Think Fast, Move Faster | Wrap Up

2018 is a big year for sports with the Winter Olympics, the World Cup and Ryder Cup all taking place and set to attract millions of viewers. This in mind, LoopMe hosted ‘Think Fast, Move Faster’ at ping-pong venue Bounce to educate and inform marketers.

For those unable to attend, or who’d like a quick recap – read on! To receive invites to our next event, sign up to our events mailing list.

Authentic Sports Marketing

The morning started off with a  presentation by Misha Sher, Worldwide VP Sports & Entertainment at Mediacom on ‘Creating Sports Excellence’. Misha encouraged marketers to ask, how can we break through the noise and add value to consumers? He gave examples of sports brands who had done this well, such as Heineken with their #ShareTheSofa campaign that made people all over the world feel like they were part of something.

Most importantly, when creating powerful sports marketing you should ask – Is it unstoppable? Would people choose to watch this and is it original?

Mobile and emerging technology

We then moved on to our first fireside chat, where Dee Frew, from the IAB UK interviewed Maggie Oswald , Senior Account Director at UM Worldwide on her experiences on working with FitBit.

Maggie explained how their research found the majority of consumers are researching on their phone and then go on to buy in-store. As a result, their creative is focused on awareness and engagement, as seen in the one LoopMe built.

Creative Director at R/GA, Ciaran McCarthy, then spoke to the audience about his experience working with on the ‘The Game before the Game’ campaign by Beats which first aired in 2014. The campaign went on to win numerous awards including a Gold Lion at Cannes.

He made an interesting point that one of the reasons why the campaign was so successful is because of the use of influencers and also observed that a 4-minute video was unlikely to work now, given that mobile adoption has rocketed in the last few years.

LoopMe’s Alex Hinds expanded on this in his keynote, highlighting that throughout the history of sports marketing, video has remained a constant feature due to its emotive power.

We rounded off the morning with a panel discussion moderated by Nicola Kemp from Campaign. Nicola interviewed Ryan Skeggs, of GiveMeSport, Linsdey Eckhouse of the NFL and Loic Dalle of Two Circles. Data driven marketing was a core focus, with all panellist agreeing that the use of big data effectively can unearth a wide range of possibilities for marketers, such as an increased understanding of the touch points a consumer interacts with the brand.

They warned about the danger of pigeon holing consumers into stereotypes, and said that in this day and age, every brand should know who their audience is and how to reach them but that sports brands have been late to the game in this adoption.

For more data and insights, download your free Sports Marketing one pager here.

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Thanks again to our brilliant speakers for their insights, we hope to see you all at another event soon!