If you think about it, all marketing is triangular, with three sides leaning on each other to build something that’s whole.
- On one side, there’s always the brand, the product, the service – in other words, the thing that’s being sold.
- On the second side, there’s the channel: digital, print, broadcast, social, affiliate, etc.
- Finally, on the third side, there’s the audience: the people those other two sides hope to engage and, ultimately, convert.
Sports sponsorship is no different, but that third, crucial side is all too often overlooked.
At its worst, sports sponsorship becomes corporate graffiti, tagging logos over jerseys, athletes, and stadia with little benefit beyond the acquisition of territorial bragging rights. More often, a little thought goes into activations – the myriad ways the brand can be put in front of fans in a less aggressive, more engaging manner.
But even these activations tend to ignore the fans’ wants and wishes, focusing on how best to gain eyeballs instead of how to win hearts. And that’s where rewards come in, delivering real value for their fans as well as for the brands and sporting organizations.
Here’s a brief look at just some of the ways brands can truly activate their activations with rewards. Using the Buyapowa platform to enable enticing calls-to-action and to power everything from procurement to tracking to reward delivery, ambient awareness is instantly upgraded into real and measurable acquisitions, subscriptions, upgrades, renewals, and sales.
Enhancing Activations with QR Codes
Here’s an example of product-led branding on an advertising hoarding at a sports stadium. Designed to catch the eye of attendees as they enter or exit the stadium, it positions the brand as the de facto choice for fans but fails to offer those fans any immediate reason to transact.
By appending this advertisement with an exclusive reward – instantly rewarding fans’ engagement – the advertisement becomes more eye-catching and more effective. The addition of a QR code, directing fans to a co-branded landing page, simplifies the offline-to-online journey and maximizes the likelihood of conversions.
Enhancing Activations with Time-Boxed Rewards
Here, the brand turns the inherent ebbs and flows of a sporting event to its advantage – running a special, limited-time offer for fans during baseball’s traditional break in play.
By offering a reward at the exact moment when fans have time on their hands, they maximize attention. And, by limiting the offer to a short window of time, they inject an element of FOMO (fear of missing out), boosting engagement.
By doing this, they’ve turned an advertisement into something more akin to a game, dramatically enhancing their activation.
Enhancing Activations with SMS Shortcodes
Pitchside advertising is ubiquitous in sports like soccer, with dozens of brands competing for attention throughout the course of a match – and many more once you factor in the virtual replacement technology that enables different advertisements to be shown around the world.
But, while the brand recognition this advertising offers has value, it is inevitably diluted once the brand becomes surrounded by so many others – especially by its competitors. The addition of a reward, actioned by simple SMS shortcode, not only helps the activation stand out, it also delivers more than just awareness – it gives fans a clear reason to transact.
Enhancing Activations in Esports
Esports has become a major destination for brands seeking to access a lucrative global audience exceeding 500m fans. In addition to the kind of activations seen for other sports (arena advertising, influencer tie-ins, branded events, etc.), sponsors have cleverly started to insert their branding inside the games that superstar competitors play before massive audiences. But even this is just ambient awareness 2.0, and it remains hard to demonstrate real-world returns.
Once rewards are injected alongside the brand, however, everything levels up as fans thrill to discover easter eggs inside their favorite games and rush to reap the benefits.
How Rewards Work
The Buyapowa Reward Platform is perfectly placed to leverage the positivity of fans, driving engagement, data capture and, above all, sales. Here’s a top-level overview of how a sports sponsorship campaign might work.
This proposition has been imagined with ease of implementation in mind and focuses on a template that can be applied in multiple territories across the globe. Buyapowa has over 10 years of unrivaled experience, powering reward marketing programs for large enterprises across the EMEA, NA, LATAM, and APAC regions, including the likes of T-Mobile, AXA, Telefonica, HSBC, Kaizen Gaming, Vodafone, and hundreds more.
Want to Learn More?
Buyapowa’s suite of reward marketing solutions can drive measurable sales from your sports sponsorship campaigns today; interested in learning more? Drop us a line.
* The examples in this blog are for illustration only and are not actual examples.