Advertisers Score Big at Super Bowl 46 by Angie Lynch

For many years, Super Bowl Sunday was known only for the game played on the field. However, in the past few years it has now become synonymous with the launch of some of the most memorable ad campaigns in history. While the Super Bowl continues to showcase the best football athletes, it now also showcases the best of the best in sponsorship advertising.

While a lot of the same advertising players were back in the mix, the one thing that stood out from previous years was the number of advertisers that chose to tease their audience by releasing a portion of the ads prior to the game – 20 of 36 went viral before the game which is up dramatically from last year when only a handful were released early. For so long, these ads were top secret until kick off but the newest strategy this year seemed to let online viral marketing reach the world before the game even started. Perhaps the best example of this is the Honda CRV ad which features homage to Ferris Bueller – prior to game time; this had already garnered over 10 million views on YouTube (which is about 10% of viewers who tuned into the game – over 111 million). While the strategy has the potential to pay off by creating an early buzz and anticipation on their website it could also be a risky move.

It’s understandable that advertisers are eager to stand out from the 70 other commercials being broadcast and they can do this by releasing their ad early and creating buzz through social media. However, along with instant views come instant feedback and the potential for negative attention for the advertiser, before the game even airs. And while people in Hollywood always say ‘There is no such thing as negative press’ I don’t know that advertisers necessarily feel the same way.

Does this new strategy have the potential to change the landscape of both the Super Bowl and advertising game? Will those who choose to watch the game solely for the ads still tune in for the game when they can be watched before hand? By releasing the ads early, are they still worth the $3.5M for 30 seconds? Will it be the nearly 200 million people on Twitter, with the ability to provide brands with immediate consumer reaction who are the ones that drive the advertising world and what will be produced in years to come?

However, one strategy kept from previous years was the tone of the majority of the ads. Companies went for either laughs or for heart. While companies like Doritos went for the laughs with the bribing dog (and according to Radian6 one of the favourites of the Super Bowl), the one that stands out for me this year was Chrysler’s ad starring Clint Eastwood. The ad talks about the rebirth of Detroit and Chrysler while speaking to every person individually – ‘How do we come from behind, how do we come together and how do we win? Detroit is showing us it can be done. What’s true about them is true about all of us.’ This went for the heart.

Chrysler took this ad to a whole new level by running this ad during halftime, further showing that not only is the messaging important but placement can further strengthen a campaign. And while the messaging was meant for an American audience – ‘we’re going through tough times but will rebound through hard work and determination’, I felt it resonated with all 111 million viewers. And even though they went ‘old school’ and chose to wait until game day to release it, for me that worked in its favour and allowed the message to remain strong. So in a world where the power of social media is starting to shape how things are created, perhaps there is something to waiting until the big day to show 100 million viewers that there is strength in numbers.

From a sponsorship perspective, it is important to understand that the same concepts hold true –the more effective campaigns are those that trigger an emotional response. Sponsorship is a dynamic three-way relationship between the sponsor, property and the customer. A successful sponsorship campaign harnesses the emotional connection between a property and its audience and converts this emotional connection into a desired response for a sponsor. After all, as different as all of us may be, we are all forever guided by our emotions.

HRM Stadium – Now, Never, or At All? by Derek Martin

As happy skaters go ‘round and ‘round The Emera Oval, Halifax is in the final days of another debate regarding a ‘once in a generation’ piece of legacy sport infrastructure. With a looming deadline from The Canadian Soccer Association and a lack of perceived agreement in the municipal government, the future of a sports stadium in Halifax appears to be on thin ice. For decades, a stadium in Halifax has seemed to make sense and yet once again, Halifax seems to be lacking the common sense to make it happen.

I understand the current stadium situation to be the following: The FIFA Women’s World Cup is a once in a generation event hosting opportunity; the event requires a 20,000 seat stadium; there is not a piece of land on the Halifax peninsula that can accommodate such a stadium; the ideal geographic location is Shannon Park but environmental and land ownership issues make it difficult; the second best location is in Burnside/Dartmouth Crossing but land purchase would still need to be negotiated; that location would facilitate the stadium becoming a hub of sport infrastructure; the only way Halifax will get Federal funding for a stadium is to host this event. I think that covers the basics but I have not been a part of any of the public sessions, so this information is what I can gather from talking to people in the community and reading the Municipality hired consultant’s report.

For me, the problem is a lack of realism about what Halifax is and what it can become. The reality is that Halifax is a wonderful little city that happens to be a regional economic centre giving it National profile. With a population outside of the top ten in this country, we manage to punch above our weight in a number of areas but we simply don’t have a lot of people and by the nature of our industries and geography, we won’t anytime soon. What does all that mean? It means Halifax is a great place to live, to work, and to raise a family. What it also means is that we simply can’t support a 15,000+ seat sport and entertainment stadium. We just don’t have enough people living here to fill it up consistently.

My opinion is that if Halifax is to build a sports and entertainment stadium, it should be on the peninsula with 5,000 – 7,500 permanent seats with the room to add another 5,000-10,000 rental bleachers when required. I believe that is a sustainable and right sized plan for our city. There are two built-in tenants at Dalhousie and SMU that desperately need a facility for their varsity programs and can fill up the time on the spring and fall weekends with soccer, football, field hockey, etc… There are restaurants, bars and hotels all steps away. People can walk from work or home or use buses, ferries and cabs.  Traffic is less of a concern because less people are bringing cars, reducing the inevitable instances of drinking and driving. With 5,000 – 7,500 seats and the potential for a few thousand more from time to time, the stadium can host Regional, National and International events while still hosting our university, high school and club sports – all generating economic spinoffs to existing tax paying businesses in the downtown core. Sport tourism is big business but it is participatory events with multiple teams, travelling with parents and friends, which drive significant economic impact and that should be our focus.

If the FIFA Women’s World Cup insist that they need a stadium with 20,000 seats, and that insistence eliminates building a stadium anywhere on the peninsula, than perhaps we just have to ask if this is the right event for us to be bidding on. I personally can’t imagine the Women’s World Cup selling 20,000 seats for each of the games that would be played in Halifax but even if they did; then what?

The CFL is not coming to Halifax. You will not find a bigger football fan than I am but the economics of the CFL dictate that you need to sell 20,000 tickets a game to break event; in a market with solid corporate support. We have neither the corporate base nor the football fan base to support either of these basic economic realities.  We also don’t have one other very important element; an extremely wealthy individual that has said “I will put up the $10 million to bring a team here and lose money for a decade”. What else is there; Concerts? Has anyone asked a concert promoter what they think? I have, but to my surprise, neither the consultant nor anyone else at HRM has. Again it is time for a reality check; Halifax doesn’t do big concerts well. The Rolling Stones, Sir Paul, KISS, Black Eyed Peas, Metallica…whether they are your cup of tea or not, there is no denying that these are some of the world’s top acts and yet every single one of them has generated disappointing ticket sales in Halifax. We can’t support big concerts; we just don’t have enough people. This isn’t to say we can’t bring in top acts, we can…but we already have a great venue for 20,000 people to watch a concert called the Garrison Grounds. Ask any promoter and they will tell you they are in a risky business and if they have to choose between putting an event in the middle of a city surrounded by people or putting it on the outer edge and asking people to find their way out there; they will take the central, safer bet every time.

With regards to sports infrastructure, I agree absolutely that Halifax needs more and that the clustering of fields to create a sports hub is a fabulous idea.  What I disagree with, is that a stadium needs to be at the centre of this hub.  These are mutually exclusive ideas that should be generating mutually exclusive debates and bundling of these two concepts is an impediment to either one becoming a reality. The current location of the HRM all-weather fields in Burnside/Dartmouth Crossing is an ideal location for this sports hub.  Infrastructure already exists, there is plenty of adjacent land available for further growth, amenities are popping up all around and it is geographically a fairly central location for the greater HRM area.  The reasons people watch sports and play sports are very different and they therefore require different solutions.

I want a stadium in Halifax. I want to bring events here that would fill it up with cheering, happy people. I want to experience a live event with my two sons that becomes a memory we share for the rest of our lives. But I make my living in the event business. I know how difficult it is to sell tickets. How rare it is to get the right mix of weather, momentum and excitement to all gel in a successful event experience. I want Halifax to build the right stadium in the right place at the right time; there will be other opportunities, better opportunities to get this right. We need to recognize what we are, and what we are not, and embrace that that’s OK.

Going Around in Circles by Derek Martin

These are wild and crazy times in the Maritime sponsorship industry thanks to our City’s recent decision to sell naming rights of our community skating Oval to Emera and the rights to the entertainment plaza to Molson Coors.  As someone who tries to explain every day what I do for a living, I am used to getting a blank stare, followed by a pause and then a “what exactly is that?” when I talk about sponsorship sales, activation and ROI…but now everywhere I turn people are talking sponsorship.

“We don’t want Molson’s money because they sell beer”…”We aren’t getting enough money for these rights”…”These are the best deals out there”….and on and on and on.

Debate…good.  People talking about sponsorship…good.  Companies stepping up to help fund community initiatives…good. 

The process, that we are seeing played out before us, of promoting, valuing, negotiating and signing the best sponsorship deals for the future of the Oval and for the citizens of Halifax…bad.

Opportunities like the Oval don’t come along every day.  Halifax caught lightning in a bottle when the Oval opened in advance of the Canada Winter Games and the results were inspiring.  Thousands of Haligonians young, old and all ages in between walking downtown streets with skates slung over their shoulders for pre-work, weekend morning or late night skates was perhaps the greatest example of community engagement I have seen in my time living here and a great example of the power of sport to tap into the emotions of the public. The Oval generated an unbelievable amount of positive brand equity and that is what makes the Oval the most interesting and valuable sponsorship opportunity to come along in our region in a long, long time. But with great opportunity comes great responsibility and unfortunately, I don’t believe we have taken advantage of this opportunity.

Many times I am asked to speak to a group about sponsorship and my first slide almost always are the definitions of “Sponsorship and “Donation” side by side. 

Spon●sor●ship \ n.

a cash and/or in-kind fee paid to a property (typically in sports, arts, entertainment or charitable causes) in return for access to the exploitable commercial potential associated with that property.

Do●na●tion \ n.

an act or instance of presenting something as a gift, grant, or contribution.

The key phrase is “…exploitable commercial potential”.  Sponsorship at its core is about the commercial exchange of brand equity. Companies want to get a piece of the equity a property has built up and a property gets money.  It is a simple equation and in its biggest manifestations; a very lucrative business. 

Back to the Oval where there are so many interesting debates. The debate about a Beer company being involved is fascinating to me, not because there is any rational reason why having John Molson’s name attached to a sport venue is going to be the final straw in the destruction of our society, but because it once again illustrates the perils of mixing business with politics and begs the question…why are our elected officials and City staffers negotiating contracts for the most valuable sponsorship property this City has had in years?

If there were sponsorship professionals on council or on staff, they would have been able to quickly diffuse and avoid the debate by illustrating on the countless examples of alcohol companies involvement with sport at all levels throughout North America or simply by making alcohol a restricted category at the start of the whole process so there would never have been a beer sponsorship offer to debate.  I don’t say this as a criticism because I don’t think there should be sponsorship professionals on council or staff.  What I don’t understand though, is why they didn’t reach out to some folks who do this for a living and ask for help to ensure they were getting the best deal they could.

From what I can gather, the process involved issuing an RFP asking potential sponsors to make the City an offer.  The City received two offers and now we have two sponsors.  It doesn’t take a sponsorship expert to question if this was the best possible sales strategy.  I don’t know if there was a proper valuation completed in advance of the sales process with research on similar community sport venues based on usage, location, visibility; a catalogue of the Oval’s assets; an analysis of our current market conditions and an estimation on the earned media value associated with the Oval.  I do know that two sponsors’ submitted responses and two sponsors were awarded sponsorship rights so I have to make an assumption that the City took what it could get and we’ll never know if that was the best opportunity out there.

Sponsorship is a valuable business and is a critical piece of the professional and amateur sports puzzle all over the globe. I hope we realize going forward that when we create something as unique and engaging as the Oval, we know just how valuable it is.

Activation, Activation, Activation

This post on activation is from the President of Sports and Entertainment Atlantic: Derek Martin

Having an office on the Halifax Waterfront certainly has its benefits and for the past couple of weeks, as I walk to and from meetings I have been able to take in the sights and sounds of the annual Buskers Festival.  The weather has been great and there always seemed to be a steady stream of people taking in a performance or cooling off with an ice cream.  As I walked by day after day what really struck me however was what a great opportunity there was for a sponsor to really leverage this event to engage their customers.  Here we were on the one of the most beautiful harbourfront’s in the world with a FREE festival that was attracting thousands and thousands of people and yet the only sponsor I can honestly say that made an impression on me was WestJet.

I am sure there were other sponsors and as I really try to think back I can remember a branded vehicle here or a logo on a banner there but what consumer will ever sit down on Tuesday morning and try to remember that…I’d venture to say I may be the only one doing that today.  What consumers do remember are experiences that engage them and WestJet was head and shoulders above their closest competition.  WestJet took advantage of their sponsorship opportunity by choosing a premier, central location on the waterfront, set-up a large display space, provided a unique photo opportunity for the public to get their picture taken waving in a plane with those bright orange sticks that would be emailed to them once they got home, they gave anyone willing to stand in a relatively short line the chance to win a free flight on WestJet and most importantly of all they had WestJet staff engaging everyone that walked by in the fun and friendly manner displaying the brand attributes that WestJet has hung their hat on.

Now this is making a sponsorship work.  Sponsorship is an effective arm of marketing when you can accomplish several objectives through a single investment.  In this particular case WestJet not only had brand awareness through their impressive and strategic onsite presence, they collected thousands of email addresses for future promotions, sent email photos that they know will be forwarded on to family and friends further extending the sponsorship to those that weren’t even at the event site, gave flights or flight discounts to consumers who perhaps have never experienced a WestJet flight and may now be converted in to lifelong WestJet customers, and most importantly further cemented the greatest brand attribute that WestJet has…their fun and friendly staff.

With traditional print, television or radio advertising there is a one-way conversation where the marketer is speaking to the consumer and trying to cause an action.  Usually that call to action is buying their product or it could be to enter a contest or visit a website that ultimately will lead to buying their product but at the end of the day the consumer simply reads, watches or listens and then goes on their merry way.  The advantages of sponsorship over advertising is a blog for another day but in this case the real story is how through what I would have to imagine was not a huge investment, WestJet was able to successfully engage thousands of customers who may or may not have experienced the WestJet brand before and ultimately gain a few new customers in the process.