Search results matching tag 'football'

Great band, Great brand: Kasabian Football Hero with Umbro

1715701 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:36:00 GMT

Umbro has done a great job reinventing itself recently - the launch of the new England football kit has, in my opinion, been a great success.

This tie up with Kasabian, for the launch of their new single Underdog, is another great piece of marketing for the football brand.

Check out the making of the video here: Umbro

I should say that I didn't find this video myself but pinched it from Jonathan Hume's excellent blog, so thanks to him.

Ukraine vs England LIVE! Football rights holders to score a glut of own-goals

1840893 — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:33:00 GMT

Another unexpected outcome of the demise of Setanta: Saturday’s world cup qualifier between Ukraine and England can only be viewed live online, as no TV broadcasters were willing to pay the usual fat fee for what is, let’s face it, a dead rubber.

The rights holders, sports agency Kentaro , are confident in the£4.99 online PPV offer (“commercially, this will work”), which will be streamed by Perform (who do most of the online Premier League stuff), and marketed hard through national newspapers. They plan to restrict subscriptions to one million, I read as I snort my derision into my cornflakes. My forecast is in the five figures, no more.Why do these people not think of simply asking consumers a few intelligent questions instead of falling victim to their own hype?

Live streaming is with us - BBC Sport’s incredible performances at the Beijing Olympics left us in no doubt. But hard evidence suggests five good reasons why Ukraine vs England PPV online will dive, in a manner not seen since Eddie the Eagle...

1. The BBC’s coverage of Beijing was a huge step forward for web streaming. But data from BMRB Sport showed that these 32m web stream requests all came from only 11% of the population viewing live events online, vs 71% who viewed live on TV. So, we can start forecasting the potential audience for this match with a figure of around 5m adults who have the inclination and technology to view sport live online.

2. While Beijing captured the TV viewing of 7 in 10, England’s first qualifier in this campaign against Croatia on ITV was viewed by a more modest 7.3m, or around 15%. Still a great audience, but I’d say we can factor down that 5m top-end web streaming sports audience to more like 1m for an England football match, assuming it were free to stream... still with me?

3. Paying a minimum of £4.99 is another matter, especially when the BBC will be broadcasting free commentary on 5 Live, which consistently attracts over 6m listeners. A very conservative estimate would suggest that the free household-name radio station will get nine listeners to every one viewing live online on god-knows-where.com. So where are we in factoring down the audience potential? a maximum of 100,000.

4. The demise of football PPV or subscription offers over and above Sky Sports suggests that even football has limits in its ability to make money. Prem Plus was closed, Setanta ran out of money. I wonder why a provider unknown to the general public believes they will succeed? Cleverly, they are using PayPal as the payment method, perhaps bypassing fears over online payment. But even a generous count has PayPal penetration at half the adult population. Assuming many people would fall at this hurdle, our 100k is soon into five figures.

5. The final omen of failure? Rio Ferdinand thinks it’s a good idea. After all, he read the IAB press release that Online advertising has now overtaken TV advertising, so it must be true. Personally, I blame statisticians for failing to ensure the education of their audience ;)

NCAA fails in sideline Twitter ban

2371004 — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 10:49:00 GMT

A college football division (the American kind) has u-turned on its policy that attempted to clamp down on bloggers and amateur sportswriters, effectively 'banning' social media from its stadiums, by prohibiting fans from recording sideline video, audio or photographs - oh yeah, and the illegal Tweeting about games.

The NCAA's South Eastern Conference, arguably the US' most fearsome college football division, issued new rules for fans at all game events - no Twitter feeds, no Facebook photos, no YouTube videos.

Understandably, the outrage was swift and immediate, as hundreds of angry fans took to the internet to express their disbelief.

No Twitter feeds? Seriously?!

The official policy, released Monday, said fans could not "produce or disseminate (or aid in producing or disseminating) any material or information about the event, including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information concerning the event."

Within a day, three leading media organisations sent a letter to the SEC, protesting the restrictions - and with due cause, the rules affected big media too (ie, the Twitter thing and SEC videos used on newspaper websites).

The SEC hastily backtracked on its policy, issuing a public, and defeated tweet (yeah, a tweet): "To our Twitter fans, we have heard you. We're working on clarifications to our policy and should have something done soon."

A SEC spokesman has since said: "The intent of the policy was never to eliminate social media" adding, "Twitter fans, please share the great times you have at our stadiums with your friends".

The spokesman, Charles Bloom, hit the nail on the head with this one: "We probably took traditional media rights language and tried to apply it in a new media world."

Hear, hear!

The revised policy now reads "personal messages of scores or other brief descriptions of the competition throughout the event are acceptable."

Games can't be recorded on video, but pictures can be taken for personal use.

College football in the United States is a huge billion dollar industry, with its fans renowned as some of the loudest, drunkest, most fervent louts in the world of sport.

Why the bigwigs at the SEC wanted to take away their fans Twitter and YouTube is understandable - money - but they honestly could not have thought that they were going to get away with such blatantly draconian restrictions.

Does it remind anyone of the state of the music industry, but on a larger, real life scale? Ivory towered suits issuing ridiculous thou shalt not's towards their dedicated fan base at the behest of their bottom lines?

If anything, it serves as an example of social media secretly worming its way into every facet of our waking lives. Who would have thought that Tweeting about a football match would be deemed illegal, like, ever?

Is this where we are headed, where live, public events are not to be broadcast through our own trivial means, seems like a step in the wrong direction to me.

Just another clumsy attempt of big-boardrooms trying to lock down the growth of social media, good luck with that.

Tweeting athletes: the curious case of Michael Vick

2371004 — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:17:00 GMT

A strange trend in the world of sports has emerged, tweeting athletes, particularly within the NFL and NBA.

Zzz, boring. American. I know.

But yesterday, ESPN broke some interesting news, that Michael Vick had signed a two-year deal with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Those scratching their heads at the previous sentence should probably turn back now before it's too late.

But for the curious, Michael Vick was a superstar, highlight-reel, exciting, inspiring quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, until 2006, when he was convicted of running a dogfighting operation out of his home, and sentenced to two-years in prison.

Oh yeah, and he was kicked-out of the NFL.

They were controversial times. Even though Vick oversaw the torture, drowning and etc. of a number poor, poor dogs, some felt the sentence was heavy handed, and were worried that a player with such exceptional talent would ever be welcomed back into the league.

Thanks to Twitter, we now know that players are ready and willing to welcome Vick back, with open arms.

Mashable has compiled a great list of tweeting NFLers all commenting on the Vick saga, like the evangelical (and excitable!) Saints running back Reggie Bush: "I think it's great the Mike Vick has signed with the Eagles! Everyone deserves a second chance! The only person who can judge us is God..."

Or the insane Chad Johnson (who prefers the handle Ocho Cinco, seriously): "Mike Vick and McNabb on the same team, damn!!!!!! Glad I don't play defense, good luck planning to stop that shh!!".

It's cool, see? I think half the fun is trying to translate what they're on about.

The question is, now that we can essentially interact with these superstar players, do we really need commentators, or sports 'journalists' anymore?

Just look at Shaq's Twitter, its hysterical, insightful and most importantly the real thing.

Plug John Madden's live Twitter feed to the bottom of the screen to call the play by play, that'd work for me.

I would rather hear what Peyton Manning thought of the Cowboys pass rush than some washed-up NFL 'personality'.

Obviously, the NFL has a huge opportunity on its hands if it embraces Twitter as a new way to reaching out to fans. Which is why I find it strange they're fining its players for doing just that. But they don't call it the 'No Fun League' for nothing.

Tweeting athletes is great, and the season hasn't even started yet. Although I can understand why the league doesn't want its players updating Twitter from the sidelines during games, anytime before or after should be heavily encouraged.

As for Vick, I think fans are still split on the guy. Some see him as a great athlete, others as a vile dog killer. Some just both (like me).

Vick doesn't have a Twitter account. But he should. It would be an excellent way for fickle fans to connect, or even vent their frustration, so he can clean some of the mud off his name.

The pathway to South Africa 2010

2527057 — Fri, 22 May 2009 10:29:00 GMT

The 2010 football World Cup in South Africa is just over a year away and it is reaching the time that brands traditionally panic. How do they reach their target audiences during one of the world’s most high-profile sporting events? Is it too late? How much will it cost? Even at troubled economic times like the present it is a given that brands will want to be involved with the World Cup; sponsorship is a proven communications vehicle capable of creating relationships between brand and consumer.

Sport touches our emotional core like no other pastime or activity. Our hopes and dreams rest on the shoulders of athletes and teams as people pray for success. Sport creates loyalty and this in turn creates a powerful reason for marketers to buy into it as they seek to formalise a relationship with consumers. South Africa has a large and diverse population; succeeding in winning the attention of these groups of people is the difference between success and failure for brands.

So what makes a successful foray into this new market? Brands must be aware that they cannot decide to jump on the World Cup bandwagon and infiltrate South Africa for the month of the tournament and then be gone. The very personal nature of the relationship between sports and its consumers means that strategic sponsorship is the only way for brands to successfully reach their target audience.

Sustainable, long-term development programmes are the most effective way of creating a successful sponsorship. Programmes must give something back to the local communities that they are trying to become a part of and it goes without saying that they must give something back. Sport is an inextricable part of the South African culture but brands cannot expect to just arrive in a country and succeed.

Charlton Athletic Community Trust was brought in to South Africa to work alongside British Airways and the Metropolitan Police in 2001. Since the commencement of our involvement we have core sustainable community engagement programmes involving schools and community organisations in place in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. There is also the possibility of national roll-out once the World Cup has ended.

British Airways is a fantastic example of a brand looking to put something back into a community and one that has a right to exist in the South African marketplace and how to get it right. The airline has a long-term programme of community investment and its goals and priorities give it the credence to exist in South Africa. Key aims for the company are youth development, heritage, tourism and the environment. As the airline has been operating scheduled services between Britain and South Africa since 1932, there is reason for its existence in the country. It is a successful tie-up because of the longevity of British Airways’ commitment to the country and its South Africa Twinning programme has become a flagship project for the airline. By creating a community football project, based on a sound and successful business model. brought across from experienced UK partners, British Airways was able to cement itself as part of a long-term development programme giving something back to the local community. This involvement at such a grassroots level has helped the airline steadily increase its services to and from South Africa as its reputation grew.

So what’s the conclusion here? There are opportunities for brands to be involved with the South Africa 2010 World Cup. However, it is not just a case of a brand deciding to jump on the proverbial bandwagon and slap a logo all around a large sporting event. The most successful partnerships are born out of a long-term strategy and a credible reason to exist in a particular space. There are many opportunities out there as South Africa 2010 draws ever closer but brands must think carefully and sensibly before they act. There are existing partners already within the South African market with the expertise to help a brand understand the market conditions and the positioning needed to be a success. It is just about finding the perfect fit for the right reasons.

New Opinion poll puts a price on the loyalty of football fans

628994 — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:05:00 GMT

On Wednesday 13 May over 900 movers and shakers from the football world will converge at Wembley Stadium to discuss a wide range of commercial challenges within the sport at Soccerex. And I will be chairing one of the biggest sessions – Football sponsorship in the Recession.

The results of a new Soccerex/NSP Sport poll will be released on Wednesday and it makes interesting reading!

What is striking is the high degree of consensus amongst football clubs and those who are part of the football industry on the way in which fans should be treated.

A key poll finding is that fans’ loyalty comes at a price and that football clubs need to treat fans more like paying consumers and not take their continued loyalty for granted.

In other words, in these credit crunch times where household disposable income is stretched to max clubs won’t be able to get away with hikes in the price of annual season tickets or replica kits in the way they have done so in the past.

Today, fans behave more like traditional consumers than supporters and will turn their back on clubs if the price isn’t right or the product isn’t good enough. The potential loss of revenues for football clubs will be the price paid for having destroyed the loyalty of their supporters that may have been built over years or even generations within the same households.

This level of introspection within the football industry should have happened a long time ago of course. Warning bells are clearly now being heard in club boardrooms up and down the country as the long term sustainability of football clubs has been questioned most recently by an All Party Parliamentary Football Group report that urged them to break free from the legacy of debt-leveraging in order to create a more secure and financially stable future.

Many commentators think that the recession will claim the scalps of football clubs as they fail to retain commercial sponsors over the next five years and revenues from broadcasters start to dry up as a result of a downturn in TV advertising.

And as the rest of the UK struggles to tighten its belt in terms of salaries, perhaps football clubs will have to follow suit, which could usher in a new era in player salaries as well as more realistic approach in managing their finances in the future.

Ardi Kolah is director of NSP Sport, a pioneer in how sports rights holders and commercial brand owners can cost effectively leverage the value of sports sponsorship through a powerful partnership with communities, young people, families and teachers. NSP Sport’s clients include LloydsTSB, Disney, EDF and Norwich Union. NSP Sport is part of National Schools Partnership (NSP), the UK’s leading social partnership marketing specialist.

Building brand Rio Ferdinand

1715701 — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:36:00 GMT

In some ways Rio Ferdinand is a typical footballer - massive wage packet, big money career transfers, fancy cars and the occasional brush with controversy, including an eight month ban for missing a drugs test.

But unlike many of his high-profile colleagues, who seem to content themselves with the PlayStation and trips to the bookies, Ferdinand is something of an entrepreneur.

The Manchester United star already runs his own record label ‘White Chalk Records' which he founded four years ago and now plans to launch a free online magazine, entitled Rio.

The magazine will target around half a million 16-35 year-old males surprisingly enough - with the man himself stepping into the shoes of editor-in-chief.

It sounds OK. The first issue includes interviews with 50 Cent and Mickey Rourke promoting his new film ‘The Wrestler'.

The 29 year-old also starred as Jeremy Beadle-esque TV show made by his own production company in which he played pranks on his unwitting team-mates in a show called ‘Rio's World Cup Windups'.

And, as you'd expect, the England man has the usual brand tie-ups with the likes of Nike, for which he is currently starring in an ad campaign.

Long gone are the days of footballers retiring and buying the local pub to see them through their twilight years. But unlike so many modern day footballers Ferdinand looks set to have a colourful career long after his Old Trafford days are behind him.

Droga and I

1319935 — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 10:46:00 GMT

It’s hard when presenting in Stockholm not to throw in a few one-liners about suicides or Abba. “I’m so excited to be here I nearly killed myself", “You’re a great crowd, is it a Swedish convention not to clap?” “We’ve come a long way from Waterloo to get here” and so on. So it was good to see Dave Droga speaking at the Eurobest event last week without too many localisation jokes, but with dry wit and passion about the work he’s been up to. Dave likes only to work on things he feels passionate about and make a difference. There’s a superb campaign for Obama with Sarah Silverman getting Jewish grandparents in Florida to vote for change, and the Tap campaign in New York (getting people to pay for tap water as a charitable act). Creatives do love to work on things they feel passionate about, in fact, we all do. But it does leave the industry with a big question. How do you get passion for the brand from everyone involved in developing and delivering the communication?

Developing a different approach is one way. We talked at Eurobest about how developing a more modern approach to getting attention and engagement of specific target audiences with niche work can be highly effective. To be successful in Europe, cultural insight and relevance is critical. Others showed ideas living well in several channels. Others showed work that was just ‘cool’. And that’s ok. Because if it’s cool, and consumers feel differently as a result of seeing or engaging with the message and the experience of what the brand stands for, it does rather a lot of good for the brand.

Not discussed so much, but underpinning the mood of the whole event, is the tough question about the budgets out there. Not many marketers are expecting to spend more, and are expecting robust business cases behind activity. As Shakespeare put it, ‘twas ever thus. The difference now, though, is that if we can’t put numbers in front of work, it won’t fly. But sometimes we need to understand the context of emotional decision-making and passion for brands, which don’t necessarily follow the logic of numbers. It got me thinking about what people feel strong ‘emotional connections’ with.

Let’s imagine we’re pitching for an insurer called Manchester United. The data shows us that there are 2 million homeowners in London who buy their insurance from another firm called Chelsea. The marketing task is simple. Let’s get 5% of the Chelsea policy-holders to switch to Manchester United and we'll hit our target. But for reasons that nobody can quite explain, the Chelsea loyalists ('fans' in Facebook parlance) don’t want to switch. In fact they send mailers back, deface the posters on the Cromwell Road, hack the site and stand up saying “we hate Man U” in the pub. Of course it takes time, heritage, high levels of engagement and product performance to get to the place Manchester United and Chelsea hold amongst their strongest fans. And I choose these teams as (arguably) they have a higher proportion of fair-weather fans (prospective switchers) compared to say, Liverpool, or Luton Town. Not all brands have the same investment capacity. But every brand should have something inspiring to say if you think hard enough.

www.eurobest.com

http://mingeltv.eurobest.com/videos/details/48

http://mingeltv.eurobest.com/videos/details/45

Tottenham Hotspur the Daily Express of the Premiership

255762 — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:24:00 GMT

Martin Samuel in The Times today on Tottenham Hotspur and why the club is like the Daily Express. Made me laugh, well they are both total crap.

Samuel says that anyone who has ever worked at the Daily Express would know why Spurs are in the proverbial latrine. His reasons are pretty straight forward and make perfect sense – it's the endless change, upheaval and inconsistency where no idea is given the time to work (or fail) and where muddled thinking rules.

The same applies to the Daily Express where such high concepts help produce a paper that is so shockingly bad that I can not believe people part with their cash for it unless the readers are all involved in some secret mass experiment judging the affects of long term exposure to doom about house prices, foreigners and the bloody weather. Where would it be without the weather.

Spurs are the same, and while it would be great to see Harry Redknapp succeed at White Hart Lane I not so secretly hope he fails. Miserably. They deserve to be a Championship side. If the Spurs brand should be anywhere that's where it should be. I mean where else would you expect to find a club that calls a grotty part of North London its home. They should knock it down and move out of London. Most of the fans live in Hertfordshire anyway.

It isn't just traits of inconsistency that the two share. Samuel points to the bizarre approach the two have to staffing levels. The Express has of course shed staff by the bucket load (who needs journalists? pah), which is an approach that Daniel Levy at Spurs has also taken (who needs strikers? pah).

The Express has it little chance of regaining past glories. It needs a radical rethink and relaunch, but that will never happen? Not while as Samuel says it is owned by a former porn baron. Where would it go anyway? What would you do with it?

Spurs have at least grasped the nettle and might yet be saved from their true home. Stranger things have happened.

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The credit crunch's latest victim - Manchester United

2228399 — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 07:13:00 GMT

I've got a mini-theory about the relationship between sponsors and football teams:
poor performance in the markets = poor performance on the pitch.

Here we go:
- Man United have one of their worst ever starts to their season. AIG teeter on the brink of collapse (propped up the US Fed).
- West Ham lose their manager. XL goes bust.
- Newcastle United have one of their most troubled years in their history. Northern Rock goes *** up.

QED!

Anyone else got any more evidence to support my crack-pot theory?!