Purpose in Life, Purpose in Work.

Life has to be lived with a purpose, a mission if you will, if this isn’t the case life can become boring, stale, mostly an unfulfilled life. Waking up, going to work, sleeping and doing the same thing over and over can cause people to become sad, stressed and depressed among others. Society often forgets the importance of purpose in life, people need to follow a purpose and feel that their work is contributing to something bigger, a greater good.  Too many times in the business world we forget the reason why we do things and we end up unhappy with what we do.

Even in the sport business this can happen. For example over the last couple of months I have been focused on how much revenue are we going to make, how are we going to grow and expand the business, among others and I got so caught up on these issues that I forgot the reason why this company was born. This company was born to promote sports and its benefits for people’s lives. This company was born out of passion for the world of sports, it was born to inspire, and it was born to help the world of sports keep on growing gaining new followers and athletes among the way. That is the purpose of this business and the reason why we do what we do. After this experience I realized we are not doing our best to fulfill this mission, we want to deliver the sport experience to anyone because:

1.Sports have many benefits, the majority related to physical health, which is extremely important. However other benefits especially mental health benefits come from engaging in sports.

2.Stress and other mental health problems are increasingly being caused by work.

3.Sports can combat such health issues.

We want to make sure our work is helping more people follow and engage with sports. The world of sports is the best reflection of living with a purpose, everyday you wake up with a clear objective: improvement. Athletes dedicate their life to self-improvement it is what drives them. The sports business can help other business sectors discover their purpose. Using sports as a platform Passionis will help business organizations and teams discover their purpose and motivation to achieve their best potential. By creating unique sports competitions, events, lectures and seminars, all of them focused on discovering purpose, finding motivation and developing effective teamwork, the business world will benefit from the world of sports thanks to Passionis.  Gaining purpose, drive and overall physical and mental health will be a game changer for any type of business.

Passion is Sports.

Business Guidance

Most of investors are people who have been entrepreneurs themselves and understand how to build a business by doing something completely new. This description fits both Barbara Corcoran and Kevin O’Leary. Barbara Corcoran is a businesswoman founder of the Corcoran Group, Barbara Corcoran Venture Partners among other companies, besides being a consultant, speaker and author. Kevin O’Leary is a Canadian businessman, investor, writer, and founder of diverse companies such as the Learning Company, O’Leary Funds and O’Leary Financial Group. Both of them are widely recognized for being part of the hit show Shark Tank, where they make deals with entrepreneurs to invest in their companies.

Their knowledge and experience is very useful for aspiring entrepreneurs just like myself as well as others and all of their knowledge can be found in diverse interviews and articles throughout the Internet.

 Barbara Corcoran believes that a business plan shouldn’t be as lengthy and instead be very precise regarding the product or service, the market needs it will serve and how much will it cost to produce and sell the product/service. The reason behind this is because she thinks that business plans are not adapted to reality and once you step out to the real world your plan can change given the market conditions. Instead she prefers to value more the entrepreneurial drive a person has and how much are they willing to work to make their business a success. Business plans can be knocked down easily by the realityof life and an entrepreneur needs to understand that it won’t be easy, while been able to push trough it.

Kevin O’Leary speaking on an Ivy League Forum shared some of his considerations regarding a business and business plans. For him the key aspects is proving you’re the right person to execute the plan, is the product actually desired by consumers, and lastly knowing the numbers inside out to understand the financials of your company. Such aspects are very important because you can have the best plan but if there isn’t a strong team who believes in the business execution won’t be good. Second, numbers are really important and you need to understand how are you spending money and how are you making money, without this your plan can be knocked down very easily. Lastly if there is not a market for your product then it doesn’t even make sense working further on it.

For my business plan I am considering all of their suggestions, I want to make my plan as flexible, adaptable and close to reality as possible, by talking with potential customers I will find out the actual need and price I can charge for the service I am selling. This way my plan can be more successful and if needed adapted quickly enough. Also the financial section of my business will be very important because a business without sales won’t last long, so I will make sure to carefully develop viable and as real as possible financial projections. Lastly I will make sure the team I assemble has the same passion for what we do as I do.  

Branding & Storytelling through Digital Marketing in the World of Sports!

Branding & storytelling go hand in hand, they are one, you can’t have one without the other, at least in the sports industry. Your story develops your brand and every sports property, athlete and organization has a unique story that makes them who they are. This story is what resonates with consumers and fans, which in turns becomes your brand. Your brand is what you stand for but most importantly it is how your fan base or consumers perceive you. As we mentioned from the beginning you tell your story through your brand and thanks to the Internet and digital marketing, communicating what you stand for (A.KA. your brand) is easier than ever.

Digital marketing has revolutionized the way we interact with brands, we now hold an actual conversation and we choose what we want to watch. Consumers now hold the power and they follow the brands they love. The good news about this is that it is now easier to tell your story with engaging content through different platforms and see actual benefits! With channels such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter you can easily track and measure the success your marketing strategy is having and the overall level of engagement people are having with your brand.  

Now that we understand this, how do we do all of it? From telling your story, choosing the channels and measuring the success of your campaigns? It sounds daunting but through a great example from the world of sports we will show you how easy it is!

-MLS:

Source: Major League Soccer (February, 2015)

                                   

MajorLeague Soccer is one of the most active sports leagues on the digital marketinglandscape, with channels on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Google plus, the amount of content they create is unbelievable! The main objective with their content is to engage & connect with fans in order to grow their fan base, which in turn translates into more ticket sales, bigger TV ratings and more merchandise sold.  MLS actively promotes all of the teams’ brands with great storytelling content through their YouTube channel:

Source: Major League Soccer(May,2015)

Through YouTube, MLS leverages the way their fans communicate and their appetite for content and stories (just as we mentioned before). The video above talks about one of Toronto FC’s star players an Italian playmaker named Sebastian Giovinco, through his story coming to Toronto FC adapting to the team and life over there MLS creates an emotional bond that reaps marketing benefits for them, which can be measured in this way:

 First they look at KPI’s, for example:

1.Number of views, comments and shares

2.Attendance and ratings increase after the release of the video in the next 6 months.

With these KPI’s MLS will set specific targets, for example 100 views, comments and shares and a 10% increase in attendance and TV ratings. MLS starts tracking the performance of the content, measuring every interaction and this is where the real revolution of digital marketing happens in the sports industry! Everything can be measured, everything can be tracked and with engaging content such as sports it is easier to increase the overall brand value. Digital marketing also allows switching from online to offline, this content strategy is online but it has a ripple effect on the offline world, and everything can be measured! MLS can actually see if the video had the response they were looking, through engagement and also measure their ROI. Based on this data they can adapt their strategy to reap more benefits! This is the beauty of a digital marketing strategy!

People don’t choose a brand or team because of their benefits; they choose them because they connect with the story and values the sports property shares with them. Sports organizations have something truly unique and that is PASSION; fans don’t just like them, they love them and sports organizations need to leverage this in their favor with great stories and content.

Through branded storytelling using a digital marketing strategy, the success can be enormous. As in the case of MLS they understand the importance of telling a story, putting that story on the right platform and eventually create a powerful love brand.

The Sport of Fitness & Marketing

When we think about sports we usually think of popular sports such as football, soccer, basketball, baseball, tennis, and the list goes on; however there are other sports with a rising popularity, one these is the sport of fitness. In Passionis Sports we believe that fitness has not one definition but instead it is a very broad universe where there is room for anyone. First of all for us, fitness is moving everyday for more than 30 minutes, this can be done by practicing a sport or exercising regularly; with this in mind there are many different variations in the fitness world, such as bodybuilding, functional training, high-intensity interval training, bodyweight training, crossfit, and others. What is really important is the fact that more and more people are engaging in fitness activities. According to Les Mills in their Global Consumer Fitness Survey for the year 2013, 27% of the total adult population attends a gym, and 61% of regular exercisers do gym/fitness activities instead of other sports.  A market really worth looking at for brands looking to get involved in this amazing industry!

A company that is leveraging this rising trend doing amazing sports marketing is Shredz; they are Supplements Company focused on enhancing the performance of fitness enthusiasts and athletes. What makes Shredz a really interesting company is the fact that hey have less than 5 years in the industry and have managed to become one of the most recognized brands while growing their business! They credit this to their unique approach to marketing. Recently I watched an interview with their CEO Arvin Lal where he discussed some of the strategies used in marketing to make the company grow so quickly and reach their position in the industry. Just as I mentioned, fitness is a sport as well, some of the marketing ideas can be easily replicated in other sports in this amazing world of sports!

-Lesson 1: Be more than a company! Be a movement!

Since the beginning of the company Arvin Lal has stressed the fact that Shredz is more than a supplements company, they are a movement making the world a better place helping people with their knowledge and products to become healthier. This is called PURPOSE, in the sports industry it is really important to understand why are you doing what you are doing, knowing why you wake up everyday and having a mission that drives your business. All of these aspects matter and in the long run will make you stand out and be different! Brands need to embrace this and actually live by their purpose and use any possible communication channels to send this message out to their target markets.

-Lesson 2: Build a social media movement and tell a story!

Shredz takes enormous pride on the fact that they don’t spend any money on advertisement. Instead they built their reputation and brand through social media. They call this building a social movement.  The tools brands have nowadays to communicate and actually connect with their target market are amazing! Brands now have an amazing opportunity to engage in their own terms and learn what works and what doesn’t by using social media such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. However it is not only about posting photos and content, brands need to tell a story! This goes back to having a purpose, for Shredz they tell a story, they live it and they send the right messages through their feed. Shredz use their social media to tell the story behind their purpose and how it drives them everyday.

-Lesson 3: Be authentic and use real persons as your brand ambassadors!

The story of Shredz is really simple: help people achieve their goals and lead a healthy lifestyle, this story comes alive with their brand ambassadors, a wide and diverse array of athletes that train bodybuilding, crossfit, functional fitness among others, both male and female. These brand ambassadors actually embrace the lifestyle associated with Shredz and Arvin Lal actually hand picks the athletes that will represent the company. The reason behind this is authenticity, people can tell when someone is not real and they don’t actually believe in a company that is trying to sell them something, this comes off as fake. Being authentic is the most important aspect for any business to succeed, brands need to be customers of their products as well, you can’t expect someone to buy something you don’t even consume.

In Passionis Sports we actually live our purpose everyday, we love sports and we work to enhance the world of sports and generate positive change in the world through sports. We engage in sports everyday of our lives and we want to help brands reach their full potential through strategies such as the ones Shredz has used to become a success in the sports industry! Everyday we strive to incorporate these lessons within the Passionis Roster in order to be better and be more effective when helping all of our partners!

Present your world through Branding: Sponsorship

Nowadays when we discuss marketing we always seem to have the word branding right next to the side. Both of them go hand in hand and in the sports-entertainment realm marketing & branding are essential. This series of posts focus on Passionis Sports specialties: brand identity, branding, marketing, experiential marketing & sponsorship. Today we are going to focus on the benefits of using sponsorship to enhance your brand and how to use effective branding to maximize partnerships in the exciting world of sports!

First of all we need to define what is a brand: the brand is your promise to your customers. But going further as Neumeier (2006) puts it,

A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company. It’s a GUT FEELING because we’re all emotional, intuitive beings, despite our best efforts to be rational. It’s a PERSON’S gut feeling, because in the end individuals, not by companies, markets, or the so-called general public, define the brand. Each person creates his or her own version of it. (P.2)

With these concepts in mind we can say that branding is about perception & experience, how each person perceive and experiences the brand will determine their gut feeling toward the brand.  Nowadays companies are looking to generate a positive experience, which in turn generates positive feelings for the consumers, and a great tool to do this is through sponsorship. Sponsorship is a great tool for brands looking to make powerful and emotional connections with sports that will benefit them to generate positive feelings and experiences to reach their consumers.

I recently had the opportunity to attend a class with Mr. Edouard Legendre, Sponsorship Director at Ogilvy Madrid a creative agency where he discussed sponsorship, experiences, branding and putting the customer at the center of everything.  His job is to help brands find the right sponsorship partner that will align with their identity to generate value for the consumer; he also works with sports teams to help them find the right partner, and sponsorship activation as well.

In his lecture he discussed the importance of sponsorship for Spain in the last 20 years because successful sponsorship plans and activations have allowed many Spanish brands to become global brands. In his presentation he also talked about empowering the consumer, engagement and enrollment, this means that brands can no longer just present traditional media such as TV ads and print ads and expect results because the consumer is no longer enticed by them. Instead the consumer needs to be at the center of everything, consumers are looking for experiences, and things that make them feel in another place, taking them out from the ordinary into the extraordinary. With this Mr. Legendre discussed the importance of sponsorship as a tool to generate meaningful experiences.

The world of sports has attractive content that can be leveraged to create meaningful experiences, so brands with a clear brand strategy should incorporate sponsorship in their strategy. Sponsorship will allow them to generate positive feelings that will help them craft a real brand identity. Take a look at Nike, we all know Nike as the “just do it” brand, the brand that stands for athleticism, beating your limits, having drive, not quitting, among others. This perception has been crafted through sponsorship starting from Michael Jordan, Rafa Nadal to Cristiano Ronaldo. This has allowed Nike to generate positive experiences for the consumers while engaging them, which in turn have made consumers, develop a positive perception towards them making them more successful. Mr. Legendre mentioned that sponsorship as described by the Nike example is the perfect vessel to deliver a message through exciting content, making powerful emotional connections. Lastly he mentioned that in any branding strategy sponsorship should be included because it allows brands to interact directly with their consumers in order to differentiate themselves from other competitors.

 In Passionis Sports it is our aim to help both sports teams and companies create unique partnerships to generate a “win-win-win” situation putting customers right at the center. We understand the importance of being perceived in the right way, choosing the right sponsor and activating in the right way to create meaningful experiences inside the world of sports to develop unique brand identities!

References:

Neumeier, M. (2006).  The Brand Gap. Berkeley, CA. New Riders.