Some say that sponsorships in sports are part of the fan experience and especially part of the game-day experience. Seeing logos in the stadium, on the field, on the drink they’re taking a picture of to share to Instagram - brands can be found everywhere. This provides valuable, organic brand awareness that brands invest a lot for. But what happens when games aren’t being played and there aren’t physical fans in the stadium? How can you bring value to your sponsors in the same organic way? It turns out you can provide even more value by leveraging your existing digital channels the right way.
Before explaining, it’s important to keep in mind that fans want authenticity in their interactions with their favorite teams. No sports fan wants to feel that they’re being inundated with ads and sponsored posts, especially ones that aren’t relevant to them as buyers. It just doesn’t fit into the experience of being a fan.
Helping sports teams with sponsors
As COVID-19 caught everyone unprepared and teams took enormous revenue hits, we at Pico understood that sponsors would also take a hit and create yet another challenge teams needed to solve. We offered teams our custom digital activations that, on the one hand, provide valuable new content and experiences for their fans and on the other, help teams deliver real value for their sponsors despite the lack of live games and events.
Let’s take for example our Memory Game activation. Fans on Social channels, websites, and apps are asked to flip cards and match pairs of images as fast as they can. Here you can use any images or graphics of your choice to make a great experience. It’s a fun, well-known, and often played game where prizes can be offered to the highest performing fans. To take it a step further and incorporate a sponsor, you simply brand the tiles with their logo or even have fans match some of their products. Place a link as your CTA at the end of the activation to drive fans to down-funnel actions for your partner like coupon redemption, app install, offer traffic, etc. These activations put the logos, products, and CTAs of your sponsors directly on the screens of your fans devices in an organic, fun, and interactive way. At the same time, they deliver value to your organization by identifying these digital fans, capturing actionable data, and creating personalized targeting and retargeting opportunities.
All in All
Pico’s digital activations typically see higher performance rates than industry averages. This includes participation rates of 2x, Click Through Rates (CTR) of 4x, and Conversion Rates 2.5x higher than industry average. With this, you go beyond brand awareness and drive both clicks and conversions for your sponsors while also creating new and unique experiences for your fans.
Opportunities for creativity and uniqueness are unlimited, so this is a win-win scenario where you bring great experiences to your fans stuck (safely) at home and value to your sponsors, who no longer have thousands of eyes on their logo at games. While digital sponsorships will never completely replace the in-game brand experience, they still drive real value and results to you and your sponsors’ bottom lines. It’s time to take everything digital, including your sponsorships.
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