Sponsorship Blog

Why Content Matters

Posted: 11/2/2011 5:02:16 PM by Lesa Ukman | with 0 comments

Competition for content is skyrocketing among sponsors, rightsholders, broadcasters and new media. Reasons include: cheap bandwidth, the proliferation of tablets and smartphones, new broadcast forms such as IPTV and web TV, new distribution outlets—Google and Apple are bringing their own TV subsidiaries onto the market—and the need for content to populate owned media.

Brands, which formerly sponsored content, now create, curate and distribute content.

• “We are seeking partners open to non-traditional approaches to content distribution,” said Gatorade president Sarah Robb O’Hagan at the 2011 IEG sponsorship conference. For example, Gatorade teamed with NFL Films to create proprietary content around its NFL partnership. The sports drink’s “Everything to Lose” 17-part Web series, which followed 14 top-rated rookies as they transitioned from college football to NFL training camp, aired weekly on YouTube, NFL.com and Gatorade.com.
• Red Bull doesn’t buy media; it uses the content from its sponsored events, athletes and celebs to make media. Red Bull Media House publishes Red Bulletin magazine and produces documentaries, movies, games and apps. Plus, its content is streamed 24 hours a day on Red Bull Web TV and Red Bull Radio. Also provides a wide range of audio interview snippets and clips that air on non-owned channels. Red Bull Facebook likes: 23 million. Upload views of Red Bull’s YouTube channel: 207 million. Upload views of Red Bull USA’s YouTube channel: 91 million.
• Coca-Cola, which wants to be as renowned for breaking new acts as MySpace and YouTube, put fans at the center of content creation in March when it hosted a 24-hour session with Maroon 5 that saw the Australian band create a track in one day with crowdsourced help from its fans. The full experience was streamed live and fans around the world were able to interact via Twitter for the full 24 hours. Coke developed elaborate interactive and social media elements that allowed the band to see tweets, messages and votes directly broadcast in the studio. The studio projection incorporated an Xbox Kinect which allowed the band to interact with suggestions from followers in real time.

Rightsholders, which formerly sold media rights, now create their own channels and distribute their own content.

• The Pac-12 Conference is creating a national TV network, plus six regional affiliates, which will carry about 850 conference events annually.
• The University of Texas and the Dutch Football League each launched their own TV channels.
• Manchester United is building its own branded global social network and media outlet, with the aim of targeting its international base of an estimated 350 million supporters.

Broadcasters, which formerly controlled the distribution of content, now compete with sponsors, rightsholders and a slew of new media companies such as Google and Yahoo!.

• Google subsidiary YouTube broadcasts Indian Premier League cricket matches live online. The marketing revenue is shared.
• In 2011, Yahoo! secured a comprehensive media package with the English Premier League for 10 million euros per season and YouTube acquired the digital broadcast rights to Manchester City.
• Ford Explorer Facebook launch generated more traffic than a Super Bowl Ad.

IEG’s content recommendations to sponsor, rightsholder and broadcaster clients include:

1. Don’t just use content to drive people to “like” your brand. Give them reasons to keep coming back. Content now is less of a marketing play and more about driving value for customers.
   • The Boston Celtics added 1.5 million fans on Facebook, and 50,000 email addresses to their database with the help of a 3-Point Play game.
2. Likes are nice. Shares are better. You don’t just want to reach all of your Facebook fans, but all their friends as well.
3. Think Scale. The ability of a company like YouTube or Ustream to aggregate global audiences brings down per-viewer production costs sufficiently that even niche properties and local sponsors can stream content live.
4. Support organic with paid. You need all types of media: owned, earned, paid and shared to get to number one and stay there.  
   • Coca-Cola’s sponsored Twitter hash tag during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, #WC2010, received 86 million impressions in 24 hours
   • Visa and Samsung, two of the three highest recalled IOC sponsors, promoted via Yahoo! Mobile
   • Ford Fiesta promoted Bonnaroo Webcasts on YouTube across Google’s mobile, search and contextual advertising networks so anyone seeking event info was pointed to the YouTube page
   • Levi’s is promoting its partnership with Water.org and its branded water-saving app with a Facebook “sponsored story” ad. These appear in the upper right corner of the user’s Facebook page. If a user engages with the ad, the user’s friends can see the activity. In the case of Water.org, users are asked to click on the ad to pledge support for the organization. Once 100,000 people have clicked on the ad, Levi’s will make a donation to the nonprofit
5. Use multiple platforms. Make your content available on Facebook, on mobile, tablets, consoles, etc.
6. Turn content into stories. Consumers increasingly control marketing conversations, especially in the digital space. It's up to marketers to make sure consumers want to talk about them. Give people the reason to care and they will share.
7. Enable user-generated content and co-creation. UGC delivers a higher ROI than any other type of social media action, according to IEG client research.
   • Verizon activated its Pittsburgh Penguins partnership via “YinzCam,” enabling fans to create and view their own instant replays by rewinding live video and catching the action from different camera angles.
   • Red Bull Racing launched an interactive, online community after research showed Formula 1 fans wanted a place to engage with the team. The site allows fans to upload and share content such as pictures and videos, and invites fans to contribute race reports, while blogs and competitions provide a chance for fans to get involved with the team and get exclusive news. “Formula 1 hasn’t been good at engaging with fans and has been a slightly stand-offish sport. This gives us the chance to put across the less serious side of the sport,” said David Granger, Web site manager at Red Bull. The site lets fans sign up either directly or through Facebook, which also enables Red Bull to widen its reach as activity on its community site gets posted on users’ Facebook feeds. The site also links to the Red Bull team’s Twitter feed, while e-mail newsletters sent to members link to the Red Bull Racing YouTube and Flickr pages.
   • Rightsholders and broadcasters should pursue UGC too. For example, Vancouver 2010 was the first Olympic Games where the coverage was as likely to be unofficial as official; some 5,000 citizen journalists were accredited.

Tactics for encouraging co-creation:

• Free social platforms like YinzCam give consumers access
• Encourage sharing of media—photos, videos, blog content— and provide a central place to stream it
• Offer capability to comment on material, to like/dislike it
• More popular material should rise to the surface so it is seen by more people
• Use popular content sharing sites such as a Flickr group to broaden your net
• Promote an “official” hashtag and display all Tweets with it on your Web site
• Use RSS to feed content from sites across the web
• Integrate your Facebook campaigns into your Web site, e-newsletter, and blogging campaigns. 

So, what’s your content strategy? Share your experiences and let me know if you found these content recommendations applicable and actionable.

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Filed under: branded content, digital media, new media, social media, sponsored content, trends, activation

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