SPONSORS
PARTNERS
RWC Sponsorship: Looking Ahead To 2019
With just four days before the final of the Rugby World Cup at Twickenham, Millharbour Marketing’s Sophie Morris looks forward to 2019 and what we think sponsors will be doing between now and then.
Firstly, although the tournament will be over, the sponsors work is far from done. They have these new social media audiences to engage with. For those sponsors who created rugby specific accounts, they need to plan their engagement strategy between tournaments. What content will they publish and how much resource can they allocate to maintaining these accounts? For those who used their own accounts, how are they now going to keep that new audience engaged?
We see a lot of measurement in terms of social reach, number of fans, and engagement levels, but now is the time to go from engagement to acquisition. Sponsors need to plan to keep these fans engaged and incentivise further interaction and purchase.
Similarly, for those more focused on B2B activity or entertaining guests, the work now comes in maintaining that contact and moving prospective customers along to becoming customers, especially if the brand has no other rugby sponsorships.
So, once that work has been done and the rest of their KPIs measured, partners who are due to renew need to make their decisions fairly quickly. They want as long as possible to plan and take advantage of the build up to Japan 2019 if they are going to be involved. They also need to protect their position. As the sport continues to grow and reaches new markets we can expect new companies to want to get involved.
It is the third largest sporting event in the world and yet comes at a fraction of the cost of the two before it. It’s a great opportunity for those brands wanting to appeal to rugby markets.And we do need to see some new sponsors in the mix. We are missing categories such as food, fashion, insurance, hotels, software, tyres, telecoms, wearable tech and peer-to-peer market places such as Airbnb to name just a few.
Looking to the tournament itself, Japan have a good chance of going far in 2019, depending on how hard their group is of course. Being hosts and seeing the huge increase in viewers of this tournament, from 2 million at the start to 25 million by the end, that presents a huge potential for new sponsors.
We expect significant interest hitting the Japan Rugby Union’s Commercial Department in the coming months as sponsors see the appeal in being part of the growth of the game, at a cost effective time, and being well established by the time the brave blossoms are hosts.
What will sponsors do differently in four years time? Who knows how the world will have changed by then and what we’ll be doing in the way of social and digital engagement?
Surely, we will see a much greater role for gamification. We are still surprised by the decision to not make the Rugby World Cup 2015 computer game available to play online. That was a big opportunity, and so we expect to see greater sophistication there.
We also expect to see a lot more sophistication in engagement with fans on an individual level. Having an App that is more interactive and adds to the tournament experience. It could record how you’re going to watch the games and then engage accordingly for those attending games and fanzones, watching in the pub with friends, or at home. It could then offer a tailored experience, giving weather and travel information for those going to events, showing where the fanzones are, what’s happening, where your entrance gate is, where the bars are and so on. It can be a much more useful tool than just giving game information.
Technology will learn from our behaviour, what we’re using on the App and what we’re not and delivering more of what interests us up front. Sponsors should also take a better role in the App, rather than just a section of the Fun & Games page.
We also need more data, and better use of that, to deliver a personally tailored experience for every fan. Aide from digital we can expect more sophisticated engagement at the games, more innovative sponsorship assets available, more imaginative use of them, and much greater integration across he rest of the sponsor’s communications.
We want to have a more engaged audience and so we have to engage with them in a more sophisticated and personal, one on one basis.
Sophie Morris, Millharbour Marketing, Strategic Marketing Consultant, Chartered Marketer
