RESEARCH REVEALED JAN 2011: DEMONSTRATING HOW SPONSORSHIP & SOCIAL MEDIA WORK BETTER TOGETHER

Looking forward to seeing you all in what we're betting is going to be a positive and prosperous 2011.

Look out for our research which we'll publish mid-January. The first piece of research to explore how fans across sport, music, fashion, film, gaming and the arts use social media to access and share their passions.

We'll include some recommendations for how brands and rights holders can make the most of the insights and opportunities that are revealed.

Happy Holidays.

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SPONSORSHIP'S CHANCE TO BECOME THE MASS VALUE CHANNEL

Millions of fans are gathered in chattering communities across the social web.  They’re eager for content that adds value…and they’re happy to have it from brands. 

Is this sponsorship’s chance to become the mass value channel?

We have just completed the first ever piece of research to explore the connection between passions, fans and social media.  Results will be released in January 2011, but here’s a headline to keep you going through Christmas: 70% of people’s social media time is spent exploring their passions and sharing the best stuff with others that share their passions.  As with all the best stats, this makes perfect sense and draws a knowing nod.  Other than gossiping and tagging wedding photos, what else would they be doing?  

This is big news for our industry and the killer insight that supports why sponsorship and social media are perfect communication partners. 

Fan communities are big, connected and more actively contributing and sharing than advertising and media agencies would have you think.  Their various ‘social media ladders’ proffers that around 90% sit and watch while very few actually contribute and share.  (Active consumers are bad news for these guys.  Why won’t they just sit and watch!?).  These communities are crying out for content from brands that they can forward to their friends – but here’s the crunch - as long as it gives them something they really ‘need’ in their words, ‘value’ in ours.    

This valuable content isn’t always about entertainment – like another piece of shaky behind the scenes footage of a sponsored athlete doing something talented and ‘spontaneous’.  In fact, if you talk to the fans, or better still listen to their natural banter across blogs, groups and forums, you’ll find the value they’re after is something practical and helpful - something that gets them genuinely closer to what they love doing. This helpful content could be anything from priority ticket access to the chance to take part in an event rather than just watch it.  O2 Priority and Orange Wednesdays are two great examples.  It’s often the simplest stuff that works best.  (See ‘The New Value of Help’).

The perfect partnership of sponsorship and social media is founded in a potent combination of value and volume.  

Together sponsorship and social media offer the opportunity to give fans what they really want on a massive scale.  And if they value it, they’ll share it.  Why has social media caught on?  Because folks, it makes all of this so damn cheap and easy. 

Social media is sponsorship’s big chance to move on from being an expensive brand awareness, experiential and PR channel to the cost-effective ‘mass-value’ channel.  Too often, too few feel the value of a sponsorship.  Too often, insufficient insight leads to associations and activity that are more about ‘the story’ than building value-based bridges between brands and consumers.  Too often, sponsorship defaults to the measurement criteria of other channels - channels that are fast becoming outdated and insufficiently effective.

Now sponsorship has the chance to build it’s own value proposition.  To demonstrate that there is no better way to millions of consumer’s hearts (and pockets) than through socially sourced, shaped and shared passion platforms.

 

The concept of ‘mass value’ is quite possibly the Holy Grail for the marketing industry.  Can you think of another comms channel that leaves millions of consumers with something that enhances their lives in the long term? 

Sponsorship and social media have a very real future together. 

Embrace insight.  Give mass value.  Get involved. 

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SOCIAL MEDIA MAKES FANS INTO BIGGER FANS

Some of our research into how fans feed their passions through social media is starting to come through.  

It's interesting stuff.

As is always the case with the best stats, we're finding ourselves nodding and smiling as it all makes so much sense.

We really liked this one: 

Across fans of sport, music, fashion, film, arts and gaming an average of 60% of those questioned (501 respondents) said they were 'more engaged in their passions because of social media'.

Football fans are loving their teams more.  Live music lovers are following their bands further.  Goggle-eyed gamers are playing harder and more.  Culture vultures are going deeper. 

So folks, this reinforces how social media isn't just a new place to put stuff.  

It's a place where you will find the most direct connections to the biggest numbers of the most active fans of the passions your brands are involved with. 

We're pulling the research together now and will have it ready for you in the New Year...fresh facts and figures for 2011.

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SOCIAL MEDIA UNLOCKS THE 'FORGOTTEN FAN BASE'

Millions of consumers are already engaging in their passions through Social Media. The opportunity to unlock these huge, untapped audiences is big, real and cost-effective..

Social Media gives brands the unprecedented to opportunity to drive the reach and engagement of their Sponsorship platform across often ‘forgotten’ consumer communities.  

These audiences are not only engaging with their passions, but are sharing content and consequently, growing in scale.  Their hunger for more access, information, knowledge, experience and discussion is insatiable, and to date very few organisations are finding, feeding or even leading them.  The opportunity for brands is staggering.

Fig. 1: Five Premiership football clubs and their unofficial / untapped fan base vs. official groups engaged through common social media platforms. 

Just take a look at the audience numbers surrounding five of the Premiership’s top clubs.  The official, ‘managed’ channels account for less than 25% of the total social media audience.  The vast majority are those engaged by other ‘unofficial’ fan pages, groups, forums and blogs.  

These unofficial fans are of massive value to brands.  Indeed, many of them would argue they are the truer fan – keeping clear of managed communities, choosing instead a more pure and democratic dialogue.

Unofficial does not mean inaccessible.  Through strong insights gleaned directly from these audiences, brands can easily deliver desired content that will turn forgotten fans into potential customers.

Brands should consider whether they need to create their own branded communities when dropping branded content into existing communities may well be a more effective option.

Read our post 'Where to start with Social Media'. 

josh@robinsonpincus.com

  

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SOCIAL MEDIA GETS YOUR SPONSORSHIP ASSETS WORKING MUCH HARDER

Brands often find themselves in the position where their Sponsorship assets no longer deliver for their business. Whether your business has grown tired of a particular Sponsorship, your objectives have changed, or the contract of rights you signed for X years no longer appears to be relevant, Social Media offers a compelling opportunity to strengthen your Sponsorship strategy.  

Over 70% of Social Media usage is driven by people’s interests (Source: November 2010 Robinson Pincus with 2CV - 501 respondents) with likeminded individuals coming together in tribes for shared experiences around shared passions. These tribes are not elusive clouds of faceless followers but physical networks of content-hungry consumers that are of huge value to brands: a hotbed of raw data, inspirational insight and creative energy.

We access these tribes and draw out their insights.  We pinpoint passionate, vocal leaders and new potential audiences that watch from the outskirts of passion-powered communities.  We explore their behaviour and answer valuable questions that inform better Sponsorship platforms: how do they like to consume content? What do they like to share?  Where would they appreciate help in getting more of their passions? etc.

Combine this insight with a brand’s desire to engage and grow a bigger consumer base (through content that is shared) and you have a very powerful new approach to Sponsorship.  An approach that reconnects your brand with your assets and opens up a richer brand-consumer relationship with a big, targeted audience.

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IT'S NOT 'HOW MANY YOU KNOW'. IT'S 'WHO YOU KNOW'. NEW QUALITY IN SOCIAL NETWORKING IS GOOD NEWS FOR BRANDS.

Soon after rumours surfaced of facebook reaching saturation at 500m members, the company introduced a new dimension to 'groups'.  

Now users can create very specific groups of friends within their total network.  

This is about driving QUALITY back into a social experience that up until now has been more about QUANTITY.

It makes perfect sense that within your network you would want sub-groups who are together for different reasons.  Family, workmates and old school friends are obvious choices, but take a closer look and you'll see something unsurprising and intriguing.

COMMON PASSIONS ARE A BIG PART OF HOW THESE GROUPS ARE BONDING.

They're the glue that draws and keeps a big percentage of sub-groups together.

Inevitably, groups will join with other groups and people will find themselves part of bigger networks of more likeminded others.  Just like in 'the real world' where groups of friends come together as one bigger group around a shared passion. 

This is Social Networking 'catching up' with what happens in the real world, by enabling a more natural experience (or in geek speak, more intuitive and elegant).

This rise of quality has 3 hugely valuable implications for brands looking to engage with consumers and customers through Social Media:

1. The more consumers are grouped by common bonds, the more easily and COST-EFFECTIVELY they can be engaged.  

2. This then has massive value for the QUALITY OF INSIGHT that can be drawn from these 'expert groups' and used to build comms platforms that really connect.

3. Ultimately, good branded content will be shared by members with a HIGHER QUALITY OF CONNECTION - exceptionally likeminded others who are more actively interested.

We're shifting from, 'HOW MANY I'VE GOT' to 'WHO I KNOW' as a better articulation of 'WHO I AM'.

Personality and Identity are being driven into Social Networking.  This opens up great space for brands to do what they do best: feed people's desire for ways to express who they are.

How long before all brands create their own version of Nike Run, 'the world's biggest running club'?  

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WHERE TO START WITH SOCIAL MEDIA?

Building a Social Media destination, like a Facebook page, LinkedIn group or new website with added social functionality is rarely the way to embark on a Social Media campaign.  

Whilst an overall Sponsorship & Social Media strategy might ultimately feature these tools, unless you've got bags of new, on-brand content sitting in your media library, they're unlikely to be the best first step.  

Social Media is nothing without Social Content, in the same way that a billboard is nothing without an ad and a Radio Show nothing without a DJ.  Social Content comes first.  What you need to put out there comes before where you put it.  This means asking yourself the same question you normally would before embarking on any marketing activity, 'what do I want to achieve and who am I targeting?'

Your passionate target audience are already out there, using Social Media, consuming and sharing content, across many digital destinations and platforms, from blog posts to Twitter accounts to Facebook pages to specialist interest communities to good old fashioned one-way web sites.   

The key is to create something that is of value to your consumer (read our POV on entertainment vs. enablement as Social Content) and put it where they can most easily find and appreciate it.  If your Social Content offers real value, it will naturally be shared across existing destinations.  Your own destination can come when your consumers have developed a taste for the value you offer and it comes frequently enough to warrant it's own 'outlet'.   

But as a first step, create Social Content that gets your message across and is of value to your community.  This will travel and transcend boundaries.

Long before running fans flocked to Nike's Running Community (the world's largest running club), they consumed and shared news of 'NikeRun 10K' events (Social Content).

Long before live music fans embraced o2's Blueroom as a conduit to premium music experiences, they signed up and poked their friends about PRIORITY (Social Content). 

Long before football fans checked in at McDonalds Football, mums signed up and encouraged other mums to join the brand's grass roots coaching scheme, 'Mums on the Ball' (Social Content).

Content creates Connections create Community.

What do you want to say?

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SPONSORSHIP'S ROLE IN RETAINING 'CONTROL' IN SOCIAL MEDIA.

Sponsorship gives brands a fantastic access point into Social Media, especially those with concerns about 'loss of control'.  Consumers are given free reign to say what they think, wherever and whenever they want...and for some brand owners, this is scary stuff.

The Social Media industry gives some stock responses to the calls for clarity and confidence:

"Your consumers are talking about your brand through social media anyway.  You have no choice but to get involved."

"It's not a question of whether to do social media.  It's a question of how."

"You've just got to jump right in with both feet.  Fortune favours the brave."

Although true, none of these responses restore confidence or give brand owners a sensible pathway into social media.  Sponsorship is a great way to dip that toe in the wide open ocean that is Social Media.  Here's the '3 Ps' that make the difference:

1. PASSION-POWERED CONTENT

Sponsorship operates in a space where activity is inspired by people and their passions or interests.  

In Social Media, the Sponsorship-driven conversation is smaller, warmer and more welcoming than many other brand conversations that take place, such as customer service.   

2. PARTICIPATIVE COMMUNICATIONS

Great Sponsorship ideas are 'participative'.  Social Media facilitates participation in a big way.  

When consumers are part of the solution, Sponsorship platforms are co-created and co-owned.  This strengthens a brand's positive bond with the community that helped build them and share them.

3. POSITIVE RELATIONSHIP

The big opportunity for brands in Sponsorship is to help consumers and customers get more from their passions.  Today, it's more about enablement than entertainment.  Sponsorship's social voice is insightful, helpful and value-adding - part of an intrinsically positive conversation. 

So, yes.  Regardless of whether your brand 'does' Social Media or not, consumers are 'doing' it and they are talking about you.  And, yes. you do have to get involved to reap the rewards.  

Sponsorship is a great way to enter the world of Social Media confidently and positively.

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FEED THE FANS AND BUILD BRAND HUNGER

Communities of fans are a hotbed of high quality insights, inspiration and ideas for brands looking to create Sponsorship Platforms that give their consumers what they want.  

Something exciting happens when you ask fans what they want and then give it to them: they get hungry for more.  

Not just for more of what they want, but for more opportunities to contribute their thoughts, voice their needs and express their desires.

As these thoughts, needs and desires are answered in the form of new experiences and content from brands, consumers get savvy, they get a taste for it...and look out for the next opportunity to shape their lifestyle experiences through brands.

The brand becomes the catalyst, the enabler, the man that makes it happen.

This is interesting stuff.  

This is not brand PUSHING to consumer.

This not brand PULLING consumer in.

This is consumer PULLING brand in.

For the consumer, brand becomes 'opportunity to get me closer'.

josh@robinsonpincus.com

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SPONSORSHIP GETS YOU CLOSER TO YOUR CONSUMER

We will shortly release the results of global research that explores:

- how we feed our passions online

- what kind of passion-driven content we share with others 

- how we as consumers feel about brands getting involved

Early data supports a recurring theme: that we are not only happy but eager for brands to help us 'get closer' to our passions.  By 'get closer', we mean more access, more involvement, more opportunity.  In there like swim wear, not just watching from the periphery.

The essence of this desire is not new: We always have and always will want to get as up-close-and-personal as we can to what we want.  

But now, technology has amplified this desire.  The more we engage with our passions and others who share our passions online, the more we want to feed those passions and nurture those new relationships in the 'real world'.  iTunes Genius opens us up to new bands we want to see live.  Ideo encourages us to contribute more to projects that excite us.  LinkedIn establishes new productive relationships that trickle off the screen and into conferences and coffee shops.  

It's human nature to want to get as close as possible to what you love, need, want.

All this reinforces 'the new value of help' (see earlier post) and the role of sponsorship platforms that give consumers what, without brands, they cannot have: exclusive access, privileged opportunities, priority placement.  

Consumer insight is therefore more important than ever.  Insight must be deep for content to be king.  And guess what?  Social communities built around passions are a great place to start.  Active groups of passionate people already discussing and debating what they would love more of...what they would love to happen next.

Look out for the full research report published in a few weeks.

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SPONSORSHIP SOCIALIZATION

Could Social Media be the New Lease of Life Sponsorship Needs?

Sponsorship and its activation evolved principally out of PR, it gave PR exciting and credible content to build stories around brands.

As the industry developed, other benefits to sponsorship beyond PR content evolved (brand awareness, image association, sales, etc.) and in response sponsorship became content to be leveraged across other disciplines. Whilst this has been a success for the industry, we increasingly found and find ourselves being measured by factors out of our control. ‘Our success often sits in the hands of others…’

Furthermore the economic pressures of the last few years have driven brands to either end of the sponsorship objectives continuum. On one end, Sponsorship as a ‘cost effective’ brand awareness/ stature vehicle, and the other, Sponsorship as a means of engaging consumers/ customers through their passions and in their leisure time. The middle, the unrealistic staple of the last 15 years has now gone.

If you’re using sponsorship for engagement, then we need to find a new lease of life and take back control of our discipline. Could Social Media be that opportunity? We think so. The union of Social Media with Sponsorship works, because;

1. The way consumers behave - Social Media is heavily fuelled by ‘shared interests & passions’, and 2. Sponsorship engages through ‘shared interests and passions’, but with Social Media, Sponsorship can now deliver;

-        Greater Richness and Closeness

-        Bigger Reach for Less

-        Longevity beyond a single event

-        An easy transition into CRM/ Sales

-        Measurement like never before

Ben Pincus

ben@robinsonpincus.com

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THE NEW VALUE OF 'HELP'.

Consumers are increasingly intrigued and delighted by ideas that help.  Ideas that help us run our lives faster, smoother, safer, better.  We are gobbling up all manner of nifty little life-enhancing apps, tools and technologies with an incredible appetite.   

It seems we want all the help we can get. 

Teens are more interested in what their mobile phones can actually do than what make, shape or colour they are.  Londoners are embracing Boris’s bikes like they’d never seen a bicycle before, turning a blind eye to the system’s inevitable teething troubles.  And at Glasto, it’s the beer brand that’s laying on super smart queuing systems, giving punters more time with their music, that’s really turning festival-goers on.

More and more, we are inspired and excited by those things that add real functional value to our lives.   

This isn’t to say, of course, that we aren’t just as eager to be endlessly entertained.  But what happened to the ad man’s mantra, ‘sex sells’?

Are we entering a new era where ‘help sells’?

This is interesting stuff for Sponsorship & Social Media.  Content is not just about entertainment, about running recorded footage of the lucky few enjoying real life events and experiences through broadcast channels as ‘second chance’ branded entertainment.  

Consumer desire to be enabled is fresh and insatiable.

Let’s create insightful, compelling, value-adding content that helps all consumers get closer to what they love, through the brands they will grow to love.

Let’s ‘app activation’. 

Josh Robinson

josh@robinsonpincus.com

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SPONSORSHIP AND SOCIAL MEDIA - PERFECT PARTNERS

Traditional sponsorship principles are straight forward enough.

Brands/ companies want to talk about and ultimately sell their brands, products and services to consumers. This gets done predominately through ADVERTISING in ADTIME – at best, when consumers expect it or are receptive to it.

Outside ADTIME, brands can talk to consumers in their LEISURE TIME. SPONSORSHIP sits in that LEISURE TIME, around peoples PASSIONS & INTERESTS.

Sponsorship can do AWARENESS, IMAGE/ VALUE EXCHANGE and offer CONTENT for brands to connect with consumers in that LEISURE TIME.

SPONSORSHIP CONTENT can be particularly powerful as it,

1. Has the endorsement or a credible 3^rd party and

2. Addresses an already receptive and hungry audience.

Social Media’s arrival in mainstream culture has created a huge new opportunity for brands and sponsorship, specifically.  Crucially, this not just about seeing Social Media as a channel to tell consumers about a sponsorship.

SOCIAL MEDIA and SPONSORSHIP share some dynamic and unique ground: They are both fueled and powered by people’s PASSIONS & INTERESTS.

However, when SOCIAL MEDIA is INTEGRATED with SPONSORSHIP, exciting new benefits for brands emerge:

1.     DEPTH, through a real dialogue

2.     REACH, way more cost effectively

3.     LONGEVITY, beyond a single event

4.     CRM, data to integrate into sales channels

5.     MEASURABILITY, like never before

SOCIAL MEDIA could have become the new lease of life that SPONSORSHIP needs.

A final thought - Social Media opens up a raft of new opportunities for brands.  Amongst them, Sponsorship online of social media/ blogs and the opportunity to access fans without the need for rights  – more on this to follow.

Ben Pincus

ben@robinsonpincus.com

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