Sponsorships have always presented interesting and multidimensional content opportunities to position a brand and engage current or potential customers. A well-developed content strategy is a great way for brands to leverage the sponsorship for deeper engagement with the audience.
Sponsorships have seen some shifts that create a need for content and engagement – shifts in how the 24/7/365 media cycle has blended the off-season and regular season of all sports. Thanks in part to digital and social media, brands can now enable real-time engagement with fans and participants. Full year engagement and real-time opportunities during an event offers sponsors a longer window to engage fans, satisfy an unmet need of theirs (via entertaining or helpful content) and tell their brand’s story.
Examples to Emulate
I’ve cherry picked a few great examples of brands leveraging sponsorship or event activations with compelling, engaging content. They all provide consumer value (helpful or entertaining content), reinforce the brand position and seamlessly integrate the product into the story.
Red Bull:
Red Bull is the leading example of how a brand can completely commit to event, sports and sponsorship content to establish a brand position and build a global brand. Red Bull is clear regarding who their target customer is, and what their brand story is all about as they work to engage those customers. Over time, they’ve sponsored existing events and athletes that fit their brand message while also building credibility by producing great extreme sport content.
That has enabled them to brand further and create their own events, which then become the content. Red Bull now supports a lot globally, but what’s the highlight of their recent work? Needless to say, the Felix Baumgartner leap from space. The results? $20 million invested earned 90 million viewers and $80 million in media impact. A job well done.