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

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

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