ISAF Add Some Marketing Muscle. Tim Sewell Appointed Head of Marketing.

ISAF are to be congratulated on their latest appointment of former Sponsorship Manager for Skandia, Tim Sewell, as Head of Marketing and Events.

If the world governing body is going to influence and grow the professional side of the sport, it needs to attract experienced commercial operators that understand the realities of the industry. Sewell has delivered programmes that include some of Cowes Week’s most successful years with Skandia as title sponsor. Sewell has also been involved with the Olympic classes through Skandia Team GBR.

It sounds like he will be busy though. In a statement released by ISAF, Tim’s role at the Secretariat is to oversee the work of Marketing and Media, Events and Training and Development. As if marketing, media and events was not a large enough portfolio on it’s own!

Tim said:

“This is a great opportunity for me. I am really looking forward to my new role, being able to help the sport grow and ultimately put something back into the sport I enjoy so much.”

We look forward to talking to Tim in coming weeks. . .

More appointments…

Sailing Not Top of the List for Top 100 UK Marketing People.

The vast majority of sailing sponsorship is B2B – that is, businesses that are selling to other businesses, not to an end user or consumer. It’s perhaps not fair then to look at a list of the 100 most influential marketing people in the UK as chosen by MARKETING, and expect any of the companies they represent to be involved with the sport of yacht racing. After all, consumer brands are looking to promote themselves to a mass-marketing and sailing just doesn’t have the reach.

Nevertheless, we thought we would have a quick look down the list to see if anything caught our eye. Of the companies listed (there are less than 100 because companies like Unilever have a number of people in the list), there are only 4 that have been recently been involved with sailing or have a connection through overseas support.

At number 10 is Amanda Mackenzie from Aviva. Though the company has changed its marketing direction and reduced it’s involvement with UK offshore record holder Dee Caffari, Aviva continue to support Dee and the distinctive yellow livery will be remembered for a while yet.

At number 53 is Spencer McHugh from Orange. While not currently active in the UK, the brand does support sailing, particularly grass roots programmes in France.

Euan Sutherland from Kingfisher is listed at number 58. The company is still reaping the rewards of sponsoring Ellen McArthur, with a photo from 2005 adorning the landing page of the British sailor’s website.

Finally at number 60 is Peter Duffy of Audi. The automotive brand is investing heavily in sailing all around the world, and is perhaps the most visible brand in the sport at the moment.

In case you have a great proposal and want to reach the top consumer marketing people in the UK, here is the top 20. The full list can be found here.

1. Phil Thomas, Reckitt Benckiser
2. Gwyn Burr, Sainsbury’s
3. Mark Lund, COI
4. Roisin Donnelly, Procter & Gamble
5. Jill McDonald, McDonald’s
6. Richard Hodgson, Waitrose
7. Elizabeth Fagan, Boots
8. Keith Weed, Unilever
9. Dianne Thompson, Camelot
10. Amanda Mackenzie, Aviva
11. Richard Brasher, Tesco
12. Kerris Bright, British Airways
13. Sally Cowdry, O2
14. Troy Warfield, Kimberly-Clark
15. Jonathan Mildenhall, Coca-Cola
16. Gavin Patterson, BT
17. Kevin Brennan, Kellogg
18. Chris Jansen, British Gas
19. Jennelle Tilling, KFC
20. Rick Bendel, Wal-Mart

Who Are The Customers of Pro-Sailing?

The following article has been adapted for one I wrote on my blog.

Some sponsorship just makes sense. Regular readers of this site will know that two of the sports I am involved with are sailing and motorsport. While there are a lot of similarities, there are also some big differences.

Probably the biggest difference between the sport of sailing and motorsport is the fundamental reason for doing it in the first place. While yacht racing exists primarily for its competitors to go sailing, motorsport exists to sell more cars. The phrase “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” comes from a belief that consumers are influenced by a brand’s involvement in the sport and it will influence the purchase decision.

Car manufacturers believe this mantra, even in series like F1, where the car being raced bears no resemblance to the vehicles in the dealer forecourt. On the other hand, it is extremely rare to see manufacturers of sail-boats involved at all in the sport of sailing. When I say manufacturers, I am talking about companies that make the boat itself. Those who make and sell clothes, sails, instruments and other bits and pieces do buy into the concept of racing being a worthwhile platform to promote their wares.

A contrary example was the use of Bavaria yachts in last week’s Match Race Germany. The company has been the official ‘Boat Sponsor’ since 2004 and has signed up for further activity next year.While the competitors were not thrilled with the boats, Bavaria’s customers were able to relate to the high-performance attributes of the product.

Jasmin Müller, Marketing Manager of Bavaria said:

“Match Race Germany is key for our involvement with an international racing series. We are really pleased today that the WMRT enabled one of our guests to actually race on board a Bavaria 35 match with the elite crews”.

One of the excuses given by yacht manufacturers for not backing racing is that their customer base is interested in cruising not racing, but also that they are small companies and “it’s just not the same as F1″. I’ve never really bought into that argument, but couldn’t think of an example that made sense. Now I can.

Abarth is a small car manufacturer. Admittedly part of the much larger Fiat Group, the brand exists for sales and marketing purposes in its own right. The company doesn’t produce many units – far less than some of the production yacht builders, and the sales price of the Abarth products are also less than the price of production boat builders. Nevertheless, Abarth has created a one-make racing series that is now running in Europe and the UK.

The race version of this car is almost identical to the one you can buy from your local Abarth dealer, however the usage of the vehicles is obviously vastly different. The belief by yacht manufacturers that customers are not interested in racing because they are buying their boats for cruising is like saying that Abarth owners are not interested in racing because they are going to use the car to pick up groceries.

While the idea that winning converts to sales is well accepted, it is extremely difficult to measure. Digital technology has made it easier to track conversion for products bought online, but for products like a car, bought at a dealership, the only way to really know what influenced the transaction is to ask the customer. This week, I heard such a story…

As part of the marketing for the Trofeo series we reach out to fans and invite them to be VIP guests for the weekend. All they have to do in return is record their experience on a Flip video camera that we supply. We call it ‘Fan with a Cam‘. After the 2nd round of the championship at Silverstone, I was approached by a fan who had attended the event asking to buy hospitality tickets for his girlfriend. Instead, I offered him the chance to become our ‘Fan with a Cam’ for the latest round at Cadwell Park.

It turns out that the real Abarth fan was his girlfriend. Speaking to her over the weekend she revealed that she had wanted to buy an Abarth 500 for nearly a year, but upon watching them race at Silverstone, the home of the British Grand Prix, she left the racetrack with a single purpose – to buy one. And she did. Back at a different racetrack 4 weeks later she was the very proud owner of an Abarth 500. Not just a customer, but a fan.

The story is a nice reminder that marketing does not exist for its own sake. Interactions are not the same as transactions. For all the talk of household TV reach and media value, it’s useless unless someone goes out and makes a buying decision as a result. The sport of sailing needs to remember that.

Velux 5 Oceans Appoint Hill & Knowlton.

Despite the glamour and perceptions of wealth, many organisations involved with yacht racing cry poor when it comes to spending money on things like marketing and PR. It’s not a behaviour confined to sailing though, with large football teams and F1 teams using their brand and popularity as leverage when buying services. In some cases, professional services will be bartered for sponsorship, it’s also not unhead of for such organisations to play on the passions of people involved with the sport to reduce costs – the line goes something like; “well there are plenty of people who would love to work in this industry who will do it for less, even free…”

This attitude has to be weighted against the maxim; “you get what you pay for” and over recent years, as yacht racing gradually moves from being a sport to being a business, organisations who are trying to benchmark themselves against other sports businesses like football and F1 are starting to realise that generating awareness outside of the sailing market requires spending money.

The VELUX 5 OCEANS, has appointed leading strategic communications agency Hill & Knowlton to handle a global media relations brief utilising their network of offices around the world.

Through their network, centrally co-ordinated from London, Hill & Knowlton’s Sports team will assist the race communications team with the PR and activation of the race via offices in France, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, the United States, Germany and Poland. These key territories reflect both the route of the race, the nationalities of the participating skippers and a number of key markets of title sponsor VELUX Group.

Tim Kelly, VELUX 5 OCEANS Race Director of Communications, said

“Following a competitive tender process around the world, Hill & Knowlton presented a very creative pitch, offering a unique solution of a global network which ideally suits the international nature of the VELUX 5 OCEANS. This network offers us flexibility, synergies and a base of knowledge sharing which adds significant value to the race media team. Given their energy, enthusiasm and experience, I have no doubt that this will be a highly successful partnership.”

Andy Sutherden, Head of Sports, Hill & Knowlton said:

“This is a great win for H&K. We were able to demonstrate the breadth and depth of our experience across our network. This combined scale and expertise will help the VELUX 5 OCEANS team deliver international fame and excitement for this global sporting event, and we are delighted to add them to our list of blue chip clients such as Gillette, Aviva, adidas and Castrol”.

More Velux 5 Oceans Race News…

Happy New Year. Top 10 stories of 2009.

By the time this post goes out via our daily email, Australia and New Zealand will have already left 2009 and the ‘noughties’ behind. It’s been an interesting year and an even more interesting decade.

Thanks to you for reading and helping Yachtsponsorship to achieve huge growth in 2009. I am always thrilled to find out that this site is considered a ‘must read’ by many influentual people in the business, not just of sailing, but sports marketing and sponsorship.

Happy New Year. See you in 2010

Here are our top stories of 2009, determined by the number of times they were read.

1. Measuring Sports Sponsorship – ROI? ROO?
2. Two More Open 60’s Go Up for Sale.
3. Is Yacht Racing a Pretend Business?
4. The World’s Top 200 Sports Properties? Did Sailing Make it?
5. Where to Spend £10 Million… in Sailing
6. Sponsorship Value – The Commerical case for a DOG Match.
7. The Changing Face of Yacht Racing. Oman Sail Launches A100.
8. Louis Vuitton World Series Shows Promise.
9. iShares Cup 5th Man – The Best Seat in Sport?
10. Who’d Sponsor AC33?

Your top story not in the list? Let us know in the comments below which was your top story of 2009 and why.

Next Page »