GIVE A THOUGHT TO THE GLOBAL OLYMPIC SPONSORS – ARE THEY GETTING THEIR ROI?

I read an article on sponsors remaining largely silent leading up to the winter Olympics in China, and that got me thinking about the impact politics and negative publicity against rights holder has on brands. 

 

Sponsors spend enormous amounts on rights fees to partner with an event as big as the Olympic Games.  The sponsorship grants them logo use, branding and activation rights to leverage their own brand which could cost as much as the rights fees! And sponsorships are negotiated long term. Then they rely on the rights holders to decide countries, venues, fixtures and so forth.  After all, they are not specialists in running sports events, but rather in managing their own brands, and the sponsorship must work for them as they must answer to their shareholders and stakeholders as to why they are in the sponsorship in the first place!

 

The pandemic brought the planning of the 2020 Olympic games (which took place in 2021) to a grinding halt and sponsors had to pivot quickly.  They had to anticipate how the new reality would impact the live event, if it happened at all, and decide the best way forward to leverage their association and how to achieve an ROI through product sales.  Awareness is one thing but using the opportunity to create sales is another.

 

Many international Olympic sponsors chose to lie low during the 2020 summer Olympics in Japan due to public anti-Olympic sentiment.  Getting on the wrong side of the consumer is tantamount to killing the brand. 

 

Sponsors also had to contend with the new pandemic consumer insights.  Brand loyalty went out the window and trying out new brands became a norm, which smaller brands capitalised on.  But the most important consumer insight pointed to customers wanting brands to directly connect with them.  They wanted personalisation and to know that brands cared for the community – giving back to those that supported them through the years.  Therefore, Olympic sponsors had to pay even more attention to the consumer feeling and listen to the talk.

 

And now we have the Winter Olympics in a country that is well known for allegations of human rights violations, not to mention the questions being asked on their climate change policies, disregard for equality and inclusivity and general disregard of human respect.  For all these reasons many Global Olympic partners and sponsors have opted to keep a low profile, which has opened the door for local Chinese companies to grow their brand awareness.

 

The idea behind China’s hosting of the Olympics was to use the opportunity to promote the country as a tourist destination and promote and inclusive, Green Olympics, hence their slogan ‘faster, higher, stronger, together’.  But I question as to whether the opposite is happening?

 

The opening ceremony was a spectacular affair showing off China’s tech prowess.  The symbolic Olympic flame was specially designed for the first ever futuristic underwater torch relay using gaseous fuel that was smokeless and free of pollution. There can be no doubt China is in the forefront of anything technical.

 

But both Olympic Games were spectator free, so everything went online, and people consumed the Olympics via traditional TV, OTT and CTV (i.e. streaming using various different devices). 

 

Sponsors would have taken to online and TV, but so did every other brand not to mention the publics ad fatigue and the ability to skip the ads. All that sponsorship money and where is the uniqueness?

 

What about the off-the-field activations around the country staging the games, not to mention the fun activation areas at the entrance of each stadium where fans get involved in fun activities that the sponsors normally put on.  This is all part of the fun of a live event such as the Olympic Games.   And this also is where sales are generated, particularly for the FMCG brands such as Coca-Cola.

 

Whether the sponsors got their monies worth in Japan and China is questionable.  I cannot answer for them but having been intricately involved with many of the sponsors over the years at these massive sports events, and travelled the world with them, my heart goes out to their dilemma.

 

When controversy hits a sports body or event, sponsors get dragged it, which is a pity.  They sponsor events in good faith and when they must put the entire PR team onto reputations management to protect the brand, it is not fair.  Yes, brands are aware that things can happen and go wrong, and the PR team is always in the loop, but to be brought in to answer rights holders’ controversy is taking it to another level.

 

My observation over the 30 years that I have been in sponsorship is that there is a lack of foresight many rights holders have on the repercussion of their behaviour on sponsors.  After all, sponsorship is the lifeblood of any sport.  Lack of sponsorship impacts dramatically on any sporting association and the level of event they are able to produce. 

 

My final thought on the matter is that sports associations must bear in mind the impact that the pandemic has had on the bottom line of all companies (small, medium and large corporations), and when sponsorships come up for renewal, if they are not careful, the money could well dwindle somewhat.   I reiterate, sponsors are there to grow their brand and not to look after sporting associations. They have boards and shareholders to answer to!  Never forget!

 

 

A look into the GenZ’s and their use of Influencers

 The next generation of consumers is growing up! 

 

There is an estimated 2 billion GenZ’s (born between 1996/7 and 2010/12 - depending on which research document you follow) that are starting to enter the work force and will dominate the consumer market over the next few years.  They have lived through a pandemic which has shaped their thinking, likes, dislikes and general characteristics.  They are unique and we better all get our thinking right as to how we are going to attract this powerful customer.

 

By now their predecessors, the Millenials, are well established and financially independent.  GenZ’s are living through this crazy, uncertain and changing world which is in lockdown one minute, open the next only to be locked down again.  As we are shaped by our reality, and things that happen in our world, this becomes ingrained into our philosophy and the GenZ’s are showing signs of great resilience, strength of mind, agility, ability to make quick decisions while not afraid of change.    

 

Having plenty of GenZ influence in my life currently, I cannot stress more their need for authenticity.  Those as young at 8 years old can smell ‘fake’ a mile off!  And those 8 years old also want to consume from a brand that gives back to communities. They are also completely dedicated to their influencers.  I have not come across a single GenZ that does not have their favourite list of influencers that they religiously follow.

 

The recent statistics indicated that this maturing generation’s spending power exceeds $600 billion, which includes direct and indirect buying (the influence they have on their parents)

 

What also makes them unique is the fact that they were born into the world of advancing internet, and their brains are completely wired for technology.  They understand how it works and if they come across a tech problem, their mind can solve this within minutes.  Whereas the Baby Boomers and Gen X’s are often weary of all the apps around, the GenZ will gaze at us in disbelief as on their phone they will have 30 to 40 apps that they make regular use of.

 

It is the influencers that I am most interested in.  One of the new buzz words is ‘filter fatigue’, a term used to explain how the GenZ’s flick through their social media platforms quickly and distrust and discard with disdain all the unrealistic once-off brand mentions from influencers.  They know their influencers well and know very well what the person likes and dislikes, and a sudden promotion of something out of character is seen as the person jumping on the billion-dollar bandwagon to earn a quick buck.   This is just out of order!

 

In the US alone the influencer industry is estimated to exceed 4 Billion dollars in 2022.  It is interesting to know that GenZ’s will trust friends and family more than influencers, and celebrities and social media stars they trust even less.   All this is due to their filter fatigue and distrust of advertising motives.

 

So what does this mean?

 

Enter the nano-influencer. The regular person without the massive following but having enough following to be seen as real.  Their posts are important and show their everyday life without the enhancing apps that change their appearance and everything else about them.    In a recent research by Student Beans, 82% of GenZ’s in the US and UK said they don’t trust traditional influencers to give an honest opinion on a brand or product. 

 

There are a myriad of nano-influencers varying in ages from a young pre-teen to a grandparent.  Many of them are young leaders, such as university or college graduates, sports fanatics, those in the sciences, gamers and so forth.  The Student beans survey found that 45% of GenZ’s followed nano-influencers with 5 000 to 20 000 followers and found them as the most trustworthy.  This went down to 30% who trusted those between 20 000 and 100 000, 15% only trusted those with 100 000 to 1 Million and only 10% trusted anyone with over 1 million followers.

 

I have a couple of young early 20 GenZ’s in the family, whose budgets are limited, yet health, wellness and beauty are important.  They follow nano-influencers that use make up and other products that are easily accessible and can be bought within their budget.  They also want to follow influencers that promote themselves flaws and all.  They also sniff out all the giveaways and discounts as this directly impacts their budget!  They might follow celebrities and will see the sudden promotion of products, but they will not rush out and buy the product.   

 

Then we get the younger GenZ’s.  They follow completely different influencers, but the general feeling is exactly the same.  This category of consumer are influenced by their peers so they will follow the high profile influencers, such as YouTuber, Mr Beast, but they are also disparaging about anything that is not authentic.  Many a time I have listened to the youngsters chatting about posts that they found ‘completely fake’.  Sometimes I wonder if they are looking for fake posts!

 

I asked an 11 year-old, Cole,  why he loved Mr Beast’s ‘50 hours buried alive’ video (I personally didn’t get it).

His response; “It was interesting!  I felt scared for him and I wondered what it would be like.  I also like it because he gives a lot of his money away to all sorts of different causes.”

I asked what the experience taught him; “I leant about ‘Trust’ as he had to trust his support team completely.  I would never have done that and I watched his team prepare him and look after him.”

I asked the 13 year old GenZ and he said “I really liked it, it was cool!” and that was the end.

 

In conclusion, influencers are mushrooming, from the celebs to the nano-influencers, and this is great news.  There are so many topics of interest in the world and there is an enormous choice and consumers, including every industry, even the public relations companies such as Intune Communication, can draw on influencers to get our message across to the GenZ’s.  However, keep them authentic, unfiltered, genuine and what is so fantastic is that we can all use raw content as that is what the world is all about.  No one is perfect!  GenZ’s know this and they want to see brands they can relate to. Nano-infuencers can make a huge difference in successful campaigns.

 

The stumbling block is that there are a millions of nano-influencers – choose wisely!  The good part is the ability to change tactics if something isn’t working!  After all, we are now completely used to change, the pandemic has given us this excellent ability.

 

IT’S THE AGE OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS!

 

One of our clients that we have been lucky to retain for many years uses acronyms and abbreviations for everything! 

 

It is a full-time job keeping up to date and understanding the meanings.  Just when we think we have everything under control along comes a new one. 

 

If we don’t understand the acronyms/Abbreviations, we can easily lose the thread of any conversation!  After every meeting we discuss what transpired and how to move forward from an agency perspective.  We also discuss the latest abbreviations that we need to include into our client dictionary.

 

There is one specific abbreviation that we loved and have adopted into our agency! 

 

About 10 years ago we were sitting in a meeting preparing for an upcoming sports tournament, and the client had brought in a number of internal staff members, and they kept referring to the CYA.  “Have you sent your CYA?” or “I followed up with a CYA”.

 

We were deeply confused and eventually had to ask what this meant, “Oh, that refers to the ‘Cover Your Arse’ email,” was the reply.   We had a good laugh and discussed how these emails had saved them on numerous occasions.  We have since adopted the CYA into the business and anyone who is in an agency will understand the value of a CYA!  

 

In comes the pandemic and welcome to the world of acronyms and abbreviations!

 

Marketing, including public relations and social media took on a completely new look when Covid took the world by storm.  Marketing activations stopped immediately, and we all furiously wrote stories about our brands and services and posted them on as many different platforms as we could. 

 

Storytelling became the buzz word.  The brand with the most interesting story won!  The brand that showed the most empathy and focused on helping their community, won!  Anyone jumping on the pandemic band wagon, lost!  The new normal had arrived!

 

We were all furiously writing blogs, articles, ebooks, white papers, reports, updating websites, changing social media strategies – it was the era of change! 

 

We learnt that we are not creatures of habit after all!  We can change, we accepted the fact that not everything works according to plan, and it is Okay to change a strategy midway through.  We became adaptable creatures!  We had to implemented change to perform in a world of chaos.

 

With all the writing that needed to be done to be heard above the clutter, we started using abbreviations and acronyms to cut down on time, and this trend continues.

 

Let’s now have a bit of fun with abbreviations and acronyms:

 

We were reading an article this morning and came across a new word – SKIMPFLATION – which has prompted this discussion!

 

To understand Skimpflation, we need to look at the background.  In the countries that have opened up, the UK being a primary example, mass staff resignations have been seen across most organisations. 

 

Staff members that had been hanging on to their jobs in fear of the pandemic and its implications have all resigned leaving companies struggling to find replacements and this has impacted on CX (abbreviation for customer experience) and the DTC (Direct to Consumer) shopping has been left wanting.  In a period where there is very little brand loyalty, this results in consumers looking for alternative sources.

 

-        Never before has DCO (Dynamic Creative optimisation) been so critical to brands.  Skimpflation does not help the DTC (direct to consumer) experience and drives a wedge between the company and consumers!

 

-        Companies such as Intune used the pandemic to look for a CMS (Customer management solution) and our decision was in invest in a CRM (customer relationship marketing) system.  To make this work we needed to ensure we understood the API’s (application programming interface) and how it works.  We further had to work on a DCO (dynamic creative optimisation) to ensure that we had a digital strategy for personalisation.

 

-        Intune further works with many macro and micro influencers and we needed to understand the NIL (name, image and likeness) to ensure any form of success

 

These are merely a couple of examples of how the new era of acronyms and abbreviations work. 

Here we are in the digital world

-        We now know that we CAN change …………. and quickly

-        You can teach an old dog new tricks

-        You are never too old to learn

-        You might be BBT (born before technology) but whether you are Gen X, even a Baby Boomers, you need to be in the mix and understand the tech world

-        Brand loyalty has gone out the window

-        Online shopping is on the increase

-        We live in a hybrid working world now

And finally

-        Storytelling is key to any brand’s success, and this require public relations!  Contact Intune Communications and we will help bring your brand, service and company up to speed with the new world.