In this year of big events, how can brands embrace sports marketing?

This article delves into how brands can use the 2024 sports event year to conduct effective sports marketing. From naming and product placement in event partnerships to the empathy and fan effect of star players, the article provides brands with comprehensive marketing strategies and case studies. If you are interested in combining brand marketing with sports events, this article will provide you with valuable insights and strategies.

F1 Chinese Grand Prix, German European Cup, Paris Olympics... In 2024, the world sports stage will usher in a series of eye-catching events, from the Paris Olympics in France to the European Football Championship in Italy. These events have not only attracted the attention of billions of viewers around the world, but also become an excellent platform for major brands to demonstrate their strength and influence.

As the event approaches, major brands have also formulated sophisticated marketing strategies, striving to present a unique brand image in front of a global audience.

In the past, during sports events, brands launched fierce marketing competitions by sponsoring star athletes and teams, using the influence of top events to strengthen the connection between brands and sportsmanship and enhance consumer loyalty. Today, under the influence of social media, sports marketing has gradually become a long-term action that runs through pre-match, match and post-match, achieving an emotional connection between the target audience of the event and the brand through sportsmanship.

01 Event Cooperation - Segmentation of Title Sponsorship and Product Placement

Event sponsorship is the most important and common way for brands to cooperate with competitions. In this way, brands can not only gain wide exposure, but also quickly convey their brands to the eyes of the event's target groups, thereby achieving a connection with the circle of people. Becoming an official sponsor of an event can give a brand a significant advantage over other brands in terms of exposure resources.

Especially when cooperating with large-scale global or national sports events, these events are "scarce resources" with a wide audience and higher attention than general events. During the cooperation process, the focus of the brand is to clearly convey its sponsorship status and make full use of the various resources provided by the event to increase exposure.

At the same time, it is also necessary to effectively carry traffic through other channels, leverage the momentum and transform it, and form a complete set of powerful marketing strategies. Take Anta as an example. Since 2009, Anta has cooperated with the Chinese Olympic Committee for seven Olympic Games and became the official partner of the first Winter Olympics held in China.

In addition to brand exposure during the games and broadcasts, ANTA also implanted its brand into various links such as the torch relay and award ceremony throughout the entire event. When the athletes of the Chinese Olympic delegation stepped onto the Olympic podium wearing ANTA products, every Chinese watching the games had a strong sense of identity and resonance, which also became a highlight moment for ANTA, a Chinese local sports brand.

Image source network

Of course, sponsoring or title sponsoring world-class events requires a very high budget. Many brands can only wait and see when it comes to sports marketing for large-scale events. Not everyone can afford the "sky-high" prices of hundreds of millions.

Therefore, in recent years, many large-scale events have split up copyrights into very small parts, and the cooperation mode has changed from "big and comprehensive", giving brands the opportunity to be embedded in various subdivided scenarios. Take the Hangzhou Asian Games as an example. During the event, a total of about 175 brands participated in the sponsorship cooperation, ranging from large brands such as Yili and Xtep to small lifestyle brands such as Kaadas smart locks... No matter how big or small the brand is, it has the opportunity to leverage the event marketing.

At the same time, budget cuts also give brands the opportunity to "overtake on the curve" and focus on marketing methods other than sponsoring events. For example, Suning.com hopes to leverage the Chinese Super League to create a brand hotspot, but it did not choose to cooperate with the event itself, but instead cooperated with the broadcasting platform to create an interactive experience model around the live broadcast of the Chinese Super League, where people can watch, play, and buy while watching.

Online, users can obtain rights and benefits through methods such as event guessing, and these benefits can be redeemed and used offline. At the same time, the implementation of activities such as fan leagues and watching games in theaters also connects the event circle with the mass sports consumption scene, creating a brand-specific event hotspot in a more cost-effective way. Of course, cooperation with events is not a one-time thing. The situation on the field changes rapidly, and so do users' focus and public opinion. Brands need to pay attention to netizens' discussions and concerns in a timely manner, and adjust advertising materials and marketing models in a timely manner to catch this marketing express.

For example, during the Qatar World Cup, Mengniu's logo was hung upside down at the stadium, and netizens took screenshots and forwarded the image, which became a hot topic. Mengniu followed up promptly and released several posters with the slogan "Just score a goal, it's awesome anyway", and participated in the meme-making process with users, cleverly turning the blunder into a brand topic and attracting users' attention to Mengniu's cooperation with the World Cup.

02 Star players - grasping empathy and fan effect

During the competition, sports stars are undoubtedly the center of discussion, sometimes even more popular than the competition itself. Therefore, many brands will choose to cooperate with champions, or even place bets in advance. The most common way for brands to cooperate with star athletes is to sign spokespersons or image ambassadors, and continue to build momentum for the brand by participating in brand activities and posting social media updates.

Take Gu Ailing as an example. After she successfully became popular in the Winter Olympics, she has cooperated with nearly 30 brands, covering related industries including automobiles, beverages, health care, communications, banking, jewelry and watches, sachets, sports, skin care, home decoration, retail, etc. Among them are many international brands that even first-line stars find difficult to own.

Some of Gu Ailing's partner brands

While celebrity athletes bring huge traffic to brands, they are relatively safe and reliable compared to entertainment stars, but their popularity is often time-sensitive. As the popularity of the Winter Olympics fades, Gu Ailing's popularity and voice have begun to decline accordingly, and the progress of expanding new business cooperation has also slowed down. For this reason, brands and sports stars are more likely to adopt short-term endorsements or cooperate on the athletes' own social media platforms.

Nowadays, athletes themselves have also begun to express their true selves on social platforms. More and more netizens are able to see the other side of athletes off the field and participate in interactions with sports stars. More images outside the field are beginning to be paid attention to and loved by fans.

Therefore, many brands have begun to cooperate with celebrity athletes on social media channels to leverage the fan effect to drive brand conversion. For example, Nice invited 15 Asian Games champions to share their washing and care experiences on social media platforms and embedded products into the sharing.

The brand itself does not have the rights to cooperate with the Asian Games, but through the sharing of star athletes, the brand actively participated in the Asian Games, a national event. The LVMH Group, which spent 150 million euros to sponsor the Paris Olympics, is also a master at making full use of the social topics of star athletes.

A photo of Messi and Ronaldo playing chess on an LV bag once went viral on the Internet during the World Cup. The appearance of the two international stars in the same frame brought a sense of surprise and novelty to the fans, and the brand's popularity reached its peak during the event through the star effect.

The picture comes from LV official micro

Looking at past cases of cooperation between star athletes and brands, performance and strength are the basis for gaining user recognition. Once the performance of the athlete does not match the popularity, the brand will face the risk of public opinion. Wu Yanni, who was controversial this year, was vented by the public after the "false start" controversy at the Hangzhou Asian Games. She was caught in public opinion and the brands of commercial cooperation were also affected. This situation has only improved with the improvement of her world ranking.

In addition, the stories of athletes also give brands more possibilities to explore. The 17-year-old Chinese snowboarder Su Yiming became the first silver medalist of the Chinese team in the snowboarding event in the Winter Olympics by completing difficult moves. Later, his story was also known by netizens. He played the role of "Xiao Shuanzi" who can ski in "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy", and later starred in many film and television works such as "The Wolf", making his debut as a child star.

When everyone thought he would continue to develop in the film and television industry, Su Yiming chose to devote himself to the competition and became "the first male athlete to complete a 1980-degree inward turn and grab on a snowboard", breaking the Guinness World Record.

This growth story and "lucky" life are the key to Su Yiming's popularity among fans. It also allows fans to see the versatility of athletes, not only the hard work on the field, but also the sharing and experiences in life.

Nowadays, celebrity athletes have become one of the important choices for brand marketing. The combination of commercial value and competitive sports can not only allow brands to enjoy the dividends of fan economy, but also guide the public to pay more attention to positive energy idols. The emotional value of positivity and tenacity has long-term significance for shaping the positive image of the brand.

03 When the tide recedes, long-term retention is the key

Today's sports events are no longer just a game, but also a commercial chain that combines copyright competition, naming, implantation, and marketing. Brands are gradually playing an important role in this chain.

Sprite, Yili, Meituan Waimai, Hisense... More and more brands are taking advantage of the popularity of the event to create content related to the viewing scene. With the joint efforts of multiple parties, a commercial landscape centered on sports events has gradually formed. In the process of brands leveraging sports events for marketing, traffic, scenes and social networking have become core keywords. Brands need to find the best contact point between themselves and marketing resources and create their own iconic projects to differentiate themselves in marketing.

Sports fans have a strong interest in and stickiness to sports events, so marketing through sports events is a long-term process. For events that attract global attention, it is difficult to impress consumers by simply taking advantage of hot topics. The marketing direction of platforms and brands should be to allow users to spontaneously participate in discussions about events, using the World Cup as a traffic touchpoint to achieve the precipitation and retention of traffic.

The Paris Olympics is about to open, and the marketing "big test" that everyone is paying attention to is coming. Let us wait and see who can actively embrace the event and build a marketing field suitable for the brand.