Pilote CEO to Present Social Media for Business Bootcamp.
September 29, 2009 by admin
Pilote Media are proud to annouce their Social Media for Buisness Bootcamp seminar to be held in London on the 14th of October 2009. Presented by Pilote CEO, David Fuller, the 3 hour session is designed to dispell myths about social media and show how platforms like Twitter, Facebook and even ‘old fashioned’ forums and bulletin boards can be powerful business tools.
David, who has worked for global branding giants like Unilever and pioneering social networks says:
It’s a shame that the media focus on the celebrity use of tools like Twitter. There are millions of serious business people in the world who are realising that these platforms are not ‘just for kids’, they are an evolution in the way a brand talks to its customers, suppliers and the wider world.
Pilote have developed the seminar for those in business who are still coming to terms with the variety of tools that are lumped together as social media. In David’s view:
I talk to a lot of people who don’t understand why business hasn’t adopted some of these practises more quickly, but in the main, these people are early adopters. For those who are head down in the day to day running of a business, especially in uncertain times, it is not always easy to get your head around the opportunities and implications of new ideas. One of the problems though, is that social media has been sold as technology and is therefore seen as the domain of the IT crowd. Actually, these tools are for marketing, PR and corporate communications professionals and more and more, those in business development.
David’s Social Media for Business Bootcamp will run on the 14th of October, 2009 in London. For more information visit the event page.
Sponsorship Works – Submit Your Case Study.
August 5, 2009 by admin
SportBusiness is looking for the best in sports marketing case studies for our annual Sponsorship Works report. So, if you are a sponsor, sports property or agency with a great story to tell we would love to hear from you.
For some in sponsorship the past 12 months have been tough so there is no more important time to reinforce the message that “Sponsorship Works”. With sponsorship spend ever more subject to scrutiny, our focus this year is on value which is why submitting a case study for the report is absolutely FREE. Click here to submit your case study abstract today.
Sponsorship Works for you – published as a report style book Sponsorship Works is read by some of the most influential decision makers in sports marketing but this year we are going a step further. The top 11 case studies will be serialised in our magazine SportBusiness International getting your story out around the world.
What are we looking for from you?
As submitting a case study for Sponsorship Works is absolutely FREE, we need you to help make our delivery process as easy as possible. At this point we are asking you to submit an abstract of up to 200 words telling your story by Wednesday 19th August 2009. We will then contact you with the editorial guidelines for the complete piece and the report will be ready for serialisation and publication later in the year.
Submit your abstract or download more details here, we look forward to hearing from you.
Sports Marketing & Social Media Networking Event In London.
June 18, 2009 by admin
Sports Marketing is a growing business. Social Media is a huge buzzword at the moment relating to sports marketing, but most of the discussion, at least that we are exposed to is happening in the USA.
We’ve decided to run an event. The premise is pretty simple – we’ve booked a room at a cool members club in London. All you have to do is register and show up. We want to get together people who are interested, people who are thinking about it and people who are doing it to share stories, work out what’s working and what’s not.
It doesn’t matter if you are an ad-agency, a PR agency, a sponsor, a team, rights holder or blogger. This is an opportunity to get together with like minded people, have a couple of drinks and get the low-down.
Check out the details at http://www.pilotemedia.com/thought-leadership/sm2-sports-marketing-free-social-media-networking-event/
Pilote Media CEO on Sponsorship.
June 1, 2009 by admin
Interview with Pilote Media CEO – David Fuller featured on Melges24.com
Sponsorship Expert David Fuller of Pilote Media On Securing A Sponsor For Your Team
Most Melges 24 owners will have at some time considered sponsorship as a potential means of offsetting the cost of campaigning their boat on the regatta circuit. Indeed on the US and European circuits, hulls and sails displaying sponsors decals are a familiar site these days.
Bagging yourself a sponsor is not a simple matter and requires a professional approach. What is the best way to attract a sponsor in these post credit crunch times? Are there still businesses out there worth approaching with a proposal? How do you position your team as a viable sponsorship option?
To try to find answers to these and other questions we sat down with someone who specialises in yacht sponsorship – David Fuller, founder of Pilote Media, a niche publisher and sports marketing consultancy that specialises in the business of yacht racing and the contributing editor at the website www.yachtsponsorship.com .
IM24CA: Given the difficult global economic situation are there still any businesses out there that are interested in sponsoring yacht racing?
DF: Yes. For some, the global economic situation is an opportunity to re-evaluate sponsorships and some companies are looking to more ‘niche’ sports where there might be some relative bargains to be had. It needs to be a business-based sponsorship though, with real deliverables. Companies can’t be seen to be spending money on going sailing while at the same time making people redundant.
IM24CA: What would you say potential sponsors find attractive about yacht racing?
DF: Yacht Racing has many attractive attributes, some unique. For example the team element – racing a Melges 24 with a four person crew is one of the only sports where the whole team is contributing at the same time. Not like a basketball team where one or two players are involved or football where eight people are ‘not doing anything’.
There are some obvious environmental advantages of sailing over Motorsport for example and overall it can be relatively cheap compared to other sports.
IM24CA: What type of businesses – large or small – are most likely to respond positively to an approach to sponsor an individual Melges 24 campaign?
DF: Rather than think about the size of a business, it is better to think about what their goals might be and who they are trying to communicate with. Companies that operate in the same markets that you are competing in are probably the best place to start. Not only are their customers being exposed to the sponsorship, but they can also involve employees and partners.
IM24CA: What is the best way to make initial contact with a business to open a dialogue about sponsorship? In a large organisation which department would be the best starting point?
DF: It is different for every company. Very large companies have dedicated sponsorship teams and if a business is already sponsoring sports or community activity they will talk about on their website. Marketing or communications (PR) is a good place to start, but often it is more productive to approach the CEO directly.
IM24CA: Is mass mailing of a proposal to hundreds of companies a good idea or does a more targeted approach work better? How about cold calling by phone?
DF: Sometimes you might get lucky sending out a mass proposal, but it’s like getting a job. You will do better if you take some time to understand the company. If you don’t know who they are or what they do, then you can’t know how you can help them. Do some research and find out where their offices are. Understand their products or services. Then you can cold call.
IM24CA: What are the key sections of a sponsorship proposal document?
DF: The key section of a sponsorship proposal is the outline of benefits to the sponsor. What are you offering in return for the money? What’s included – what’s not? If you are in a fleet – why are you more sponsorable then the next team? Companies will vary as to the amount of detail they need depending on their sophistication.
IM24CA: What is in it for the sponsor? What are the typical reasons that a business might be interested in sponsoring a yacht race team? What are some good ways of measuring the positive effect of sponsorship?
DF: This depends on what they are trying to achieve. The phrase ‘return on investment’ (ROI) is used a lot, but there is another phrase that is being used for sponsorship which is Return on Objectives (ROO). A company might have an objective to reward their high-performing sales team, they might have an objective to enter a new market or launch a new product. Most companies are looking for awareness and exposure but some are trying to position themselves more accurately and all are hoping that it will lead to more sales.
Measurement is difficult and it is often expensive to qualify sponsorship value. Traditionally, sponsorship has been measured using a model of equivalent value – for example if a photo appears in a magazine with the sponsor’s logo and the ad rate for a page in that magazine is £2000, then the equivalent value is £2000. This is a pretty flawed model and one of the reasons sponsorship gets a bad name sometimes.
Luckily, in the new world, we have digital forms of media. It is easier to count a webpage visit or a click or a You Tube view and in some cases you can track that back to sales. Setting clear objectives makes it easier to measure if you have achieved them.
IM24CA: What other sports can we learn lessons from?
DF: There are best practices in all sports. How you get the most out of a sponsorship depends on the audience you are trying to reach and your budget. There are some great examples in sailing.
Puma is doing an amazing job at the moment with their Volvo Ocean Race campaign and a lot of it can be done relatively cheaply. You aren’t going to build a hospitality unit out of shipping containers, but you can make sure you have a good website with some video and ways of communicating. Some of the extreme sports do a great job of using new media like You Tube, Facebook and Twitter to engage with their fans and communicate their sponsor’s message to a wider audience.
IM24CA: What can class associations and sailing’s governing bodies do to help make yacht racing more attractive to potential sponsors?
DF: This is not easy. Every class has its own rules and its own culture. Not everyone will want to accept sponsorship. If a class makes a decision to allow sponsorship then it has to be prepared to work to help those sponsors achieve their goals. Class associations and governing bodies need to be able to show that they have the skills to compete for a share of the sponsorship money out there. Do you have dedicated press? Do you have people who can explain sailing to a non-expert audience? Do you have an up to date website? Do you have the infrastructure to entertain guests before, during and after an event? How do spectators watch? An event needs to show that all these things are in place and the more it can be a fixed menu of options, the better.
IM24CA: What three key pieces of advice do you have for someone starting to look for a potential sponsor for their Melges 24 campaign?
DF: Be Prepared.
This is a commercial transaction. Know the product you are selling. Understand your numbers. Understand what benefits you can provide. Know what makes you different from the other teams – do you have a story? If you don’t have a website, get one. Create a sponsorship pack. For some key companies it might be worthwhile to get your presentation bound. It is amazing how a professionally printed, bound document can make you look the part.
Start local.
I heard a story the other day of a team whose base was located over the road from a large corporate headquarters. The team manager bumped into someone in the car park and they got talking. When asked what they did, one guy said – we run a race team and the other guy, the CEO of the company said, “if only we had known – we’ve just sponsored another race team”. They had been neighbours for years. Network.
Think about Activation.
Sponsorship is only half the story. Good sponsorships are accompanied by activity that promotes the relationship in the rest of the company’s communications. Typically, activation costs about the same amount on top of the sponsorship amount. It might take the form of banners at the events, it might be advertising programmes or local papers, it might be You Tube videos or appearances by the team at company events. It might be photo opportunities or tie-ins with other sponsored properties. You don’t have to be an expert at activation, but being creative with these ideas can show how sailing can be more than just a logo on a boat – it can be a platform for many messages to many audiences.
First published at : http://www.melges24.com/?p=news/&id=1602
Who is Managing Your Online Brand? Don’t Forget your Fans.
May 12, 2009 by admin
A couple of years ago I took part in a trade mission organised by the Motorsports Industry Association in the UK to visit the land of NASCAR. Standing in the garage area of Lowes Motor Speedway in Charlotte amongst a group of people who were used to the paddocks of F1, I realised that people in the business of sport often take their experiences for granted.
Between the garage area and the track, which was open to the public before the race, was an 8 foot chain-link fence. As our group casually ran our hands along the sponsor decals and listened to Jeff Gordon tell us how he thought the car would perform later, hundreds of fans pressed their faces through the chain-link fence, desperate to get a few inches closer to their heroes.
Our goal then was to convince NASCAR and others that fans treated the smallest piece of inside information from their sporting idols as gifts. We called it ‘pub-currency’ – the kind of thing you would tell your mates about while having a beer. Getting a text message from a driver or a photo that no-one else had via your PC desktop was something that sports-marketers wrote off as insignificant, but for fans, it was like standing in the garage or dressing room.
In 2009, the ability for sports stars to communicate ‘directly’ with fans is easier than ever. While some tools, like twitter, are still relatively niche, they are being used by savvy sports marketing people to give fans something they crave – frequent, direct interaction with heroes.
But that’s not all. Tools like blogs and twitter enable sponsors to develop long term relationships with consumers. The lesson we learned from NASCAR and later from Manchester United was that communication in the off-season was as important, if not more so, than news during an event.
So, I have declared my interests. I am passionate about using new and emerging technologies to enable brands to develop long term relationships with fans through sport. One of the reasons I set up yachtsponsorship.com was to communicate with promoters, teams and sponsors, the best practises from other sports and show they can be used with sailing to deliver real ROI.
The last couple of days, I have been researching how sailing as a sport uses these new technologies. The results vary massively, but in general there is a trick being missed, especially when there is nothing going on. During long distance races like the Vendee Globe, competitors were forced by race organisers and sponsors to blog daily, but now their websites are like time-capsules – as if the clock stopped a couple of days after the boat crossed the line. How can we build heroes in the sport if they go silent for months on end?
Here are some examples from the UK. Ben Ainslie, one of the most recognisable personalities in the sport, last updated his blog on the 13th of February. The last update on his facebook page was August 20, 2008. Alex Thomson, who is said to embrace new technologies last updated his blog on February 9, while his facebook page was updated on 10 December 2008 by an administrator.
Thank goodness for Paul Cayard. Paul is one of the sailors who writes regualarly and candidly – even when he is not neccesrily competing. This weekend, Paul was in Boston for the Volvo Ocean Race stopover. I know this because his blog tells me:
This event is really catching on with the mainstream public. It seems that anyone who gets a close up look at the event becomes hooked. There was a lot of non sailing public roaming through the race village this weekend and they immediately became intrigued. With the Race Village situated right down town, Volvo has really brought the event to the people.
Cayard has the best interests of the sport in mind finishing with:
I was speaking to a British sports marketing executive who was visiting the race for the first time, a guy who ran the marketing for Honda in Formula One previously, and he said that the Volvo is truly a top level sports marketing property. It was impressive to see the new faces, from other areas of sport, gravitating to the event.
I’m not sure if Honda F1 is the best example of sports marketing in recent years, but it’s good to know that finally the message is getting out there – that sailing at its best provides a great platform for sponsors.
Not all sailors have time to sit down and write blogs the length of Paul Cayard’s, but there is little or no excuse not to be able to shoot off 140 characters every so often.
Dee Caffari has joined twitter in the last couple of days, but the star of the Round Britain twitter comms so far is Johanna Payton, a journalist who is accompanying Dee on the journey. Maybe, just maybe it’s because Jo is new to the sport and has no preconceptions about what fans might find interesting. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t have to walk a corporate sponsor tightrope.
Perhaps the problem comes down to a question of demarcation. Who’s responsibility is it to develop and maintain a consistent online presence? Is it a PR job or is it up to the competitors themselves to manage their personal brands and get to grips with communicating with their fans? Should the marketing teams of sponsors be involved or are they they ones blocking uptake based on corporate ‘brand-police’ practises?
Several PR agencies that I have spoken to in recent days have told me that they have the tools in-house to provide these services to their clients. One referred me to a brand that they were managing a twitter account for – it has 30 followers! Others have said that they believe it is something that the competitors manage on their own.
The growing online presence of fans hungry for content shows that there is latent demand from fans for more interaction – and it’s not that hard. If you can find time to blog while sailing about in the southern ocean, you can find time to communicate when you are off the water.
Here’s the ad – I have worked with sports properties such as NASCAR, MotoGP and Manchester United as well as individual athletes to develop long term relationships with fans. These relationships are hugely important to deliver additional ROI for sponsors as well as maintaining the health of a sport. If the fans go away or stop watching, then the sponsors will follow. If you want to use some of these new tools to attract or retain sponsors or even just sure up a fan-base get in touch via Pilote Media.
Yacht Racing Business Directory
Sailing Sponsorship White Paper
