As we all know, sponsorship is vital when companies want to go big and attack the global market with coherent, bold, effective campaigns. If you’re a brand with an international outlook, it’s almost certain that you want to invest your marketing budget in an area that can reliably place you in front of a huge, passionate, captive audience.
As you’re reading this, you’re probably some way to realising that the very best way to do this is through sponsorship and advertising in sport. Sponsoring important sporting events (think MotoGP, F1, or the Champions League) that have international audiences provides a huge increase in brand awareness, as well as increased sales.
Here, we’ll outline some of the key reasons why international sponsorship in sports is the best way forward if you want to connect with new fans and customers on a global scale – and keep them invested in your brand in the long-term.
The international nature of sports
More than any other entertainment medium, sports has the ability to transcend borders, leap language barriers, and ultimately bring people together on a global scale. No one watching a football match or a MotoGP race cares that they’re from a different culture or that they might speak a different language to the other fans beside them in the stadium or at the racing track – they’re invested in the feats of athleticism, the quality of driving, and the talent behind the kicking that is going on in front of them. This unifying quality is what brings people back to sports again and again, and why international sponsorship in sports is such a vital area for brands.
Think about the visual ways that sponsorship and advertising in sport manifests itself, too: logos, banners, billboards, side-hoardings, and multiple other eye-catching activations, all of which have the ability to be instantly recognisable to and ingratiate themselves into the minds of sports fans from every corner of the planet.
Multidisciplinary campaigns
Social media and digital activations in international sponsorship in sports are now not only desired by fans, but expected. Luckily, this provides a great opportunity for brands – you can follow up with those who have attended your sponsor team’s matches, races or games, wherever they live in the world. You can connect via streaming and live video with their fans, even if they live hundreds (or thousands) of miles away from the billboards flashing your logo and the riders or footballers donning jerseys in your colours. You can measure exactly how effective your campaign has been, directly from HQ via emails, social media campaigns and digital incentives.
In monetary terms, this means that your need for expensive outdoor marketing campaigns is lessened, because you can move this activity online. It means you can reach territories you wouldn’t have had access to before. And it means you can measure the effectiveness of your work far more easily.
Sponsorship and advertising in sport: which sports should I invest in?
There are numerous ways you could invest when you’re considering international sponsorship in sports, but we’d recommend two outlets: football sponsorship and MotoGP sponsorship.
Why do we recommend these two sports in particular? Well, football sponsorship is a bit of a no-brainer – massive global audiences, the ability to whip up fans and create passion on a monumental scale, and more money than we can easily comprehend. If you’re a multinational brand with deep pockets, football sponsorship is something you should be considering.
Similarly, MotoGP’s fans are incredibly passionate – and the sport brings a hugely international flavour too, with races in 19 countries on almost every continent and a global audience of millions. MotoGP sponsorship brings multiple opportunities, whether in sponsorship of bikes or jerseys, investment digitally, or, from a B2B perspective, within corporate hospitality.
Discover What is a Sponsorship Activation.
To find out more about football sponsorship, MotoGP sponsorship, or sponsorship and advertising in sport in general, contact RTR Sports Marketing today.
