How to grab the chance for your brand in 2024, a big year for Sports Marketing?
Key take-aways:
- 2024 will be a year of major sporting events, including the Paris Olympics and the European Football Championship.
- These events will attract a global audience and provide opportunities for brands to showcase their strength and influence.
- Major brands are developing marketing strategies to capitalize on these events.
F1 Chinese Grand Prix, UEFA Euro 2024 in Germany, and Paris 2024 Olympics… The year 2024 will witness a series of phenomenal sporting events worldwide. These events will not only capture the attention of billions of people but also serve as excellent platforms for major brands to showcase their strength and influence. As the events draw closer, major brands are formulating their unique marketing strategies to present their brand images to a global audience.
In the past, brands have engaged in fierce marketing battles during sporting events by sponsoring top-tier athletes and sport teams. They have leveraged the influence of these sport events to associate their brands with the spirit of sports, thereby connecting to their target audience.
Today, as social media becomes a critical touch-point with users to almost all brands, sports marketing has gradually evolved into a long game, that spans before, during, and after the event. By embodying the spirit of sports, it fosters emotional connections between the event’s target audience and the brand.
Title sponsorship and product placement in sporting events in 2024 requires refined segmentation
Title sponsorship is the most common and effective way for brands to collaborate with major sporting events. It allows brands to gain widespread exposure and quickly deliver their brand message to the target audience of the event, thereby achieving communication in a broad scope.
Becoming an official sponsor of an event gives a brand a significant advantage in terms of exposures compared to other brands. This is especially true when the sports event is a global or national one, which is also considered “scarce resources” as it has a huge audience base and potentially attracts more attention than general events.
With the sponsorship, the brand’s focus will normally sets on clearly communicating it is an official sponsor and making full use of all the channels provided by the event to increase its brand visibility. Additionally, some brands may lead the traffic to its owned channels with a set of powerful marketing strategies, grabbing the profit opportunities on the momentum.
Of course, sponsoring or naming a world-class event can be very expensive. Not everyone can afford the astronomical prices that can reach hundreds of millions of dollars. As a result, in recent years, many large events have divided their naming rights into smaller categories, and their sponsorship seeking strategy has changed from “big and comprehensive” to “small and precise”. This gives brands the opportunity to refine their sponsoring strategy in order to be integrated into the most relevant scenarios. And don’t forget that changes and challenges are constant during a global-scale sporting event, so it also is a test to the brand to see how adaptive its sports marketing strategy is to the situation, playing the long game.
Collaborating with Famous Athletes – Capturing Empathy and Fan Power in your brand sports marketing strategy
During sporting events, top-tier athletes are undoubtedly the center of attention, sometimes even surpassing the popularity of the event itself. Therefore, many brands choose to collaborate with famous athletes, betting on that they will be the champion.
The most common way for brands to collaborate with athletes is to sign them as spokespersons or brand ambassadors. These athletes then participate in brand activities and publish social media posts to continuously generate buzz for the brand.
Take Eileen Gu for example. After her success at the 2022 Winter Olympics, nearly 30 brands collaborated with her. These brands span industries such as automobiles, beverages, healthcare, telecommunications, banking, jewelry and watches, handbags, sports, skincare, home furnishings, and retail. These also include many international brands that even top entertainment celebrities will crave for a chance to partner with.
Past cooperation between famous athletes and brands demonstrated that achievements, championship and the powerful expression of the spirits of sports on the field on the sport fields are the foundation for the success of the brand marketing. Once the athlete’s performance and popularity do not match, however, the brand might face the risk of adverse influence.
As the tide recedes, long-term retention is key
While top-tier athletes can bring huge traffic to the brands and they are less likely to be scandalous compared to entertainment celebrities, their popularity is often highly time sensitive. As the 2022 Winter Olympics fever subsides, Eileen Gu’s own popularity and influence started to recede, therefore, new commercial cooperation with brands has also slowed down.
The athletes’ popularity on social media is unable to ignore for your brand sports marketing strategy
Due to the time sensitivity of sporting events, brands that are seeking longer term collaboration with famous athletes choose to collaborate through social media to leverage their influence on their fans.
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Social media provides a channel for the famous athletes to express their true self, which attracts more people to follow and engage with them as people can see their other sides out of the sports fields. While the photos of the athletes’ peak moments on sports fields are undoubtedly highly influential, images of athletes outside the fields have their values too.
LVMH Group, which generously sponsored this year’s Paris Olympics with 150 million euros, is also a master of leveraging the popularity of famous athletes on social media.
During the 2022 FIFA World Cup, a photo of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo playing chess on an LV suitcase went viral. The presence of two international football stars in the same frame ignited the passion of their fans worldwide and expanded to a broader audience. As a result, the brand’s popularity reached its peak during the event thanks to the influence of the two famous athletes.
In today’s world, famous athletes have become one important option for the brand .
They are not just idols of millions of people worldwide, but also presents the spirits of sport that may influence an even wider group of audience worldwide. This combination allows brands to connect with the athletes’ fans, but also associate their brand with the emotional value of being positive, uplifting, and thriving for excellence has long-term significance, shaping a positive brand image.
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