DAZN, Sky, Amazon Prime und RTL+ – if you want to follow every single game in the Bundesliga, Champions League, Europa League and Conference League, you’ll need subscriptions to a lot of streaming platforms. Media rights are being divided up into smaller and smaller chunks, creating increasing numbers of assets that can be sponsored.
Media reach remains stable
Despite the above developments, media reach remains largely stable. This year’s SPOBIS Climate Index saw 51% of representatives from the sports business rate sport’s media reach as good, with 25% of those surveyed believing that the situation will improve further over the next six months.
In other words, anyone considering becoming a sponsor can rely on a stable reach. However, the fragmented nature of sport begs the question as to which platforms are best for reaching the target audience, and which methods are the most effective. Fans continue to see sports sponsorship in a positive light. According to the Nielsen Global Sport Marketing Report, 81% of sports fans trust the sponsorships at sports events. If a company is involved in sport, it can even increase people’s willingness to make a purchase from them by 10%.
Sync frame: the next step for LED boards
That said, companies and brands need to think beyond the traditional LED boards at the perimeter of a sports pitch if they want to reach all their intended audiences. So, what can they do? “When someone acquires a sponsorship right, they need to extend the whole sponsorship across various media to ensure it can reach its full potential,” says Andreas Göbel, Senior Director Media at SPORTFIVE. A combination of sponsorship and media extension can help: media activation. Greater reach and enhanced media effectiveness are just two of the benefits that activation offers.
The pairing of Hertha BSC and Homeday illustrates the benefits that this kind of media extension can offer. As a partner of this Berlin-based club, the real estate platform decided to run advertisements on an L-frame while the matches were being broadcast on Sky, alongside its presence on the traditional LED boards. The online payment provider paysafecard also used a “sync frame” during the previous Bundesliga season. The first two matches alone attracted more than 5 million contacts, increasing brand awareness and relevance among the target audience.
OTT content and storytelling are increasing in popularity
With media activation, it is particularly important to bear consumer behaviour, and the resulting trends, in mind. According to the Global Sports Marketing Report, 41% of fans around the world primarily tend to watch live sporting events via digital platforms. While watching, 47% of sports lovers don’t just focus on the event per se: they also use other types of media, like Instagram, WhatsApp and similar at the same time. Plus, fans now want to see new kinds of content, like OTT content and non-live content.
It’s all about getting the right mix: the benefit of these activations is also that they enable storytelling to be targeted to the intended audience, which, in turn, can boost credibility and brand loyalty.
Indeed and Eintracht Frankfurt – a perfect match
The collaboration between Eintracht Frankfurt and their main sponsor Indeed is an example of successful cross-platform media activation. In conjunction with Sky, the partnership was activated on digital and social channels alike, as well as via the traditional medium of TV. As part of this, SPORTFIVE developed a bespoke media concept for Indeed to boost awareness and reach for this job platform. This gave rise to the “Job of the Match” format where the face of the campaign, Esther Sedlaczek, presented unique jobs in the Bundesliga – and it was practically an immediate success: traffic on Indeed spiked to 18,000 users during the broadcast. The average click-through rate via Sky Go hit 6.7% and, all told, 40,000 users and 50,000 page impressions were recorded.
Top tips for successful media activation
“It’s important to remember that there’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to media activation,” says Göbel. “Individual needs are constantly growing, which is why we need to develop custom concepts that are authentic and align with both the brand and the rights holder.”
SPORTFIVE’s Media Activation department lays the foundations for positioning and establishing media as a cornerstone of sports sponsorship, developing strategies to include fans in ways that simply aren’t possible in linear television. In turn, brands can use activation to generate additional, direct earnings thanks to the focus on engagement and conversion – while sports fans have special memories of the brand as a result of its exceptional campaign.
