Are you willing to sponsor?
Are you ready to explore the transformative power of athlete sponsorship for your brand? Click here to learn more about how sponsorship can help brands grow and thrive in the exciting world of motorsports.
By Riccardo Tafà| Posted March 6, 2019 | In MotoGP, Sport Sponsorship
What does a brand need to do to stand out among all other brands? How can audiences become familiar with the brand to such extent that they recognize it and associate it to specific products? How can the brand be top of mind at the right time, i.e. the time of purchase?
Getting noticed is the starting point, the base for the success of each commercial action, and this is what can make you lose sleep. Paying attention has become a rare quality: we only do when we are interested in something. The conventional advertising machine, however, does not seem to be taking this aspect into account and continues to address its ads to everybody, whether they are interested or not. I am quite sure that you happen to meet people in your daily experiences with their eyes stuck on the screens of their mobiles and you probably step aside to prevent them from bumping into you. They are miles away from what is happening around them: they only pay attention to their devices where they frantically check their emails, the latest posts on Facebook, the shots on Instagram, a gossip website, etc. And they do so while they are waiting for the train and/or the bus or while they are lining up to check out at the supermarket.
When they are not focused on their mobiles (where they are constantly bombarded by non-requested ads), they are the targets of a load of external stimulations taking the form of posters, billboards, radio commercials, texts, emails, telephone calls from call centers, and so on and so forth. Needless to say, the effect of all such stimulations on the audience is that they “raise barriers” and become impermeable to the messages they receive.
The audience’s level of alert to certain products or services rises again when they need to buy them. For instance, if you wish to buy a new car and you like one specific model, you start noticing it more and more frequently on the roads. Similarly, if you wish to change your hairstyle and you draw inspiration from someone wearing bangs, you will start noticing lots of bangs around you, and so on. It is like your radar switches on and detects what you need exactly when you need it: the rest is all background noise!
The examples above show that getting noticed sounds like a mission impossible in which only a handful of fortunate brands which have unlimited budgets manage to succeed with conventional advertising.
Everybody’s attention has become very hard to catch, and this is a result of our need to defend ourselves, to escape the spots that are constantly bombarding us although we are not interested in them and actually feel oppressed by them every day. We can do without them in our lives until we need something, and this is exactly what prompts us to google and find the products we wish, to make comparisons, to look for information on their prices and the supplier’s customer service.
What should a company do to communicate with its prospect customers? How can a company make its own way through the crowd and step out of the background noise? Sponsorship is one possible answer – possibly sports sponsorship.
The concept is very simple … as simple as with all things that work well.
You need to reverse the current process: do not seek attention and have the audience find you, instead! How? Well, BE INTERESTING! Sponsor a cultural initiative or a charity event, a sport or a team: this is the best way to attract the attention of consumers spontaneously, without bothering them.
You need to sponsor events or people – a charity, sports, music or cultural events – that your target customers appreciate and follow for their personal passion and interest, regardless of your being engaged in and with them: events or stars the consumers like and/or find extremely appealing, something your target customers focus their attention on and perceive as pleasant.
Of course, you need to be selective in your sponsorship decisions. You have to choose exactly what your target customers like: each sport is different and has a different target audience, as any other communications tool. The readers of The Financial Times are different from the readers of local newspapers such as The Mail or the Cambridge News in the same way as golf and sailing audiences are different from the audience of motocross.
Your brand should be an active player in the show which consumers have decided to watch, in the initiative they believe in and wish to support, and you have to enter their world on tiptoes, offering assistance. This is how you will make your way through in a non-invasive manner and, over time, you will be preferred to all the other brands because consumers will associate you with their passion.
At a time when we are constantly offered any possible product, the only items which we really value are those connected to our passions. How about all the rest? Well, it is just a bore and a nuisance, I would add.
If you want to know more about this topic, give a little of your precious time and attention to this link https://medium.com/@bauhouse/attention-is-a-scarce-resource-in-an-economy-that-is-based-on-the-creation-and-trade-of-information-da098101dee0
Are you ready to explore the transformative power of athlete sponsorship for your brand? Click here to learn more about how sponsorship can help brands grow and thrive in the exciting world of motorsports.
Managing Director for RTR Sports, Riccardo graduated in law at the University of Bologna. He began his career in London in PR, then started working in two and four-wheelers. A brief move to Monaco followed before returning to Italy. There he founded RTR, first a consulting firm and then a sports marketing company which, eventually, he moved back to London.
The online platform where you can discover the latest trends, strategies and insights from the exciting world of sports marketing.
View our blogJuly 28, 2025
Red Bull Racing’s sponsors: A winning system With an extraordinary sequence of successes in recent seasons, Oracle Red Bull Racing has also established itself as one of the benchmark te[...]
Read MoreJuly 25, 2025
The 2026 MotoGP calendar is preparing to make history: for the first time in more than two decades, the Circus will return to race in Goiânia, Brazil, with a possible South American exp[...]
Read MoreJune 17, 2025
Starting in 2027, MotoGP is preparing for a momentous change that will redefine the face of motorcycling’s premier class. The new technical rules, announced by the Grand Prix Commission[...]
Read MoreIn an era where it is possible to get anywhere with a click, there is a strong temptation to approach teams and properties directly for sponsorship projects.
By doing so, we are convinced that we are shortening the value chain, saving time and money. However, these DYI methods are anything but risk-free and what initially appears to be a competitive advantage soon turns into a problem that is difficult to resolve. That’s why there are agencies. And this is why you should rely on us for your sponsorships.
When first approaching a motorsport sponsorship project, it is difficult to know immediately which stakeholders are correct, what the decision flow is, and what the right timelines are for each process. Motorsport is a very specialized field of action, and fitting effectively into its paths can take a lot of time and therefore money. We, on the other hand, know referents and spheres of action and know who to talk to, when and how. So you are also more effective.
Motorsport is an immense passion, and for our heart colors we would be willing to do anything. But business is a different business, and it is important to make the best possible strategic decisions based on independent research, statistics and reliable data. A motorsport sponsorship agency like RTR has an objective, 360-degree picture of the scenario and can tell you what is really best for you: which racing series, which athlete, which team. This is because we possess a great deal of data and information on ratings, segmentation and attitudes. Because the numbers don’t lie. Never.
Activations are the real heart of motorsport sponsorship. Without them, there remains only a blank sticker on a motorcycle, car or uniform and no contact with the public, no emotional connection, no impact on the bottom line. Then how do you do it? It certainly won’t be the teams or the athletes who will help you leverage sponsorship and enjoy the many marketing rights you have paid for. To bring out the best in a motorsport marketing project, you need an agency that knows how to use sponsorship to engage the fanbase online, to reach out to Shopping Centers, to organize hospitality, to develop B2B and B2C opportunities, and to get “your” athletes in front of millions of potential consumers.
Would you ever go to the dealer who sold you the car and ask if the competitor’s car is better? No, of course. So, how do you expect to get firm measurements of the effectiveness of your sponsorship if you do not rely on someone super partes? At RTR, we have always worked with independent third-party agencies that allow us to know the return on any exposure of your brand on TV and in the media. In addition, we believe in calculating ROI as the ultimate measure of your success-so we can tell you for every penny you spend how much you are making.
We have been involved in motorsport sponsorship and sports marketing for more than 15 years. We are consultants in the sense that our goal is to maximize your investment, but we are also an agency that manages the project from start to finish. We have been doing this since 1995 with passion and professionalism, following three principles that have become cornerstones of our business: independence, verticality and transparency.
The online platform where you can discover the latest trends, strategies and insights from the exciting world of sports marketing.
View our blogJuly 28, 2025
Red Bull Racing’s sponsors: A winning system With an extraordinary sequence of successes in recent seasons, Oracle Red Bull Racing has also established itself as one of the benchmark te[...]
Read MoreJuly 25, 2025
Communication and sports have always been linked by a deep and synergistic relationship of emotions, powerful narratives, and authentic connections with audiences. In the world of sports mar[...]
Read MoreJuly 25, 2025
The 2026 MotoGP calendar is preparing to make history: for the first time in more than two decades, the Circus will return to race in Goiânia, Brazil, with a possible South American exp[...]
Read More