Lord of the Rings

For brands looking to tap into the unparalleled consumer appeal of sporting events, experiential agencies can take the lead in communicating a clear, unified brand message across all touchpoints

Somewhere in a gym, someone is in pain - a lot of pain. It's not the first time they have looked in the mirror through beads of sweat and thought, 'I'm getting closer'. These individuals are everywhere, or at least in every country. They are in every sport, working hard, day and night and at meal times, to reach their long-term goal. Winning.

Sport is ingrained in society. It touches more genres and demographics than any other medium. Sport is a powerful influencer and a clever ally.

The positive influence of sharing international knowledge to build successful athletes has shaped many of our sports stars and international teams into global competitors.
Athletes continually work to improve their personal bests because they cannot afford not to. Time moves fast, targets get ever closer. Analysing specific areas of weakness and learning how to master new techniques will ensure every effort is focused on better results. Next time.

The legacy of focusing on the long-term end product has improved the reach, experience and spectacle of global sports to make it a huge investment vehicle for media and businesses globally.

The ability to be close enough to touch the world's greatest athletes, and to share the same sights, smells and surroundings that they do is a fascinating area to exploit for marketers and their experiential agencies.

We can get brands closer to the action - and consumers are interested in that.
For every major sporting event, there is an eagerly anticipated build-up, fuelled by consumers' thirst for real-time information and the media's ability to provide answers or assumptions.

During major tournaments, experiential can play the lead role in straddling the PR (bronze), sponsorship (silver) and activation (gold) rostrum of success.

Sport is continually getting closer through all media, every day of our lives. It affects our thoughts and habits, as well as who and why we believe in or endorse a player, athlete, team or sport.

Sporting values are held close to our hearts and are passed down the generations via discussions, opinions or dialogue - but mainly through shared experiences.
Yet traditional media are failing to maximise the ability of great sports occasions to unite advertisers with their target audiences. As brands jostle for prime position during half-time intervals to prove their sporting credentials, everyone in the pub turns around to face the barmaid with a tenner in their hand. Meanwhile, the couch potatoes head to the kitchen and a chrome kettle. Creating touchpoints to build a brand's relevance and sporting credentials with disengaged consumers via through-the-line experiential strategies is more personal and longer lasting.

The ability to use objective thinking and clever planning can avoid budget misappropriation. Experiential teams can effectively manage so called 'tactical routes' to consumer, as long as their shared goals are selling more stuff, boosting consumer understanding and, importantly, 'developing more good stuff we can sell more of, for longer, to more people'.

Why should experiential agencies lead? Because they should be able to prove they can keep all agencies on brief to deliver one clear communication message.
It doesn't matter who has developed the message, but it must be managed through everything our consumers read, see, hear and touch during the campaign.

When you finish this 'one message' plan, it can be evaluated, tracked, measured and used as the benchmark for the next phase of the brand's journey in changing its shape, position or perception with the defined target market.

Let the games begin.

Shay Boyd is founder of Clay London and a Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Marketing.

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