Smaller properties are object of executives' affection
Smaller is good.
Such was the mantra in the final panel of the Sports Sponsorship Symposium, "The Buy: What's the Best Spend in Sports." While the NFL, NBA, NASCAR and Major League Baseball all provide massive reach and deep fan affinity, both buy- and sell-side executives on the panel reserved particular affection for the next tier of properties, such as college football and basketball, the NHL and Minor League Baseball. Soccer, similarly, received strong support as the one sport most poised for major growth in the next five years.
The shift against bigger-is-better is not hard to understand. In these challenging economic times, pressures to achieve and demonstrate specific return on investment are higher than ever. And it is the second- and third-tier sports properties that provide smaller up-front sponsorship costs, a greater level of direct control over media and content distribution channels to enable deeply integrated marketing programs, and, in many cases, a stronger and more diverse overall platform for deep sponsor activation.
"It is in these smaller properties where you can achieve a lot of leverage and value," said Tom McGovern, executive vice president of OMG Entertainment and sports managing director for Optimum Sports. "The reach is obviously smaller, but the flexibility is there."
Stadium signage, thought by some to be a product now under heavy pressure because of clutter, also received strong endorsements on the panel. State Farm this year is supporting a record level of auto policies, with more than 42 million, and total revenue for AutoTrader.com has soared 28 percent this year, despite the overall state of the U.S. economy, in part because of aggressive stadium signage programs. Aiding those efforts is the evolution of third-party measurement techniques to evaluate the reach and performance of those buys.
"When times turn tough, people want to talk to somebody they know and trust," said Mark Gibson, State Farm assistant vice president of marketing communications. “There's a flight to quality that I'm seeing out there. Having our brand, our logo, out in front in these key spots, and backing that up with a full complement of marketing, on-the-ground activation, has made a big difference for us, even amid the competitiveness of our [insurance] category."
Networking and socializing
At the end of day one of the Sports Sponsorship Symposium, attendees gathered for a reception hosted by the Fantasy Sports Association, which gave away some sports memorabilia during the evening. Here are selected photos from the event.
Don Dixon, AutoTrader.com senior director of local marketing, sponsorship and promotion, on his media budget: "Our TV budget is down. Forty-five percent of our spend is for online partnership. We're an online company, so that's where we're spending our energy. TV buys, frankly, are simply air cover for us. We're not adding properties, but we are doing more with what we have."
McGovern on NBC's online performance during the Beijing Olympics, "The broadband numbers have been a story, but they've really been overwhelmed by what happened on TV. Online was almost just a form of promotion for the TV coverage."
