Social Media? So what?

A recent study has come out claiming that less than half of the top 200 companies in Asia are using Social Media.
The conclusion from the study:

"Asia's top companies must make social media a core component of their corporate marketing and communications, both at home and abroad"
 - Bob Pickard, President and CEO of Burson-Marsteller Asia Pacific

Note:  This research was carried out by a PR firm owned by WPP Group the same day WPP announced it was taking its social media platform global.  I'm sure the two arn't connected...

That aside, the obvious problem with statements like the above is that ultimately it does a disservice to effective use of Social Media. 

Whilst I clearly think a blog, twitter, facebook and youtube can be useful tools they are not right for everyone and I am reminded of a client of ours who still does not have a website ten years after it became a 'must have'.  Ironically they are a marketing company.  They don't need it, they don't want it.  They have 400 staff and huge billings, they know who their clients and their prospects are and they see no need to invest in the web. 

Think how much time and money they have saved by focusing on their core clients and what they need over the last 10 years instead of following trends and building a website/social media profile that wouldn't serve them.  Each year for the past 5 years I have said, 'this is the year that you have to get a website'.  Each year they have said no.  Each year their billings have gone up. 

Shows how little I know...

Silver lining to a 'bad' sponsorship.

It has been interesting being in Asia and following Standard Chartered's sponsorship of Liverpool football club.


On the face of it this season has been a 'bad' return for them. The team has been playing horrible football and there has been a protracted board room battle for control based almost exclusively on financial mis-management and un-manageble debt. Much of the talk has been whether Royal Bank of Scotland would end up owning the club. And that would have been a pickle, Standard Chartered sponsoring RBS.

Anyway, the ownership crisis is, for now, resolved. Debts have been paid down and Standard Chartered came out yesterday in defense of their record investment.

Whilst Gavin Law's comment "almost a shame that [Liverpool] had sorted out the ownership issue, as they're no longer on the front page of the Financial Times" is a valid point, the other side of it is the people that they were trying to reach with this deal, the hundreds of millions of Asian football fans, arn't the ones reading the front pages of the papers.  They are the ones turning straight to the back page.  They are the ones already wearing Standard Chartered branded football shirts and they are the ones keen to sign up for the Liverpool credit card.

One of the reasons that you have a multi-year deal in sponsorship is the value of the deal should increase over time and it allows for the odd bad season.  Whilst it is important to track any metrics you can, a sensible evaluation of the investment after less than 10% of the contract has run is pretty much a fruitless exercise.

The real measure will be four or more years down the line when we see how many new accounts Standard Chartered have opened in a region where 100,000 people a day are becoming 'middle class'

My guess is they will have no problem defending it then.

Sports 2.0

Great presentation on Sport and Social Media. 

Sports 2.0: Game On

View more presentations from Espresso’s Infiltrators.

A huge amount of content to digest but will be exploring some key elements of it over the coming weeks.

Visualising sports data

Sports fanatics love their data.  The wider and deeper your knowledge of your team or chosen sport the higher your seniority amongst the hard core fans.  Of course someone new to the sport finds this utterly bewildering - and that is part of the point.  Cliques or Tribes or Cults often use a certain 'language' to help bond their members.  And exclude others.  In sport that language is the knowledge of team stats and history which is used to quickly sort a genuine fan you might meet from a 'plastic fan'.


All this is a round about way of saying the guys over at Juiceanalytics.com have created a cool way for for sports geek and casual fan alike to learn more about American Football stats.


Click the image below to head over there and play with it.




With the popularity of Fantasty Leagues in many sports this kind of tool could be very useful.

Sport that gives back

With all the hype this week about 'Greedy Rooney' and other over paid Premiership players, it was easy to miss two other stories that came out.

Ryan Giggs and Sir Alex Ferguson both re-affirmed their committment to UNICEF, pledging another one million pounds.
And Didier Drogba announced his second fundraising ball to raise money for the hospital his foundation is building in the Ivory Coast.

As always though, most of the charity work that footballers do goes unreported as it is considered un-newsworthy.

--

I was trying to resist adding further comment to the Rooney saga, but...
It does seem to me that the whole argument about whether or not he is 'worth'  200,000 quid a week is largely missing the point.  Rooney's skills, a CEO's experience, a Rolex, or a cup of water all have no intrinsic value unless the market assigns one to them.
All that happened this week was a business transaction that got played out in the public eye.  No different from a million other business negotiations that happen the world over each day.

In my opinion there are 200,000 better questions to ask before you get to 'is Rooney worth it?'

More rugby coming to Asia

The Rugby Lions are coming to Hong Kong.

Whilst the Hong Kong 7's is widely regarded as one of, if not the best, 7's competition in the world, there is not that much in the way of the full 15 game being played in Asia.
Japan is definitely strong but it can only help the region to see more of the top players competing here, if only for one game.

In other Rugby news the Bangkok 7's event is due for next weekend (Oct 30/31st) and the following week sees the Singapore 7's kick off.

Formula 1 in Singapore no more?

The city state of Singapore is apparently reveiwing the feasibility of remaining involved with F1 in the long term.

There are a lot of reasons why the city might decide it no longer needs the event (disruption, projects like the casino already starting to be effective draws, not getting the returns it expected), but I suspect this has far more to do with being a negotiation tactic then a serious thought of withdrawing.

I can't think of any other sport that Singapore could be involved with on an annual basis that could create this much buzz. 
Last year I wrote a paper on Sports Tourism in Asia and focused significantly on Singapore's desire to build itself as a sporting hub in the region including covering the first event:

This event attracted nearly 100,000 trackside spectators with over 40% coming from overseas. Up to 500 million viewers watched the spectacle on TV worldwide and it is estimated by the Singapore Tourism Board that it generated US$100m back into the country.

I have yet to go through the figures for last year but unless there  was a significant drop I think Formala 1 fans in Asia can relax.

Still, you can't blame them for trying whatever techniques they can to negotiate with Bernie!

Guaranteeing Performance...

Over at the Business of Sports blog, Russell Scibetti and Jon Kander have an interesting conversation about a new trend of tying sponsor guarantees to on field performance.

Whilst any trend happening in the US is worth watching closely here in Asia I think a more interesting approach is already starting to happen with guarantees based on spectator performance.
 

If it is a hotel, how many nights bookings did we push through them?  If it is a car, how many test drives did our spectators sign up for?  Beer, how much was drunk etc.

On field performance is pretty much out of our control but if you align the event organisers objectives with the partners (sponsors) then there is a lot you can do to funnel spectator behaviour.  Especially if all parties are aligned with creating a better experience for the fan.

The flip of this is that if you are taking away some of the risk from the client, there is also the opportunity to share some of the upside.  A percentage of revenue generated for example.

This is a really where calling sponsors 'partners' starts to come into it's own.  Both organisations aligning their goals for the success of each other.


Quality branding in Asia has never been more important (100,000 Asians a day becoming 'middle class' and looking for the trust that quality branding produces).  However, businesses are understandably demanding more from their sports properties then just branding opportunities.

Guaranteeing is risky and demands more from the rights holder.  Those that don't step up may soon find themselves getting left behind.

Asian Beach Games to go to Thailand?

Thailand and South Korea continue to flirt with each other as the number of Koreans visiting Thailand has increased 30% in the past year.

In return Thailand has backed Koreas bid for the 2022 World Cup (Football) bid.

Thailand is also hoping that Phuket will be the host of 2014 Asian Beach Games.

Thai Minister of Sports & Tourism Chompol Silapa-Archa acknowledged the recent political problems and bomb explosions in Thailand but according to the Korea Herald stated:

"All visitors know our situation but they keep coming.  Our image is reliable."

"I guarantee peoples safety"




Am not sure that having a 'reliable' image of political instability is quite the message to put out but the guarantee of safety is always nice.




Either way, with the interest in football in the region seeming to show no signs of slowing down another World Cup here would no doubt be a massive boost, especially to those countries, like Thailand, that are starting to invest in building their own talent now.

The cost is free. What is the value?

One of the challenges exciting opportunities we face in sponsorship is how do the companies we work with get their target customers to become involved with the brand.

Typically at a sport event this will involve some kind sampling.  That might be free product or even using the service for free.

Whilst this can be great for the event and might add value to the participants experience when done well, there remains the question of how much good, giving away stuff for free really does.  Does it create a customer who having sampled the product decides to purchase it in the future, or does it even risk creating a person whose perception of the value of your product has just been lowered?  Are they really engaging with the brand or are they just collecting free stuff?

In some cases might a heavy discount be better than free?  At least the person is still going through the 'experience' of being a customer i.e. following a process that involves an exchange of value. 

This post is triggered by a campaign that CIMB (regional bank out of Malaysia) launched yesterday in Singapore.  It's nearly brilliant.

Working on their brand motto of 'Be surprised by money' they have gift wrapped some taxi's and are offering free taxi rides for lucky people in the city state.

This is certainly a nice enough gesture but it does make you wonder why they didn't truly follow their motto and keep the campaign underwraps? 
Imagine getting to your destination in a normal taxi, getting ready to pay and the taxi driver turning round and handing you a card saying 'Surprise!  CIMB has paid for this journey.  Hope you enjoyed it'.

Whilst I suspect the word of mouth would have been huge, it would have been a great way of giving something away for free whilst still maintaining perception of value and fully engaging the customer in the experience.

I have a sneaky suspicion that was the initial idea and then someone decided they might as well brand the taxi's, add some PR and before you know it the impact was lost.

Nearly brilliant.   What are you giving away free?  Is there a better way?

The real money in sports sponsorship?

A couple of days ago Nike announced they had won the NFL contract to supply Nike branded apparel for the next 5 years.

Although the terms of the deal are not known, the result on Nike's share price is.  It shot up to an all time high of $83.40.

That represents an increase in valuation of Nike of about half a billion dollars in the space of a two days (allowing for the rumours the day before).

Not bad.

Always easier to sell a product (sponsorship inventory) if you can show that it will add value to the shareholders.

Asia shining bright. Online shining brighter.

The only way is up (unless you are Ireland or the UAE!)
A recent Nielsen study on global advertising trends shows that ad spend is up nearly 13% over the first 6 months of 2010.  Not bad for an industry apparently dangling between two 'dips'.

Turns out a lot of that is coming from Asia, with India storming ahead on 32% growth.  However Hong Kong and even Malaysia are not far behind at 23 and 22% respectively.

At the same time the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) also came out with figures showing that online ad spend reached a new record of over $12 billion in the first 6 months of 2010.

“While the recession clearly affected short term growth in 2009, with double digit growth in both search and display during the first six month of 2010, the long term prospects continue to be strong,”  - David Silverman, PwC Assurance partner
Story from Mashable

In other news CNN came out with a story stating that

'Brands that advertise around news stories shared in social media have a better chance to engage with consumers'

Turns out that people who receive news stories through social media from a friend where a brand is advertising around that story are 19% more likely to favour that brand.

Of course, you may want to allow for a little cynacism given the source of the survey...
Story at Marketing-Interactive

Your company logo in the Superbowl, FA Cup & Olympics

With more and more people watching sport online there is an interesting issue about company branding.  What happens if Coke are sponsoring the event, but Pepsi buys up all the space on the browser?


And if I'm watching a football match on the web, surely there is a way to remove the billboards that arn't relevant to me and replace them with ones that are?


Interestingly, a project called un-logo has come up with just that solution.



Unlogo Intro from Jeff Crouse on Vimeo.




Although their take is quite different (protect yourself from branding), the commercial implications of this are very interesting.


Could we soon see a day where Google starts buying up the fronts of football players shirts and serving customised logo's to each viewer?


Whether it's this technology or something else I think we can expect to see the game change dramatically over the next few years.



Original story seen on the excellent http://www.cherryflava.com

Don't ask the fans

The excellent sailing resource sail-world.com is conducting a poll on whether the America's cup should be a monohull or multihull event. 
Racing fans have come down strongly in favour of monohull.

Multihull

Monohulls



Whilst this makes sense in the context of what Sail World are trying to find out, it also highlights a problem that many sports have in trying to grow.

Do you really want to know what your fans want?  Or do you want to know what your prospective fans want?
Twenty 20 Cricket did not become a billion dollar franchise in under 24 months by appealing to existing cricket fans.  Quite the opposite, they alienated cricket purists around the world to create a format that appealed to a much larger casual fan. 
Football fans were up in arms at the replacement of 'stands' with seats, family enclosures and corporate boxes but it was those developments that helped sanitise the Premiership and move it away from the hooliganism of its past and into the multi-billion dollar business it is today.

It pays to understand your fans and their wants but if you're looking to grow your sport you need to have a better understanding of your future fans and be prepared to lose your current ones.  Scary thought.

You Can

It's the Japanese Formula One this weekend and Renault have just signed a Formula 1 deal with Flagman Vodka "The New Leader of the New Russia"

Their tagline 'You Can'. 
Drinking and driving comments aside, it is interesting to see the rise of Vodka sponsorships.  I suspect some of this is influenced by the stunning success of New Zealand company 42 below who in less than 10 years went from a garage operation to selling out to Bacardi for 70 million euros, helped in large part by their irreverant, often viral, humour. 

When it comes to Vodka, for the average man in the street there is 'Vodka' and there is 'Bad Vodka'.  Whilst we will steer clear of Bad Vodka (read, cheap vodka) few of us casual drinkers can honestly taste the difference between the rest.  Especially once you've added Redbull!  Therefore it depends massively on perception created by marketing.

Absolute did this well, 42 Below did this very well and Grey Goose (also owned by Bacardi) seem to be ramping up their efforts too (more soon).

Stolichnaya has also decided that sport is a good vehicle for them.  Yesterday they announced a 5 years deal with the Barclays Center in the US which hosts the Nets Basketball.  As well as the obvious branding they get to be house pour in the 6 bars located in the center. 

Smart move.  I'll drink to that

Rip Curl goes Matrix

A great advert that just makes you wanna head for the waves.





If you would like to recreate this effect for your own sport event you just need to convince 30 people to stand next to each other with their camera phones and all film the action at the same time.


Then it's just a simple case of spending the rest of your life editing it on your computer.  Easy.

Banking crisis

It's alright, this one isn't quite on the scale of a global financial meltdown.

The IRB (International Rugby Board) yesterday announced that HSBC were to be an overall naming rights sponsor of the whole Rugby Sevens series.

Yet interestingly the most high profile event in that series is the Cathay Pacific / Credit Suisse Hong Kong Sevens.  Now leaving aside the obvious difficulties of having two naming rights sponsors of that event and thus ensuring no fan will EVER use its full title (topic for another post I feel!), this represents a serious conflict of interests and I'm guessing Credit Suisse are non-best pleased.

Of course these clashes do happen from time to time and especially where one event is seperately owned but part of a bigger whole.  It makes it a huge challenge for both inventory owners, but one that can normally be resolved if enough money is forthcoming.

In this case there is a pretty ugly 'no branding in Hong Kong' work around.  Ironically for the 'Hong Kong Bank'.  It will be interesting to see whether Credit Suisse bail out at the end of their contract...

On the plus side it is further proof that banks have got over their minor fear of sponsorship and are keen to get back to connecting with people through sport again.  It also means the IRB probably has more money to promote the whole series and thus raise the value of the individual events on the tour. 

Sacrfice the one for the many?

Ricoh Renews

On the topic of golf and Asia.  The Japanese Office Solutions company Ricoh has extended its support of the Asian Tour.

They add to this list:

Ricoh (Official Office Supplies)
BlackBerry (Official Mobile Partner)
J. Lindeberg (Official Apparel)
Royal Selangor Pewter (Official Trophy Supplier)
Inetol Headwear (Official Headwear Supplier)
Pan Pacific Hotels Group (Official Hotel)
Singha (Official Beer)

I'm all for creating value and prestige for your partners but we do seem to be getting a little trivial with our distribution of titles here.  I look forward to seeing who signs up next... 

Full story at Sports Pro Media

The golf gulf

The final few hours of the Ryder Cup were amongst the most exciting of any golf tournament I've seen and the outpouring of passion and excitement, not to mention player engagement, after America conceded were truly a site to behold. 


As the commentator said


'There is no finer competition in golf than America versus Europe.  The best golfers in the world are all here'


That may be right today (just), but you have a hard time imagining that there isn't a rather big continent over here in the East that will be wondering how it gets a seat at this table before long.


The Rugby 5 Nations took 90 years after admiting France before they added Italy to create the 6 Nations.  Could the Golf world buck tradition and invite Asia, or will the Asian's start their own table? 


Honouring tradition is a fine thing and has value, but it needs to be balanced by not missing a bigger picture.  For all events.

Thailand bouncing back?

Two stories of interest out of Thailand after the success of the ATP Tennis.

Yesterday Thailand's Minister of Tourism and Sports,  Chumpol Silapa-archa, stated they believed Thailand would attract 14 million guests next year.  Slightly down on last years forecasts but given the scenes of soldiers and burning shopping malls just six months ago it would be quite a result.  He also indicated that they would be looking to launch sports events in the low season to attract more people.

This bought me back to a story from last month to come out of the Thailand Convention & Exhibtion Bureau (TCEB) stating that although their main focus was Exhibitions and Conferences they were now looking to work closely with sporting events.

TCEB president, Akapol Sorasuchart, stated "TCEB may propose conference projects related to sports events in our country. We may also propose to organise celebrations after sports tournaments.""We must listen more to the private sector because it deals directly with customers and the market," he said.

"Besides, we must study the global trends and look at the MICE market more widely. Previously we looked only at meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibition for MICE. Today, MICE includes events. If our vision is wider, our markets will be too"

This clearly spells opportunity.  Whilst some might see it as an opportunity to tap the goverment for some more support, we see it differently.

The opportunity is two fold.
 - Hold events in your countries low season.  Sponsorship from anyone in the Tourist Sector suddenly becomes much easier.
 - Add perifery events that can generate money for you and your clients.

The best execution of this second area is Marathons.  Each marathon typically runs their own Expo selling sports wear.  With a guarenteed audience of tens of thousands of runners who are pumped up and emotional it is a buying bonanza

When are you planning your event?
What will people be able to spend their money on when they're there?

Spain's Garcia-Lopez wins Thailand Open

Congratulations both to Garcia-Lopez and to the organisers of the PTT Thailand open for running another successful event.

Last month we had a meeting with an airline that has a history of doing creative sports marketing. They were looking to raise their profile in Thailand and were complaining that apart from golf, the Thailand Open and the occasional sailing regatta there were no other major sports events they could use as a platform to promote their brand.


In a country of 60 million people that is a huge opportunity for events development...

Sport as entertainment

Today I want to share some quotes from Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, on creating the experience.

'We in the sports business don't sell the game, we sell unique emotional experiences'


'What is compelling enough and unique enough about attending a game that makes it worth the effort?  First let me tell you what it is not.  It is not the game'


'I want it to be very participatory. I want it to be very social. I want it to be very inclusive.  I want it to be memorable. I want it to be so much fun people talk about it to their friends and can’t wait to go back.'


' I know I can’t control what happens on the court every game, but I can do my very best to make sure that no matter what the score, we have done all we can to make the fan experience like a great wedding.'


'We are developing games that our fans can participate in at the arena that hopefully engage them with what is happening on the court. We are coming up with ways to reward our fans for being our “6th man” and adding energy to the arena... We are looking for ways to enhance the emotional attachments created at our game.'


Whilst sports purists are no doubt shuddering and grumbling about the commercialisation of sport, the reality is that teams or events that fail to achieve that connection with the audience will quickly be replaced  by other experiences (not necesssarily sport) that do. 


For all those football teams in the 1st division and below in the UK who are struggling with gate numbers, it might be worth considering the comments above.  Yet with all its tradition, it will take a brave owner to risk alienating the core fans by adding 'gimmicks'.  Brave but probably necessary. 


Fortunately here in Asia there is an opportuntity to set the expectations early on.  One example of it being done very well is the Hong Kong Sevens.  Talk to the majority of the 40,000 fans that attend each year and they will tell you about the antics of the South Stand instead of the action on the pitch.  That is taking nothing away from the best players in the world competing in a very exciting sport, but just to state that the tournament wouldn't be selling out year on year if everyone was sitting there in silence politely clapping.









Anyone else developing sports in Asia would do well to consider Marks words on creating the experience...

Subtlety or sledgehammer...

This week Paddy Power, the book makers out of Ireland, created some ambush marketing of the Ryder Cup.  They sponsored a hill.  A hill next to the golf course and then they erected a massive billboard.

You can see the creation of the stunt and the reaction on YouTube here.


It's interesting to contrast this to a 'stunt' that Hugo Boss pulled at the British Open last year.  In this case, they just chose to sail one of their yachts around in the background.  

 

In one case, the camera's tried hard to avoid the background branding and the organisers rapidly deployed lawyers to sue the perpertrators.  In the other, even though it was equally unsanctioned, the camera's couldn't help but pan around to something that seemed very in keeping with the event.

It might seem that, within the realms of ambush marketing, one was subtle and one was a sledgehammer.  And one was a succes and one wasn't.  However, the Paddy Power event is as much in keeping with their 'cheeky underdog' brand as was the Hugo Boss yacht in keeping with their own brand positioning.


I suspect that both parties, in their own unique way, were equally happy with their outcomes and it highlights well that activation of sponsorship (ambush or not) needs to be in fitting with your brand and not just a replication of somebody elses efforts. Reverse the brands in the two examples above and the impact would have been very different.