Partnerships between sports teams and financial services firms are a growing trend, particularly in the crypto space. But what truly makes a partnership successful? Given the significant time and resources that financial firms invest in sponsorships, it’s essential they derive meaningful value in return.
The partnership must fulfil its intended purpose, whatever that may be for the firm.
However, the most successful partnerships go beyond this. They need to be mutually beneficial. Not only should the sponsored team gain value, but it’s equally important that their fans feel the impact. When fans connect with the partnership, their passion for their team can be translated into loyalty and enthusiasm for the sponsoring firm.
For a sponsorship to truly benefit everyone involved – whether it’s the sponsor, the sponsored team or its fans – the alignment with a core mission must be at the heart of it.
Lou Frangella, head of consumer marketing and brand partnerships at Kraken, understands this principle well. With a background spanning finance, having worked at American Express and FTX, and sport, with experience at the New York Yankees, New York Islanders and Major League Baseball, Lou brings an ability to blend the dynamics of sports with the nuances of marketing a decentralised finance company.
His aim is for Kraken to tap into the loyalty and passion fans have for their favourite team by providing unique experiences that add value, rather than simply being seen as another logo on a kit or front wing, all while also reinforcing Kraken’s core mission.
Grounded in purpose
Every decision made by Kraken is rooted in its mission to accelerate the worldwide adoption of crypto so that everyone can achieve financial freedom and inclusion, according to Frangella.
“Truly everything we do, and all the conversations that we have when we think about marketing strategies or potential partners to work with, comes down to our mission,” he says.
While Kraken’s mission is to make crypto accessible to everyone, Frangella acknowledges that, compared to traditional finance, crypto can feel complex and intimidating to many. That’s why, he says, the first step towards achieving this goal is education.
“That could be through content and experiences or through designing the product in a way that’s really intuitive and breaking it down for people in a way that is easy to understand and helps them along the journey,” he says.
Fortunately for Kraken, Frangella notes that since the exchange was founded nearly 14 years ago, its “sweet spot” has always been professional traders. As a result, the focus of Kraken’s educational efforts is less about explaining crypto at a basic level and more about deepening understanding of the platform’s specific products and features.
As these consumers are already crypto savvy, they are instead looking for safe, secure and intuitive ways to access the types of investments that they want when it comes to crypto, he notes.
In response to that, Kraken has recently, particularly over the past few months, revamped its marketing approach to focus on product-led marketing as opposed to on brand level storytelling.
“Our focus has been to create the best, most intuitive product out there for the right audience,” he says.
“Then, let’s tell that story, and let’s use ways that are exciting and unique to educate them.”
With consumers expressing a specific demand for safe ways to access crypto investments, Frangella adds that the firm has leaned into its history of being one of first cryptocurrency exchanges to be founded.
“Product-led marketing … helps get consumers educated on our history of being one of the safest, most secure exchange out there,”” he says.
Staying mission-driven in partner selection
Sports partnerships are a relatively new venture for Kraken, having only delved into the world of sponsorship three years ago. Frangella notes that previously, there wasn’t a strong marketing push outside of Kraken’s own channels, instead it relied on word-of-mouth around the product.
However, Frangella recognised that sport is a “universal language” that could connect Kraken with its target audience. Since then, Kraken has entered the world of Formula One with a sponsorship of Williams F1 team as well as football through partnerships with Tottenham Hotspur, Atlético de Madrid and RB Leipzig.
These partners were meticulously chosen to align with Kraken’s values, mission and audience. In particular, motor sports skews very high in terms of professional investors and professional traders, who are looking for a premium experience when it comes to investing, according to Frangella. In addition, the sport is rooted in heavy trust and heavy innovation, which aligns with Kraken’s values.
Meanwhile, football clubs are often deep rooted in the history of their founding, much like Kraken itself. The sport also carries the universal appeal of being a sport passionately followed all around the world, which mirrors Kraken’s mission to make crypto a global, accessible force.
In addition, Frangella adds that it makes sense for Kraken to target football fans because this audience captures people that are interested in investing from all levels, whether they’re basic investors trying to grow their portfolio or make long-term investments or more seasoned investors.
Frangella emphasises the importance of being meticulous about the partners that Kraken works with and applying strong filters when assessing whether to start a partnership or not.
“The mission is truly at the forefront of everything that we do. If there’s not mission alignment, it’s not going to be a good partner for us to work with, no matter who is. There needs to be a lot of commonalities,” he says. →
When assessing if there’s alignment in the mission between Kraken and a potential partner, Frangella says he considers whether they have an openness to get creative and disruptive.
“You have to be disruptive, especially in today’s world with social media. Sports and fan experiences are evolving. So, we try to be as creative as we possibly can and keep the mission at the forefront when we do that,” he says.
It’s also important to assess how Kraken can bring its products and services together to create unique fan experiences. It wants to create touch points and actually get that product into the hands of the people who are passionate about the sport or team through the partnership, he adds.
Frangella notes that there’s a lot of planning that must be done prior to ensure that Kraken is aligned with a partner. This includes a lot of conversations, deep dives and research to check the audience and mission alignment as well as opportunities to engage with fans and bring value to the fan base of whoever it is that they are partnering with, he says.
Fuelling the passion of F1 fans
As a result of this rigorous work Kraken, the company has been able to create some strong partnerships, according to Frangella. The key to establishing something that translates fans’ passion for their teams into a passion for the exchange is by offering activations that provide the fans with unique experiences.
All activations for the partnership with Williams must comply with the overarching theme of providing value to fans for free, he says, recognising that there are many barriers associated with Grand Prix weekends that prevent F1 fans from attending.
“Value could be anyone that’s sitting at home that has maybe never attended a F1 race in their life because it’s too expensive, it’s too far or they don’t have time to do it,” he says.
Therefore, Kraken created the ‘Racing Collectible Plus’ programme, which provides Williams fans who can’t acquire a grid pass with a collectible that offers them closer access to the team through activities, such as virtual Q&As and discounts on merchandise.
In partnership with Williams, Kraken also hosts five to seven ‘Fan Zones’ across the season. This event hosts a week-long pop up in the city where the race is taking place to provide a free fan experience. This involves in-person Q&As and meet and greets with the drivers as well as opportunities to test out racing car simulators.
These experiences serve as a key differentiator because, in the world of F1 where everything comes with a high price tag, no other teams are offering on-the-grid activations that provide fans with something truly free, Frangella says. This is the key to really creating value and positive experiences with fans, he adds.
“We’re just trying to look for ways to continuously add value to the fan experience, rather than extract value, which where a lot of sports partners go wrong. They can be value extractors,” he says. “Whereas we actually look at how do we bring in product and enhance the fan experience in a way that adds value to fans?”
Kicking off football sponsorships
Beyond advancing its mission, Kraken’s partnerships with European football clubs have played a strategic role in boosting brand awareness across the continent. This is particularly significant given that the exchange only established a foothold in Europe
in 2023, when it secured virtual asset service provider licences in Ireland, Italy and Spain.
To introduce Kraken to this new audience and fanbase, activations were once again designed not to be value extractors or simply a logo on a club’s shirt. Instead, Frangella explains, the focus was on creating unique and engaging fan experiences that truly stood out.
Specifically, the company launched the ‘Kraken Kit Exchange’, where a team drove a van around each city at the start of the football season, offering fans the chance to trade in any t-shirt for the club’s brand-new kit featuring Kraken branding. This exclusive opportunity was particularly special, as these shirts weren’t initially available in the team store.
“We had 1,000 kits per club, and they were completely gone by match day,” Frangella says. “Again, we wanted to provide something that was memorable and a unique touch point.”
He adds that this experience also included an educational element for new fans, helping them understand how Kraken works. In simple terms, Kraken facilitated the exchange of an old shirt for a new, more valuable one, much like how it operates as a crypto exchange, offering value through seamless transactions.
Frangella stresses that adding value is the most important aspect of any sponsorship activation.
“We can’t control what happens on the pitch. We can’t control what happens on the track. But we can do our best to enhance the experience and bring value to the fans. That’s how we try to approach all our partnerships,” he says.
The path ahead
According to Frangella, Kraken’s commitment to centring all marketing strategies around its mission of enhancing global crypto accessibility and adoption, while developing products that support this goal, is a focus that isn’t going away anytime soon.
“Our core focus right now is putting these really incredible products in the hands of as many people as possible and really enhancing our products as much as we can to showcase all the different ways that that crypto can be,” he says.
Whether customers are seasoned crypto investors looking to expand their existing portfolio or new investors wanting to growth their wealth, he notes that Kraken plans to “let our products do the talking” as part of the marketing strategy to reinforce this product-led growth.
Partnerships will also remain a core method of demonstrating this, and all existing and any new partnerships will continue to centre around being disruptive, giving value back to the community and finding ways to educate people through product-led marketing, he adds.
Kraken’s approach of aligning all marketing efforts with the core mission of improving crypto adoption, while focusing on product-led strategies, has proven effective so far, helping it establish a strong presence in a competitive crypto market. As a result, Frangella plans to continue these strategies to drive Kraken’s growth moving forward – at F1 speed.