property. People just don’t walk away from their teams like they do from their favorite shows when they turn stale. If their favorite actor or actress makes a movie that looks terrible, they will stay out of the theater…but even horribly flawed franchises draw their most loyal of fans through thick and thin.

Too often, media thinks that they need to cater to casual fans by emphasizing the sensational and the peripheral, but people don’t feel passionate about these distractions, even if they do lean their head out of their proverbial car to see the car wreck now and again. Affinity cards, loyalty programs and web presences that allow fans deeper access to feel more a part of their teams have proven widely successful as they fan the flames of the passion that already exists in a true fan. Why couldn’t the pre-game shows, sports news shows and press learn this same lesson and focus on what the fans of the game really want to see and know more about? Something tells me that as proof of loyal fans increases, advertising and marketing dollars will closely follow…

- Ken Seligman

Taking brands to great places

Whether it’s a CMO devising ways to drive sales volume, an agency creative-type conceptualizing the next new platform, or a grad student cranking out a fictional holistic plan, marketers are continually looking to take their brands to innovative places. A cursory observation of the latest marketplace action illustrates just about a little of everything.

A no-brainer winner this summer was the Simpsons/7-Eleven deal while the EA SPORTS/Diet Pepsi “Call Your Play” program for Madden is one of the stronger brand partnerships in the video game world. A clever tie-in with Balls of Fury created a custom Nintendo Wii game while just about anything associated with Hot Import Nights feels authentic as the property has successfully leveraged a niche lifestyle surrounding the car scene.

Even something as simple as a smart media buy through contextually-relevant advertising has impressed me as HP, tripadvisor & Continental Airlines among others have infiltrated the LinkedIn community before the entire world catches on.

And I have to give a plug to one of the better reinventions of an exhausted paradigm. AT&T has turned the old-fashioned radio station “win your own concert” contest into a seamless demo of their technology through an interactive Dave Matthews Band promotion.

That’s just scratching the surface of what’s out there now and what the future will bring. While it is always a challenge to take brands to new places, it will always be the best way to guarantee the right consumer connection – something all of the above concepts are realizing.

Feel free to share other examples you’ve seen and I’ll keep sharing mine.

- Jason Blake

2008 Beijing Games

Welcome to our agency blog!  We hope you find this section of our website informative, useful in solving challenges, and perhaps even entertaining.  My first entry has me thinking about the 08 games in Beijing.  As you may have seen in the Extra, Extra section of our website, we just completed an 08 Olympic partnership for one of our flagship accounts; The Hershey Company.  This deal (U.S. only) got me thinking about the impact the Beijing games will have on global brands.  Having traveled to China on business, I witnessed first hand the people's incredible spirit and commitment to innovation--I was awed at the development of cities like Shanghai.  It's hard to imagine how any brand isn't pointing (and investing) at opportunities in China.  After walking around modern cities with construction crane skylines and then traveling a few blocks off the beaten path, I quickly learned the delicate balance between booming capitalism and fragile poverty.  It made me realize that yes, brand bets in China are needed, but you better have a long term view and, MOST importantly, patience as the marketplace achieves wealth and real consumer spending takes hold.  Nonetheless, nowhere will the power of sport be on display more than the 08 Beijing stage.  And, if you are truly a global leading brand, how do you not find a way to use the Olympics as a springboard for your business?

-Peter Stern

STRATEGIC Lends a Helping Hand in the Community

Giving back to our community is an integral part of the spirit that drives the culture at STRATEGIC. We recognize all that the NYC community provides us and feel a moral obligation to give back when we can. On July 24, 2007 STRATEGIC took our hard work from 31st Street to Corona Park to complete our annual community service project. Under sunny skies in Queens, we spent the day improving the city park and making it a more enjoyable place for everyone. We began the day picking up trash around the property, making the park safer, sanitary, and visually appealing to the hundreds of people who use the facilities on a daily basis.

Next we grabbed some paint, rollers, and brushes and showed off our artistic abilities. While one group of the STRATEGIC staff repainted light-poles throughout the park, the other painted benches that were in desperate need of a touch up. Both groups succeeded in making the park look newer and brighter. At the end of the afternoon, we truly felt that we had left the park better than we found it.

Looking at the work we completed, Corona Park staff member Kathy Dallojacano said "this was a great group of hard working people who went above and beyond what we expected from them. Corona Park is grateful to have such great volunteers who care so much about improving our parks and our city." We felt just as fortunate to be able to have a positive impact on such a beautiful park and give back to the city that has been so great to us. We all have work to do, clients to service, and places to be...but every once in a while we take a step back and get involved trying to improve our community by taking ourselves and our agency to a place they've never been.