Loading summary
Transcript45 lines
- [00:00]
A
This new monthly series on the Pulse is brought to you by Ipsos and Ipsos Creative Excellence. Every marketer knows the best creative starts with a strong brief, yet many miss the mark. In fact, Ipsos found that only 5% of brand marketers say the quality of the briefs that they produce are really good. That's why Ipsos has launched Creative Fuel. Creative Fuel is strategy research designed to help brands ensure the messages in their briefs are something both audiences and agencies can get excited with. Creative Fuel marketers can build confidence and buy in around simple, bold strategies that will inspire great work. So if you want to start fueling your next campaign with strategy that really moves the needle, check out Ipsos creative fuel@ipsos.com fuel that's ipsos.com fuel okay, so what is this new series on the Pulse? We're going to be doing an episode every month where take a topic that's in the news or of the moment and we dig into it with experts that are in that particular space. So, for example, we look to the summer months now. We've got the FIFA World cup coming up. It's a huge platform, global platform for brands. I think in terms of anticipated revenue, in terms of sponsorships and brand integrations, it's something like $2.8 billion. And when you look at the global sponsorship market, it's $104 billion in 2026 and it' projected to go to, I think it's $186 billion by 2035. So it's a massive topic. It's been in the news. So we're going to be kicking off this on the Pulse series with sports marketing and I'm going to be talking to Lisa Zelinsky is SVP Creative Excellence Strategy at Ipsos. We have Aubrey Curtis, who has been in the sports sponsorship and they define it as sports entertainment at Creative Artists Agency out of Los Angeles. Caa, a very renowned brand in that world. Aubrey is a global head of brand consulting at CAA and she's joining us. And Jamie Stanziano is EVP Executive Client Partner at Ipsos. It's a great conversation. There's an awful lot to come out of this and I would love to hear your thoughts. So as always, you can email me@hellonstrategyshowcase.com and if you're listening to this on the podcast platform, you can also watch it on YouTube or you can watch this episode on our website@onstrategyshowcase.com enjoy. So we're excited to do this first episode of on the Pulse with our good friends at Ipsos. And we picked sports marketing as a theme. And the reason we did that is I was sitting down one morning and reading some headlines. One recently is Kraft Heinz assigned a five year partnership with the National Football League. Another one, Kublisis, will buy WME sports unit. Another one, Verizon, scrutinizes the NFL and other sports deals. And lastly, the Netflix. Netflix looks to expand its NFL game package. It just sort of seems to be everywhere, Aubrey, where this sports marketing opportunity, everybody that can afford to be in it seems to be running toward it. Why is that happening, do you feel?
- [03:37]
B
Well, I've been in this space for 25 years, so I feel a little like, you know, welcome everyone. I would say you're right in noticing that it certainly feels like there is a lot of heat around sports. But you know, I would kind of back up a little bit and say we don't look at it as just sports as a category. You know, we really see sports and entertainment holistically and sort of bundle that together in calling it culture. And so I would say that there's probably very few major brands that don't realize that now they need to mean something in culture. They need to connect with audiences differently. They need to show up and have a presence. And so I would say the sort of wave into sports is a culture wave. But I would say more specifically in terms of sports, it's looking at where are their aggregation of audience, where is their aggregation of conversation? And sports is, as you can read everywhere, one of the last sort of true flags of monoculture where there is, you know, big mass audiences looking at the same thing at the same time and enjoying and relating to one another as well as what they're being entertained by.
- [05:08]
A
Is it partly because when you say you package it as sports and entertainment, is that because sports is being considered entertainment or because sports is bleeding into entertainment?
- [05:19]
B
I think a little of both. You know, I would say, I would say that as you start to look at where new audiences are coming from, women, Gen Z. I would say that sports is and, and sort of the content in and around it is being seen as entertainment. But I also think in general, yeah, I think sports is entertaining. And I don't think you can also pick apart the act of engaging and watching sports, part of, you know, engaging with what's actually on the screen from what else you're doing, the conversations you're having, what you're engaging with on social media, who you're talking to and what you do after the game or what you do after you've consumed the sports. That's all part of, I would say, the overall package that makes sports and entertainment one and the same.
- [06:07]
A
So Jamie, do you think of sports and sports sponsorships as being a necessity or a luxury for brands?
- [06:17]
C
I think certainly in the work we do in the data that we see at Ipsos, sports sponsorships are absolutely a necessity for of course this could be case sensitive to the brand, but overall more so a necessity. And I think Aubrey, you said this perfectly. Sports is culture and culture is sports. And some of the Ipsos data that we see speaks to the halo effect that sports can deliver to a brand. In one study we did, for example, 70% of live sports viewers stick with that content not just during the say linear broadcast of the game or the match or the event, but before, after. And there's this cyclicality and a longer term relationship that viewers and fans have with sports because of technological developments like social media and the access that they have to athletes and other areas of sports and even the business of sports becoming a pillar of sports culture in and of itself. So brands have a very unique opportunity and I would say more brands than years past because of these developments have a unique opportunity to be a part of those moments that go beyond just a micro dose of, of of engagement to a long time relationship, a long standing relationship that fans have with sports overall.
- [07:39]
A
But affordability has got to be a big, I mean if it's a necessity that blocks out probably 95% of brands. Lisa, I mean is it, is it, is, is it just for the affluent large brands?
- [07:53]
D
Yeah, I mean I think we see definitely a range of brands that are tapping into this space, whether it's like a full on sponsorship or really just trying to connect to a fandom within whatever they have planned. So you know, I think Aubry, as you were saying, like sports is really sort of that like last true mass reach cultural moment. And the Ipsos data shows that live sports are the number one appointment view category in the US So that is certainly the case. But I think what is the interesting driver behind that are things like, you know, people are seeing that in society right now. There's not a lot that brings us together. There's not a lot that we can agree upon. There are not a lot of good vibes about where culture is going and sports is sort of one of the last remaining sort of places where we can all kind of come together as fans from different walks of life. And so I think that's why you're seeing brands sort of, no matter what size they are, like hop, hop into this space, right, and hop on the bandwagon of sports. Whether that's this, you know, big investment in an, in an overall sponsorship, or really just trying to find unique and creative ways to insert themselves into that fandom, into that culture and into that moment in whatever ways that they can.
- [09:15]
C
One of the other aspects to build on here is for a marketer trying to inject its own brand into the world of sports. Right now there, there is the valuation conversation, right? And so which, which sports are underpriced as it relates to brands getting involved and which sports are, you know, perhaps at a level of investment where it might be hard for or three quarters of major brands out there to get in, or maybe there's a rights conversation to be had. But where is the attention and the valuation not yet saturated is the game right now. And we're seeing that with brands of sizable stature investing in up and coming sports in a way that 10 years ago we would have never have seen.
- [10:02]
A
To what degree is this sports culture overwhelming brand culture? What are the mistakes that are being made?
- [10:12]
D
Yeah, I mean, I think that there are certainly as, as Jamie was saying, there's just a ton of competition for brands showing up in these spaces. And it's sort of created this like, sea of sameness, if you will, where a lot of brands are just sort of hopping on the bad bandwagon and they're not being super thoughtful about how their brand really connects into that culture or into that moment. And you know, there are a lot of ramifications for not really getting that right. You know, in terms of consumers really expect you to show up authentically in those moments. And if you don't, there could be some negative repercussions of that because a lot of times consumers see that as sort of, you know, you're jumping on the bandwagon or you don't really belong there. And that can, that can actually hurt your brand's credibility. And there's a couple different ways that brands have really done that. Well, you know, a lot of times it's some sort of clever tie into like a multi year messaging strategy that they have. So if you think about something like Red Bull, where, you know, Red Bull gives you wings, they invest a lot in extreme sports, right, where you're, you're flying through the air, there's a clear connection to the brand for, for the audience. You might think about brands that have sort of like utility within those specific sports moments or they're on display during those sports moments. Something like, you know, Gatorade being showered on people at a football game, or, you know, IBM giving some sort of tie into what are the analytics happening behind sports. So that gives them some credibility in that moment. You know, you might be thinking about brands having a purpose or helping to support the sport or the fandom in some way.
- [12:03]
A
If someone was going to criticize sports sponsorships, they would say that, yeah, we're getting a lot of visibility, but are we getting any real impact? I mean, you can look at a logo appearing and dropping off screen and a logo on some signage, but what is that doing for the brand? And how do you better ensure that you get value for the dollar?
- [12:25]
B
I mean, it depends on how you're using the sponsorship, right? I think that there's real value, you know, top of the funnel to the bottom of the funnel, depending on how you're using it, how you're activating it. To expect that you're going to have some sort of outsized return when you're just placing your logo is. Is a complete mistake. You know, I would say, you know, first and foremost, you need to know your audience. You need to know what your audience cares about, what they're consuming, what they're passionate about. And therefore, you need to be targeted in and around their cultural passions, right? And then you need to really build a strategy around culture, sports and entertainment. And then from there, you need to understand, you know, relative to the sponsorship you're getting into what, how that partner values their assets and how they can show you where that return model is. But then, moreover, you know, as Jamie said, you need to start to get more and more sophisticated when you're investing of how you're building your own ROI model. You know, a lot of brands go into it and it's, you know, very top of the funnel. You know, brand to brand equity borrow to, you know, a borrowed equity play. And then they wake up and realize they've got to, they've got to move the needle on these other metrics. And so that's where things like activation come in. That's where, you know, sort of surrounding the surround sound of a sponsorship comes in. You know, the live event activation component of it. You know, we've seen a lot of success, you know, brand in hand, at a sports event in terms of driving lower funnel activity. But you have to be as sophisticated as you are in any other aspect of your marketing to really get into a deal, which will be expensive in most cases if you're you know, a large brand playing with large rights holders, it's going to be expensive and you need to spend against it even further to maximize it. But I don't think it's to some extent if you want to play in sports, which again back to the culture conversation you need to be doing, you need to be showing up in culture as a brand. If sports is your play, then it just is about how do you make the smartest moves you can.
- [14:29]
C
Aubrey, just to build off of what you're saying as well, there's also the conversation about non endemic partnerships in the sports world right now that's very different than the, the more what is that
- [14:39]
A
non endemic sponsorship, Jamie?
- [14:41]
C
Yeah, the notion that a brand that we as consumers might not include, immediately associate with sports can be a part of sports and made possible in large part by the fact that the product on the field, on the pitch, on the court, the athletes themselves are more than monolithic figures that we watch on TV during the game or the match. They're now showing us our lives, they're giving us access behind the scenes and as consumers themselves. That creates more opportunities for more brands and more categories to attach to sports in ways that, that, that haven't been really the case historically. And so what does that do? It allows non endemic, these non historically unconventional brands to partner with athletes, with teams, with rights holders. I'll reach your point earlier in ways that haven't really been the case historically. And that creates more of an opportunity and back to the affordability point, perhaps a lower cost of entry in some cases for brands to be a part of the sports ecosystem in ways that they haven't really been able to before.
- [15:46]
A
What's an example of that? Is like AWS an example of that or are there smaller brands that you can think of?
- [15:52]
C
Yeah, absolutely. It is popping up, Fergus, in every facet of, in particular on social. That's where really the non endemic opportunity I think is primarily. So let's take athlete X, who has a very strong following on the court, on the pitch, on the field, in their daily lives, is a consumer of perhaps income tax software, is a consumer of household goods, of CPG goods, who shops at retail, who, who uses the same nine direct to consumer apps that we all do every day for, for different services. And that becomes a huge opportunity for brands at in most instances a lower cost of entry than, than let's say the aspirational super bowl spot. So this non endemic wave in the sports landscape is, is a very big opportunity for brands who, who might not have had an opportunity to participate before. And the, the access to athletes, the breadth of sports, the intersection of sports with culture. Aubrey, to your point earlier, makes this happen and facilitates that. And it's only created more opportunities for marketers.
- [17:01]
A
The more the tentacles of sports, you know, reach into culture, popular culture. There's a case to be made that I can actually feed off of that without ever sponsoring any of it. Jamie, I see you nodding. Is that possible for brands that aspire to be that, that can feed off of it, build share, build impact, but they don't have to be official this
- [17:24]
C
or official that 1, 1000%. And the, the creator marketplace, the creator economy, is a perfect place to, to start. When we talk about where can a brand enter into the sports ecosystem in a way that doesn't require an official sponsorship with a, with a rights holder? And, and that, that would be identifying creators. And they might not, those creators might not have 10 million followers, but they are meaningful in their space. And if that, that meaning and that authenticity and that value can connect with where the brand is at in its maturation process, in its messaging, in its, its, its own journey, that can be incredible roi. And then from there, there could be a building block process whereby that brand then evolves further into, let's say, partnering with up and coming leagues, up and coming sports, pickleball, et cetera, that we see in the news headlines every day. There's, there is a progression that doesn't have to start with an $8 million Super bowl spot.
- [18:30]
D
When we ask consumers or viewers, like, what an official sponsorship brings to the table, they do, you know, speak to the idea of this sort of like, it signals that your brand has, like, financial stability, that it has credibility, it has relevance, quality. So there are benefits to that official sponsorship and the premium that it is worth. If that is something that, you know, your brand is really needing to signal right now.
- [18:59]
B
I completely agree with that. Lisa. I think you can't, you can't. Just because it gets more expensive, you can't say it's, you know, there's a million ways to work around it. There certainly is the IP value, especially if you're, you know, a CPG and you're trying to do product marketing and you're, you know, you want the rights to be able to use the marks, you know, take it to retail. That's a great use case for it. I agree completely that there is real understanding of what those marks, you know, the value those marks bring. I think even from a, you know, something as simple as employee, employee pride, that the mark of quality and a value of a company. And that, you know, you can say, I work at a place that's sponsoring the Olympics, that is, that's valuable and that's valuable to a brand, but that's also very valuable to a business.
- [19:50]
A
Jamie, I was surprised when preparing for the episode today to read data that supported how significant that return can be for brands that are official. I would have thought that wouldn't be the big hook, or it's a hook from a sort of working with your distributor's perspective or from building employee morale. But I didn't see it as a big hook. But I'm wrong. There is pretty significant returns that have been proven across categories over the long term.
- [20:19]
C
Absolutely. And we see this in our work every day. And one of the tie ins I would add to the ROI conversation here, Fergus, is with respect to the globalization of sports and how meaningful we sit here recording this episode in 2026 where we are thinking about World cup, we're thinking about different seasons of the Olympics, we're thinking about F1. This ROI conversation when it comes to sports for marketers in years past, I think it was more limited in scope. Think about a global brand and the opportunity now that it has to show up in homes, on screens, in feeds that it never had the ability to do prior with respect to the globalization of sports and how to. Lisa, your point earlier, Unifying sports is not just among populations but across borders. And so one of the big ROI vehicles that we see is when a brand attaches itself to a global sports moment, there's an outsized return when it comes to that. And historically, I think for marketers that had been maybe a little bit more limited, let's say, to the Olympics, that would come to mind for all of us most immediately. But now the opportunity is so much larger that brands are taking note of. It's a playbook, really, that we saw the apparel industry really tackle and deploy in the mid-90s to the early 2000s. And now for other brands outside of the apparel space, they are now following suit and seeing the outsize ROI being attached to global sports moments.
- [21:57]
D
So, Fergus, you were saying earlier that there's all these brands that advertise during the super bowl, but then there's only a collection of just a few of them that are remembered the next day. Well, most of those brands are brands that have committed to sponsoring the super bowl in, in a much larger way than just their 30 second ad break. Right. So like Pepsi is constantly one of the brands that is most associated with the NFL and it has to do with their sponsorship of the halftime show and of course, how they show up in the 32nd ad break and what they do around the sport as well, like the, the super bowl. Sort of like their home turf. Right. Same for Budweiser. Same for like Coca Cola with the Olympics, Visa. You know, they're, they're this big global brand that, that has been a sponsor year over year. And that's, that's really like part of what an official sponsorship does is it almost makes you commit to building that over time. And that's where the ROI comes in for those brands because they are implicitly associated with those sports moments.
- [22:56]
A
So, Aubrey, one thing I wanted to talk to you because of where you're coming from in this conversation. A friend of ours we both know, Jay Goodman, Super Connector Studios, he's in that branded content space. That's a fascinating area. Now, because brands aren't only sponsoring sports, they're producing their own content and distributing it through partners, which is sort of another way in. Right. So I'm curious what you think of that direction and what else is happening that is new.
- [23:30]
B
Yeah, I mean, I was going to build off of what Lisa's saying. I think that there's obviously the correlative value of the brand associating with the sports moment or the sports IP or the rights holder. There's a lot of brands. Now, I'll get into the branded content piece in a minute. Using sporting and or cultural moments as a means to build their owned equity. So take for example, and full disclosure, a client, our client T Mobile, that has this entity called Club Magenta, which we build and program, we take it around to sports and entertainment moments all across the calendar. And so when it shows up at Las Vegas Grand Prix, it obviously has a Formula One bent to it. But you're creating value for subscribers of T Mobile and specific categories of subscribers, and you're trying to get them to actually purchase more, buy more, and get people into the T Mobile fold. But that Club Magenta equity, showing up at Las Vegas Grand Prix and then showing up, you know, at Coachella or any number of other sport or entertainment, you know, moments is part of how sports are being utilized. Sports and entertainment are being utilized differently, which is to build your own equity and to show up and have a presence and a, and a meaning beyond just the associative value of the sponsorship itself. You know, using borrowed equity to build owned equity is one of the things that's happening. And then as you mentioned, the branded content piece, you know, and not just in sports. Obviously there are a number of brands who've launched studios and are looking at and trying to behave like producers. And that's been, you know, for, for brands that have an incredible story to tell, looking for content to develop that can further that story or deepen that story. It's not a direct brand story. It's really about what the ethos or the essence of that brand is and they develop original content is. Certainly it's been around, but it's being talked about a lot now. I think in the world of sports you can't underestimate the value of what, you know, box to box as a production company has done with, you know, drive to survive in the formula one they call the follow doc. And the follow doc in sports has become a whole genre of, you know, content that brands are looking at. How do we extend what we're already doing in a sport and find additional arms and legs to storytell around that, that sport through, you know, follow docs as one genre, a genre of, of content.
- [26:15]
C
I completely agree, Aubry. The other thing that we're seeing as well to your point about content production is that there is a win win opportunity here for both the rights holders and the brand. Let's take the Sephora tunnel walk, the unrivaled 3 and 3 women's basketball league. It is a phenomenal production vehicle for Sephora to create content. That content then extends outside of just unrivaled women's basketball fans into other audiences that might already use Sephora products, might not, but then will come into that unrivaled ecosystem to the benefit of the league. In exchange, Sephora then creates an incredible palette to produce content that then reaches new fans to Sephora that might not have used the products before. It's the ultimate win win, the ultimate reciprocity effect when it comes to well done branded content in and around sports IP right now. And, and let's, let's, let's acknowledge the, the unrivaled example. Unrivaled certainly does not have the same viewership of the super bowl. But I guarantee you that if you're Sephora, that ROI is significant for the investment that it puts down for that tunnel walk activation.
- [27:35]
A
So let's talk about a couple of examples that you guys or a couple more examples of brands that you think are doing a great job. And I'll start off with one. We've had them on the show, we've talked about it a lot is Dr. Pepper and Fansville. That seems to me to be a great example of a product that doesn't necessarily have a fit on the field but they talk about it as having a fit in the stands. It's not a Gatorade. It's not, it's a sugary soda. It doesn't fit well into performance for example. But they've done a phenomenal way of creating sort of a context and a strategy, a creative strategy with fansville that makes it a crucial part of college football during college college sports season. That to me and it's got tentacles everywhere and has been around for eight years plus it's evolved over time. That to me is sort of a best in class example. Jamie, what sort of strikes you as a best in class example that you kind of find a. Go back to the reference frequently.
- [28:42]
C
LA bank is doing an incredible job. It is a league wide sponsor for the WNBA in their sort of the league level and think about the other brands that stand next to it with respect to WNBA leaguewide sponsorships, Google, Deloitte, Nike, US bank, some of those historically in sports make, make all the sense in the world. But let's take Ally Financial. 10 years ago would we question that as a, as a sponsorship for a major sports league? Maybe. But today Aubrey, to your point, it is an incredible best in class scenario of how a non endemic brand is activating successfully in the sports category in a big way. And I can only imagine that partnership going further and wider. Another one that comes to mind for me is and this is across multiple examples is AWS when it comes to next gen stats. We've seen this over the years with respect to Sunday Night Football and that is just an incredible, incredible example of again a non endemic brand activating in sports with impact and, and knowing AWS that that is an incredible ROI for, for, for that brand to be present in the way that it is showing up when it comes to I would say its core target audience but also a wider target audience and, and they're getting sort of a, a double, a double effect here where not only are they, are they delivering an outsized return to their, to their core buyers or customer base but also broadening the top of funnel appeal more widely.
- [30:27]
D
Yeah, I think Fergus, I like your example of Dr. Pepper because I think it's a good example of forging a path pretty much purely creatively. Right. Like they have created this sort of fan centric narrative that they use and how they identify with college football fans. So it's really making the brand synonymous with that game day experience and like the way that they continue to come up with what are some insights into college fandom that they can really bring to life creatively. So I like that example just from a pure creative standpoint. But I think another good example that I come back to a lot, I'm a tennis fan. I really like Rolex as an association with Wimbledon. I think it works on a lot of levels. I think they have, it's over 40 year history with Wimbledon. It's probably longer honestly. And timekeeping is obviously a really important aspect of the game and it's something that's evolved over time. And I think that they can talk about how their brand has sort of evolved with the way that timekeeping has changed in tennis. And it's also just like this overall vibe of the vibe of Wimbledon, matching the vibe that they want to get across about their brand. So it's kind of working on multiple levels of that utility factor of like, yes, there's that there's this very rational connection, but then also the emotional connection of like how the brand feels really just like fits with that event overall.
- [31:55]
B
I think one of the examples, you know, and just maybe calling up a different category of looking at sports sponsorship is, is how a lot of the brands that you would say are more B2B brands, you know, client service brands or you know, supply chain brands are activating in sports. I mean, I think, you know, we mentioned the aws, you know, the saps, I would say the Deloitte's, you know, certainly Salesforce does a great job of utilizing sports for, you know, what a lot of these we've talked about, again about the Masters. What a lot of these events are, is just great business networking and building long term value and building a sales pipeline. And so often when we look at our roster of clients, you know, we, we certainly have great B2C brands, but we've got a lot of brands that, you know, have some B2C resonance but are really in sports. For a B2B objective in a lot of ways, you know, we'll take KPMG for example. They did an LPGA partnership and built the Women's Leadership Summit. You know, all around, not just about the sport of, of golf, but around women in C suite places, C suite seats and you know, empowering that those conversations around a sporting event is great B2B marketing. It's great long term value building, relationship building. And so I think that there's a lot of great cases to be made for Sports playing this B2B leverage in creating value.
- [33:33]
A
So how do you get the Creative theme. Right. Because back to the point earlier about super bowl and back to the fact that I know even some of the IPSOS data points to the fact that so many brands are not getting it right in terms of their creative ideas. I think Uber has it right. I think many of the brands we've talked about here have got it right. But that seems to me to be a critical component because if you're not creating the right commercial message, if you're not activating upon that, you are obviously going to impact dramatically the end game roi. Lisa, what's at the heart of that? How do you get it right? Because you almost have to redirect the core of what your brand is in the context of sport in a way where it doesn't take over the message of the brand.
- [34:28]
D
Yeah, I mean, I think you have to think about what are those like, really? I mean, for a strategist this is like amazing, right? Amazing to work, to work with. What are those connection points between the brand and the fandom? And fandom is so, I mean it's so rooted in identity and ritual. It's like this form of self expression. There's all this nostalgia around it and there's all of these really cool sort of like deep stories and human understanding that you can really tap into and all of these different facets of what happens around sports and this multi generational aspect of it. There's so many different ways that you can go into it as a brand and it's really about understanding that fandom very deeply from a consumer first perspective and understanding, like where are the meaty parts of that that intersect with what the brand is trying to say and where the brand can show up. And I think a lot of times what we see is that brands don't take the time to do that deep work and that connection building and understanding and so what ends up happening? Or maybe they just over assume that consumers know more about their brand than they actually do. So a lot of times we see brands that are like, well of course everyone knows we've been sponsoring this for 10 years and so we can just say we're the official sponsor of whatever and leave it at that. And that's not the reality. Like they're not thinking about you every single day like that. And so all that they see is a logo slapped up on there without any meaning or connection. And that is a huge missed opportunity in that moment to just really make those pathways clear for the viewer of like, I get it, I understand why this brand is showing up here. And that helps with the impact because obviously you're driving your messaging strategy, but it also helps to make sure that you don't seem like you're just showing up in a moment because you wanted, you know, attention and notoriety as a brand and have some backlash around that. I think we're seeing that right now with the World cup, where, like, a lot of brands are sort of trying to find their way. American brands especially, are trying to find their way in this moment, and they. They didn't do that work to deeply understand the fandom and how their brand should show up there.
- [36:44]
A
As we wrap up here, one last question for each of you, and it is we. What do we need to be doing less of, and what do we need to be doing more of in this space of sports marketing? I'll start with Jamie, then I'll go to Lisa, and we'll end with Aubrey.
- [37:00]
C
Absolutely, Fergus. I think in the world of sports marketing, there is a lot of attention in this space, even more than in previous years. And I think for marketers who might be listening to this, don't fall into the trap of the sea of sameness. And despite how powerful sports is as a vehicle for your brand, do not ignore creative quality. Creative quality will be the variable in which sports sponsorships, sports activations, sports campaigns stand out in and amongst the crowd of the massive amount of attention that is being placed upon sports right now from a marketer perspective. So just because sports historically has sold itself does not mean that that's the case today. And marketers need to be very acutely aware of their creative quality in a sports context, despite how powerful sports is as a vehicle.
- [37:54]
A
Nice, Lisa.
- [37:55]
D
I would say less vanity chasing or just one off, slapping your logo on something because an executive said that they wanted the brand to be present in that moment. And more thoughtfulness around the intersection of the brand's communication strategy and the context of where it's showing up. Exactly what we're talking about right now and doing more, you know, primary research and work with the actual audience to understand where that intersection is and where you can credibly play. Because fandom is very tricky. It's really tricky to assert yourself into something that's been being built for hundreds of years a lot of times, and really understanding that and understanding how your brain can show up.
- [38:46]
A
Yeah, I mean, fandom is. Is an episode in and of itself, for sure. Aubrey.
- [38:52]
B
I would. I would say, you know, build a cultural portfolio. Think about, you know, where you play like you're building an investment portfolio. You know, they don't all need to be blue chip stocks. They can be, you know, smaller investments in more experimental ways to enter the sports space and I guess to the sea of sameness point, you know, try to think of novel ideas. Where are there places that, you know, through the deep audience work and insight work where you can bring to life something different and invest a little marketing R and D money into the space. Because it's not just all what, you know, what's the money that's been spent and kind of the big investments. It needs to be a well rounded portfolio, high to low and really targeted against the end goal, the objectives that you have for your brand.
- [39:47]
A
It's Aubrey Curtis. She is co head of global brand consulting for CAA Creative Artists Agency. It's Lisa Zelinski, svp, creative excellence strategy for Ipsos. And it is Jamie Stenziano, executive vice president, executive client partner for Ipsos. Thank you all for taking time to come on the show and talk about this. The first on the Pulse is in the can, as they say. Really thank you for your time.
- [40:15]
B
Love it.
- [40:15]
D
Thank you.
- [40:16]
C
Thanks so much, Fergus. Thanks for having us. Appreciate it.
- [40:18]
A
And we'll see everybody on the next episode.