How To Deliver An Impactful Athlete Brand Partnership: Four Best Practices
SPORTFIVE’s Tim Stedman, Vice President of Partnership Strategy & Athlete Marketing, shares his thoughts on athlete partnerships and uncovers his four best practices on how brands can deliver real impact through the influence of the individual athlete.
In this Insight:
Athlete and brand partnerships
Sport sponsorships are a fundamental part of many brands’ marketing mix. They provide organisations with a tool to connect with their audience that can transcend both cultural and geographical borders - helping businesses meaningfully engage on a different level to other marketing strategies.
Within this field, Athlete Partnerships have proven to be one of the most effective forms of delivering meaningful engagement.
The rise of digitalisation and social media in sport has given athletes a powerful platform that consumers connect with on a different level to other rights-holders in sport and many businesses have taken note.
In this article, we speak to Tim Stedman, Vice President of Partnership Strategy & Athlete Marketing at SPORTFIVE to gain an understanding of the best practices within the field and look into what brands can do to deliver a successful athlete brand partnership.
Develop a clear contract
Whether working with an individual athlete or with a sports team or league, the foundation for most successful partnerships in sport are clear and detailed contracts.
There are several elements we advise brands to strongly consider to establish a successful and mutually beneficial partnership, most notably:
Time Commitments and Usage Rights: Ensure these are sufficient to cover all marketing requirements. This includes the number and type of appearances, social media posts, social media usage, events, media needs and other promotional elements.
Provisions for Unforeseen Events and Reputational Issues: Include clauses that address unforeseen events and reputational issues. This ensures that the brand is protected in the event of controversies or changes in the ambassador's public image.
Renewal Options: Incorporate an option for renewing the agreement. This protects the brand from increased fees if the partnership proves successful and where a further term will bring added value.
By addressing these points, brands can create a robust framework that maximises the benefits of the partnership while mitigating potential risks.
Define your deliverables
A crucial part of the contract stage is to clearly and concisely define the partnership’s deliverables.
Here, it is essential that all rights and entitlements are fully defined to create clear expectations and accountability. This should include seemingly smaller expectations such as ambassador conduct, as well as more standardised practices such as image rights and event appearances.
Within the contract stage, there are often conditions that clarify how these rights can be utilised, ensuring they are practical and achievable. These points are developed in collaboration with the ambassador to avoid conflicts with their existing commercial commitments, particularly those related to their professional sporting obligations.
This contractual diligence protects both the brand's marketing objectives and the ambassador's other responsibilities and ensures the partnership can be effectively activated.
Plan beyond the launch
The signing of a new partnership is an exciting time for both the athlete and the brand.
Marketing teams spend weeks, sometimes months outlining the partnership parameters and planning the perfect announcement.
Whilst the launch is a pivotal moment in the partnership, brands have to look beyond the initial announcement and develop a comprehensive activation plan which can sustain the impact of the partnership.
This plan should be shared as part of the partnership’s launch and directly thereafter utilise this as momentum to drive awareness and engagement around the partnership.
If done correctly, a thorough activation plan enables brands to optimise the partnership ROI from the outset. It should integrate with the overall brand and product marketing strategies, ensuring that the ambassador relationship plays a pivotal role.
By carefully crafting and enforcing exclusivity clauses, brands can safeguard their partnership and ensure that the ambassador's endorsements remain focused and impactful.
Tim Stedman, Vice President of Partnership Strategy & Athlete Marketing - SPORTFIVE
Protect your investment
One of athlete sponsorships greatest strengths is that they utilise an individual’s profile to make brands more personable. This can however come with certain risks, such as potential negative PR involving the ambassador.
These risks can be minimised by following some of the below steps:
Exclusivity clauses: While most ambassadors naturally avoid conflicts with competing brands, this can’t be taken for granted. By incorporating an exclusivity clause within the contract, ambassadors are prohibited from representing or endorsing competing brands within the same sector, ensuring the authenticity and integrity of the partnership.
Enforceable safeguards: We encourage brands to include enforceable safeguards to protect themselves against reputational concerns. Commercial consequences, including termination provisions, need to be put in place and be clearly defined and legally enforceable, to determine what compensations can be pursued in the event of such issues.
Adapt contracts, clauses and safeguards: Each brand, ambassador and business sector will bring varying risks therefore these need to be tailored to each unique partnership opportunity and should never be a copy and paste job.
Athletes - the future of sponsorship
Some of the world’s biggest organisations, from almost every industry, rely on the power of sport sponsorships to propel their brand to new heights.
Within this sphere, athlete sponsorships are quickly becoming businesses’ go-to method for brand building, thanks to their unique ability to engage with audiences across all demographics.
But delivering an impactful athlete partnership requires much more than just finding a willing athlete.
At SPORTFIVE, we don’t just meaningfully connect the biggest brands with some of the most well-known people in sport, we help brands maximise their partnerships to deliver real impact.
From securing long-term partnerships for Santander, Blue Yonder and Callaway with golfing superstar Jon Rahm, to activating LEGO’s meaningful campaign work with WSL stars such as Sam Kerr and Beth Mead, we build the bridges between brands and athletes.
If you want to find out more about athlete sponsorship or our work, please get in touch.
