Sponsorship: the open goal for marketers

Sports sponsorships offer vast opportunity for small and large organisations. What has Rhotic Media learnt from its sponsorship of Colchester United?

A recent departee from the agency quipped that she disagreed with the directors’ decision to invest in sports sponsorships as an element of this year’s marketing programme.

For me, it underscored a lack of understanding that is sadly common among operational leaders in non-marketing functions.

Sports sponsorship is big business and it’s growing fast. According to Statista, the global sports sponsorship market was worth $66 billion in 2022 and that figure is projected to rise to $108bn by 2030.

Within financial services, many of Rhotic’s clients already invest in sports sponsorship for a host of commercial reasons (see the article in the Winter 2023 issue of Financial Promoter).

For Rhotic – admittedly a much smaller business – we were looking to embark on sports sponsorship for two reasons:

1. To signify the stability and established nature of the agency through raising the brand profile.
2. To offer an opportunity for brand activations in a fun environment, where multiple stakeholders could interact.

In the summer of 2023, we chose English Football League club Colchester United as our club of choice.

The club is in a city where some of our clients are based and in the county where we have our second office.

Our sponsorship deal gave us on-kit branding for all cup games, broadcast-facing permitter boards at home matches, adverts in every programme throughout the season, and some branded kit to send to our clients.

We also invested in several hospitality experiences on matchdays, including VIP tickets to the sold-out celebrity clash with Ryan Reynolds’ Wrexham FC, of Netflix fame.

Our budget was small – less than the amount we had spent in the previous financial year on taking stands at industry trade shows, where our historic objectives were much more transaction focused.

We are now seven months into the sponsorship and here’s what I’ve learnt:

• Football sponsorship offers a great opportunity to invite new prospects and clients to hospitality in an informal environment. We have used this approach to meet new clients, win new work, and learn about expanding commercial agreements with existing clients.
• Matches also offer a fun environment for team building with a social element interwoven with a shared goal of winning. When we held our Carabao Cup staff event in Cardiff, the feedback was superb.
• Matches are seen by people you wouldn’t expect. I’ve lost count of the number of conversations that have started because of the people saw our brand on the weekly Sky Sports highlights reels.
• Your brand reach will not be limited to those at companies in the local area. There will be people from that area who have since moved to London, who still follow the team from where they grew up. Some of these people will be decision makers at your clients.
• You’ll meet like-minded business partners at matches if you invest the time in attending.
• EFL clubs partner with charities. These offer a great way to align your impact or CSR objectives with those of the club. For us, it gave us the chance to partner with Colchester’s foundation to reach schools in support of our social impact commitments.

In terms of measuring return on investment (ROI), it is absolutely possible to track conversions from clients who were invited to various hospitality events, but this figure would significantly undervalue the broader benefits of a sponsorship programme.

The feedback from external stakeholders has confirmed that our activity around the sponsorship of Colchester United has absolutely served our objective of strengthening recognition of the Rhotic brand, which could prove invaluable when decision makers are thinking about who to approach for content services in future.

This campaign has also afforded me the opportunity to learn more about the role that sponsorship has in a broader marketing programme.

Sponsorship when integrated with other marketing outputs such as PR and content has a powerful impact and it’s easy to see why blue-chip companies spend vast amounts on it.

Like all marketing approaches, it is important that senior leaders do not dismiss strategies that they do not fully understand.

Equally, it is why us marketers must continue to work hard to explain the benefits of our work and the planning that inevitably accompanies any decision to spend.

This article is from the Winter 2024 print edition of Financial Promoter. Click here to subscribe.