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.