The Horse Racing industry - "Racing for Change"

If you want to see sheer brilliance in sports commercial marketing and PR as a beacon for other sports then take a look at the racing for change website www.lovetheraces.com

The website and inititative is there to simplify and create a structure for Horse racing in the UK. Why? Because 90% of the UK population don't go to the races, and because quite frankly horse racing is very confusing. So confusing that consumers tend to stay away because of the horse racing language, betting, personal opinions, animal welfare, racing not seen as a family day out and the stomping ground of ageing men in tweed jackets etc. etc.

Personally I find horse racing extremely confusing which actually stops me from going to the races, (along with a young baby!) : Different age horses, flat, jump, hurdle, meeting, festival, series, etc; let alone the betting quagmire, odds and trying to understand the Racing Post! Racing seems like an unfriendly and closed sport because of the language, rites and rituals, and the complexity.

So in the words of the website: 
"Lovetheraces.com was created by Racing Enterprises Limited as part of the "Racing for Change" initiative. The site aims to appeal to new and infrequent racegoers by offering a wealth of engaging and interactive content"


Racing for Change is an initiative created by Racing Enterprises Ltd, the commercial arm of British horse racing. Racing Enterprises is a joint venture company whose shareholders are the racecourses and the Horsemen’s Group (owners, trainers, jockeys, breeders and stable staff). Our aim is to broaden the appeal of the sport with the objective of increasing participation and revenues and protecting the thousands of jobs that exist within British Horse racing."





However horse racing is the UK's second largest, spectator sport, employer in sport and contributor to GDP and has an economic impact of £2.4bn to the UK.

One major issue that the horse racing industry is facing is that it has a loyal fan base, but an ageing demographic, with seven out of ten customers aged 46 years or over. 
So what has Racing for Change, lovetheraces.com, (and the whole industry), achieved on less than £1m spend? 

• The Lovetheraces.com website, designed as an entry point for new racegoers, with a particular focus on a younger demographic, has attracted over 200,000 unique visitors in 2011, up from 60,000 in 2010.
• 28 student racing clubs have been set up with their own CEO and a project with St Martins School of Art produced some cool designs for silks.
• Racecourses offer family racing days as well as "kids go free" racing
• Racecourse attendance for 2011 is up by 6% to 6.1m
• and racecourse sponsorship, and terrestrial & broadcast revenue is at £16m with a new deal signed with Channel 4 of between £15 and £20 million. This is against a background of racing actually paying broadcasters for coverage, so a huge achievement.
• QIPCO, sponsors of the newly created Champions Series have renewed their deal for 5 years and Investec, sponsors of the Epsom Derby have renewed for 10 years.
• Frankie Dettori won yet another race at York, AP McCoy was crowned BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2010 and Frankel The Wonder Horse has won 13 out of 13 races!

Racing is truly holding its own in the currently tough commercial environment, has admitted to he world that innovation and change is the way forward and has shown that y working together that they are  racing ahead with impressive change.
Well done to Rod Street and the whole team at REL and Racing for Change.

British Airways "Don't Fly" Olympic/Paralympic Campaign."Tongue in cheek" or "foot in mouth" ?!

BA and its advertising agency BBH seemed to have created a fantastic "sales avoidance" Olympics ad campaign, which coming from a set of creative marketers seems a bit foolish! The TV and poster campaign had an objective of stopping everyone from flying out of the country for the Olympics to support the British Olympic teams and have now launched a similar ParalympicsGB ad.

It uses the slogan: "Don't fly support Team GB". BA professed to the campaign being "very tongue in cheek", but it seems more "foot in mouth".

The interactive element is on facebook & YouTube where you can input your postcode and see a neighbour's house using Google Streetview, tag yourself in photos at the Olympic park etc. However BA's facebook site has less than 500k likes and the YouTube ad just shy of 1 million views.

However brand activation within the Olympic site with "Park Live presented by BA" is a great idea since it became the Henman Hill of the Olympic site and gave the brand visibility. BA also teamed up with Metro to offer competition winners tickets to watch the Olympics on the big screens at Park Live.

British Airways spent £40 million in 2008 to become a tier one sponsor and be the official airline of London 2012, and their Olympic campaign launched more than a year ago. It began in May 2011 with a predominantly print-based campaign entitled “They Will Fly” featuring British athletes sponsored by BA. Initially BA stated they would not use TV but then created a clever CGI TV ad of a BA Boeing 777 taxiing passengers through the streets of London to ‘London Calling’ by The Clash. The plane comes to a halt at Stratford’s Olympic Stadium with the tagline: “Don’t fly. Support Team GB.”
According to Abigail Comber BA's head of brands the Team GB and ParalympicsGB sponsorship is its largest ever sponsorship campaign: "This campaign is stand out in terms of its longevity, most campaigns are a lot more tactical, selling products over just a two- or three-month period. This is our largest-ever sustained campaign stretching over 12 months."

In summary the ideas are good but the sponsorship execution is weak. BA seem to be spending £60+ million telling customers not to fly. I am also unclear as to what the sponsorship is adding to the BA brand or even to the Olympics itself.

• What are they selling? The brand or flights, or are they just supporting Team GB / ParalympicsGB? 
• It seems like a generic message with low brand attribution to the Olympics and poor advertising branding for BA.
• Facebook activation is low - less than 500k likes for a 12 month campaign, but at least YouTube is at 1m views.

All in all a poor level of activation, a lack of synergy between a brand and a sponsorship property, and poor creative execution. Shame

An awe inspiring performance from an Olympic Class brand

53 brands associated with London 2012.....but who wins Gold?

17 days of the Olympics, 11 Worldwide Olympics partners, 7 London 2012 Olympic Partners, 7 London 2012 Olympic Supporters and 28 London 2012 Suppliers and Providers equals a grand total of 53 brands and companies associating themselves with the Olympics. Phew!!

So which 2012 Olympic brand is the Usain Bolt of the 100 metres? My blogs on UPS and Visa probably indicates that they haven't won...so who is it? 


One company, many global power brands, a Worldwide Olympic partner that has signed up for 10 years of Olympics and embodies what every athlete who has competed in London 2012 possesses.....commitment, dedication, insight, creativity and downright hard graft.

That company is P&G. Unlike most companies in the realm of sports sponsorship P&G has brought a wealth of expertise, creativity and sheer genius....and a shed load of cash! Given that the average worldwide Partner pays about £100m the rumour is that P&G have spent 3 to 4 times that activating the sponsorship. Take out the money however and the lessons and principals of how to activate a partnership with commitment remain the same.

The overall campaign idea is "Thank you mom" with the youTube film hitting circa 6m views:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NScs_qX2Okk

P&G is using its voice at the London 2012 Olympic Games to recognise a special person behind every athlete: Mum. (sorry I just can't write "Mom"!) P&G will serve the Mums of Olympians in London at the P&G Family Home, which is a home away from home where Mums and families of Olympians can relax and be together during the Olympic Games. 

Not only that but they have hair salons and nail bars for the female athletes too....Nail art stories are hitting all major newspapers - great PR. Total brand activation and word of mouth marketing all combined...again genius.

Each of the individual brands also have a campaign theme: Gillette - "A Great Start Every Day" , Ariel & Tide - "Proud Keeper of Your Country's Colours" etc.

P&G are supporting more than 150 of the world's top athletes across 48 countries for 34 different brands. Jessica Ennis, is the face of skincare brand Olay; swimmer Michael Phelps & Team GB cyclist Mark Cavendish front Head & Shoulders; Gillette - "A Great Start Every Day" campaign featuring Roger Federer, Sir Chris Hoy, Chinese Badminton player Lin Dan, and swimmers Felipe Franca and Ryan Lochte. 

Given that fewer than 5% of athletes in the London 2012 games have a direct sponsor there is a huge opportunity to tailor relevant authentic stories by country for each local brand.



A gold medal sponsorship performance includes:

• It's all about delighting the consumer who is at the heart of everything P&G does
• The whole campaign & sponsorship is based on consumer insight - behind every great athlete =  Mum (or Dad since P&G responded to Dad's for a Father's Day ad as well!)
• and that insight delivers a compelling and emotional story that links back to the brand message
• The campaign has wonderful emotion and therefore has great PR and word of mouth marketing
• The campaign adds value to the brands and also the sport. Win / win
• It is taken through the line in every direction (web, facebook, twitter, YouTube, PR, advertising, free Beauty app) and through every pore of the parent brand and each individual brand too
• The campaign is cleverly layered as well depending on how deep into the campaign you look, as well as being tailored to brands, countries and athletes
• The partnership is long term equity building - hence the 10 year multi million pound, global investment

P&G demonstrate absolute commitment to win. The campaign is long term equity building, distinctive, ownable and executed brilliantly. Totally world class and showing every other brand how it is done. 53 brands taking part but only one winner. Gold!

If you really want to see how brilliant their ads are, and cry your eyes out like I did, then check out the story of  Kerry Hincka, mother of Special Olympics athlete, Molly Hincka. Although Molly was faced with many obstacles, Kerry chose to see the possibilities beyond them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HJa46dB2LQ

UPS "We Love Logistics", but we hate stilted, forced partnerships for London 2012

It's about time to write a positive blog about some fantastic marketing at London 2012 but I can't resist taking a marketing swipe at UPS and their "Congratulations" advert in yesterday's Metro. Total shocker!!

Not only is this a dull ad, a tired and tested and shouldn't be used format, but their 2012 Ambassadors videos on their website are also forced and uninspiring. I can see that the team spent a good 60 minutes brainstorming London 2012 Olympics and asked themselves the question: "how do we fit logistics into a brand ambassador team line up and get them in a UPS/Adidas tracksuit in our UPS warehouse.....all in under 2 minutes?"

Their ambassadors are Louis Smith (above), Denise Lewis, Ben Ainslee and Steve Rider. UPS facebook page has 25k likes but again is pretty uninspiring with just content from the ambassadors and links to their facebook pages. They even have 29 videos narrated by Steve Rider on the logistics for different items needed for London 2012...yup that's logistics!

A similar story with twitter where @UPS_London2012 actually follows more people than they have followers -  871 following vs  727 followers!! In their own words on twitter "Its been 7 years & 21 days coming, & we've been working up to this"

I get that logistics isn't the sexiest topic, but 

a) it's the brand marketers job to make it sexy to logistics purchasers

and b) I find it a huge shame that the UPS "60 minute brainstorming session" over the last "7 years and 21 days" wasn't more productive.

A couple of tips:

1. create employee engagement, staff mentions, get customers to generate stories about UPS staff - in essence highlight the human element and stories in the brand

2. create some competitions on facebook - win money can't buy prizes of a dinner with Steve Rider / Denise Lewis,,,blimey even the odd Olympic ticket would have been good!

3. generate followers on twitter

4. partner with another Olympic supplier partner

5. "inspire a generation" since the Olympics only come every 4 years

VISA CASHLESS ?  PRICELESS !
"Proud only to accept Visa" (except Wembley)

Apparently there are just eight cash machines across all of the Olympic venues to service more than 11 million anticipated spectators, and all in a world where 85% of transactions are still cash based.

34 Olympic venues, including Wembley, Earl's Court, Greenwich Park, Wimbledon and Lord's do not even have a single ATM. Why? Because under their Olympic agreement Visa has had them removed. Mariano Dima, Visa's European CMO, has labelled London 2012 as a "showcase of innovation"...more like deprivation!
Visa's current strapline is: "Life flows faster with Visa" and "flow faster with Visa contactless".

Furthermore, the 8 cash machines only dispense cash for those with a Visa card since Visa are a worldwide Tier 1 sponsor. On the plus side, according to  Which? magazine, 98pc of the UK cardholders will be able to use cards onsite  as there are 115m Visa cards in circulation in the UK, and the vast majority of link/switch cards in the UK are Visa debit cards.

My opinion is that the "We are proud to accept only Visa" is bugging quite a few Olympic visitors especially the fans attending Olympic football games at Wembley Stadium who have complained of "ridiculous" queues for food and drink after tills stopped working. This really isn't a surprise since whenever I have been to events at Wembley this has happened every time. 


The fact is that irregardless of whose fault it is, be it Wembley themselves, BT, or Visa, the fact is that Visa will undoubtedly bear the brunt of negative publicity, spectator bad feeling and all round bad will. The first wave of which came when tickets first came out when fans discovered  that the only way to pay was using Visa.


The reason behind Visa's decision relates to their business objective for the brand to now be seen as technology company and they are using the Olympic venues to test a new cashless forms of payment. These are the payWave cards and Samsung payWave mobile 'phones which Visa hopes will render bank notes and coins redundant the UK. 


8 cash points in the Olympic park mean no cash available, so long queues, no consumer choice & aggravation. Talk about forcing the consumer to adopt new products !!  Jim McCarthy head of Products at Visa inc. has said "Electronic payments play a crucial role in facilitating tourism and meeting the needs of consumers on the go during a world sporting event such as the Olympic games, making this a unique opportunity to showcase how technology is changing the way people shop"




However the bigger issue showcased isn't about payment or even new technology products. It is more about how rights holders and sponsors in general are permitted category exclusivity. The issue is that Visa's category exclusivity has been detrimental to the fans' enjoyment of the Olympics irregardless of whether Visa have been to blame or not. Visa will be seen to have been spoiling the fans enjoyment of the games and in the long run this will hurt only them.


In the words of Steve Martin CEO of M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment "Everything sponsors do must help the event and make it easier for the fans, and it should  ingrained, so the brand's presence is weaved into the fabric of the event".

Time will tell about category exclusivity and whether the consumer will have a positive brand perception from London 2012. Given that Visa have been supporting the Olympics since 1986 and have signed up until 2020 the odd setback is to be expected. However category exclusivity will in the future be thoroughly scrutinised by all rights holders for new deals.