Okay, a simple way to conceptualize and even plan sponsorship in sports is via what I call the 4 As approach, which stands for awareness, attitude, activation and adaptation. So how do we increase awareness? These might be some of the key considerations or conditions, such as, what is the competition doing? And the share of voice, a frame of mind. When they don't sponsor, you should. Because your voice becomes that much bigger. It's when you can create a new brand association that you didn't have before, that are related to sports, such as being trustworthy, being loyal, being global. If your sporting property has all of those associations itself. When you can communicate it in an integrated way, not just relying on just one communication vehicle. And also from a long-term perspective, when your brand awareness is well maintained. And if your brand is already well known. It's the case of the rich becoming richer. So even as a famous brand, you can become even better through the use of sports sponsorship. Okay, so how do you increase attitude? Again, it happens when the following conditions are met. And I think chief among them is this word called fit. So there's a lot of research being done, that has been done, on the notion of fit or congruence. So there has to be this congruence between the sponsor and the sport. So just because you have a famous sporting team or player, that doesn't mean that you'll always have a good fit between that property and you. So you have to really search well and pick well who your sporting property will be, that have that proper thing. And what you want of course is a positive attitude transfer. And with some players, the opposite can happen because they may have a bad boy image. The team may have a bad Image, as well. So again, just because they are performing well, that doesn't mean that the transfer will be necessarily positive. If you're sponsoring a team, the same applies. So some teams have a very squeaky clean image whereas other teams do not. And in terms of authenticity, if it's linked to non-commercial causes. Okay, what about activation? Well, activation also increases when you have the following conditions. So these are some of the things that you can try to manage. That you can try to combine it with collateral communication. So I think it's consistent with the integrated need for communication that we saw with awareness. Of course you need money, so there may be this threshold that you have to pass in terms of how much money has to be spent, certainly for bigger events like the World Cup or the Olympics. And that's because there's a lot of competing noise being created by other brands when it's linked with good causes here. And if your sports property is very leverage-able, meaning that it has a lot of different kinds of association that you can tie it with. And finally, what about adaptation? So here we're talking about adapting to local markets. So, many sporting properties are lucky in that they have local followers. Teams like Manchester United, teams like the New York Yankees are beloved the outside their home markets, so for them that's relatively easy. But if that's not the case, well, then that has to be creative. It also helps if your property has local ingredients. So one good example of that is having local players. So, I'm living here in Korea. And so we've many Korean players play in the Major League Baseball. So it helps if a Korean plays on your team. And that will be the local ingredient that suffices to have fans here, such as in Korea or Japan. Or, it could be a player playing in the Bundesliga or La Primera Liga, or the EPL, that comes from a certain country to develop a fandom abroad. It also helps to have this good balance between global and local sports sensibilities. So I think some teams are much more global in that respect. Whereas some sports such as American football have been traditionally much more domestic. Even though they're trying to change that by developing franchises or experimenting with exhibitions and toying with the idea of expanding to Europe. And lastly of course, it helps that a global market has enough purchasing power, such as to afford licensed merchandise. Okay, a country or city can be part of sports sponsorship. They can be a property, as is the case with, again, the Olympics, the World Cup. So here some of the guidelines is that you need baseline in terms of needing to know what the country or city image is. And then you have to market it. You have to know what is different about it. What's strong about it? What's favorable about it? Because it could be weak. It could be unfavorable. And it could be non-unique. So therefore, you have to conduct a SFU analysis, even on that city level. And I think the beauty about a country or a city is that it's not just limited to sports. So, this is where maybe the national tourism board can help. Because bringing people into a country, for example like Brazil, which is hosting the Rio Olympics, has a lot to offer in terms of tourism. So you need to balance the attractions stemming from the sporting event with other attractions. And lastly, I think you need to be open-minded and allow for some flexibility in how to market the city with your sponsors and other partners. So don't feel that the onus is on you to control how your country or city has to be marketed. Maybe your partners have much more and better ideas of how to do that. Okay, so wrapping up. Sport sponsorship is about, at least according to me, a small fish wanting to eat the bigger one. It should be base on VSA. And we saw that reflected in the long-term and short-term objectives. I talked about how to use the 4A's of sports to plan and execute sponsorship. And finally, I talked about how city and country is an extra dimension to consider in sports sponsorship.
