Sports marketing is growing significantly to offer brands an unexplored content and communication opportunities in Turkey to touch fans’ hearts. When fans’ hearts are open to the maximum extent. When fans are strongly attached to their favorite teams and enthusiastically waiting for their team to fight, to sweat and win…
However, going beyond a “sponsorship” and setting up a “strategic partnership” to acquire the maximum return, brands need an integrated communication platform to utilize the offered content. No doubt, sports content is powerful and engaging by its nature but it is important to remember that it can be utilized only if it is used in an integrated way. In this way, brands would be able to feed their brand attributes through a connection platform and goes beyond “jersey-only” or pre-tournament “proud to be”sponsorships.
Brands want to create connection points with fans, teams want to generate more value, and federations want growth. Can there be a solution to connect the dots and catalyzing this multi-party eco system?
The answer is yes! (I think I know one).
In order to create such an engaging platform for brands, sports leagues need to be centralized and managed professionally. In addition to what to offer, it is crucial that how you offer the assets. Because making deals with teams one by one and acquiring the equal rights requires maybe months of efforts and human resources for companies. Under all these circumstances, to market a sports league to brands, you should be able to answer not only first two questions but also the third one:
1- Why should I take place in this platform?
2- What rights am I going to acquire?
3- How am I going to acquire?
In Turkey, Infront Sports & Media’s investment came through to answer these tree questions with a centralized marketing model adaptation to Turkish Basketball Super League. With a 7-years of marketing & media rights agreement with Turkish Basketball Federation, seeds were sown. Each of 16 teams in the league, shared the 50% of their marketing rights and all these rights were combined in an inventory pool, as a single basketball communication platform which makes the core of centralized marketing model.
Imagine you need a big size, delicious chocolate cream cake to serve your guests. Before centralized marketing model, you had to buy each slice one by one from different patisseries. With this inventory, you just need to visit one single patisserie whose business is to serve you the most delicious cake according to the taste of your guests and you have the delicious chocolate cream cake as a whole!
Brands are offered a single package including the marketing tools of all-16 teams. Therefore brands are able to reach not only the fans of a solo team, but also the all basketball fans of the league. Besides, Infront Turkey office was settled and served as consultant to brands for their sports marketing communication around league partnership. Help them to use the communication platform in line with their main brand messages, by feeding them with core insights regarding the fans, by becoming a bridge between federation and brands.
Results were significant in a very short time period:
-Basketball Super League was ranked as the best league of Europe with the assist of increasing marketing investments and brand building efforts.
-In 1.5 season, 10 powerful brands involved in basketball league communication to create engagement with passionate target group.
-Brands were offered a 360 degree integrated platform therefore they could go further from “branding” sponsorship to “long-term strategic partnership”.
I feel lucky to witness this game changer strategies and remarkable results as a member of passionate, sports lover and dedicated Basketball Super League Team.