SPORTFIVE x The Padded Seat: Innovative Approach to Marketing Hospitality and VIP Services

The shared emotional experience of a sports event represents a huge opportunity to forge new professional relationships, maintain existing contacts and support a brand’s image. Often, clubs and associations struggle to make their own VIP experience accessible to new audiences. Alongside affluent corporate customers, it’s primarily keen fans who want to give their trip to the stadium a little extra sparkle.

In spring, SPORTFIVE entered into a collaboration with renowned UK-based content creator The Padded Seat to put new marketing approaches to the test. Its collaboration with The Padded Seat gave rise to two hospitality video campaigns for Hertha BSC and Bayer Leverkusen 04. There were two overarching goals when selecting the clubs: firstly, the site and Olympic stadium of Hertha BSC and the club Bayer 04 Leverkusen were intended to generate international awareness of the two teams in the UK. Secondly, the intention was to use this to tap into and exploit opportunities for selling their local hospitality services. 

Founder and creator Kyle Mattison is behind The Padded Seat brand and the associated social media account. The Padded Seat is a successful, innovative content creator specialising in sports hospitality. His content revolves around documenting VIP experiences in arenas and stadiums on social media and sharing this with his community – with authenticity taking centre stage. The VIP areas and experiences are depicted as they really are: they’re not artistically showcased or given a particularly exclusive, high-quality finish. In short, it’s authentic, approachable, and informative.

Thanks to its creative, authentic content, the channel effectively conveys the excitement, atmosphere, and unique offering of hospitality experiences to a wide audience. In concrete terms, The Padded Seat reaches more than 925,000 viewers on social media. 

On 22 April and 23 April, The Padded Seat attended the Bundesliga games of Hertha BSC vs. Werder Bremen and Bayer 04 Leverkusen vs. RB Leipzig to test out the hospitality experiences in the “Atrium” at the Olympic stadium and the “19NULLVIER lounge” at the BayArena.

The content package for both clubs included various announcement stories published during the week of the game and on game day itself on The Padded Seat’s Instagram account, plus the following elements:

• A 60-second Matchday hospitality teaser played out across platforms including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

• A 4-minute Matchday documentary that can be viewed on YouTube.

• A dedicated link (OVIP) that was used to deposit on The Padded Seat landing page.

After just two weeks, the videos on the hospitality experiences at Hertha BSC and Bayer 04 Leverkusen had generated more than 1.4 million views, 90,000 likes and 1,050 interactions on TikTok and Instagram. The Instagram videos were shared jointly by The Padded Seat and SPORTFIVE as a collaborative post, enabling an audience of various target groups to be reached.

To date, the videos have generated more than 14,000 views on YouTube. Compared to the 60-second videos on TikTok and Instagram, these 4-minute documentary videos offer a more comprehensive insight into all the aspects and details of the hospitality experiences. The videos go into the various individual components (such as VIP areas, catering, services etc.) of the hospitality areas at the Olympic stadium and the BayArena in more depth. In turn, video viewers can enjoy a more detailed insight into the extensive offering and unique features of the hospitality experiences.

Through the collaboration with The Padded Seat, a broad target group was able to immerse themselves in the hospitality experiences of Hertha BSC and Bayer 04 Leverkusen via social media. In addition, the international attention, especially in the UK, could be increased for both clubs.

Through the authentic, emotional, and creative videos, the topic of hospitality is conveyed to the acquired viewers in a tangible, vivid and understandable way. The format complements and even partially replaces conventional hospitality marketing measures - such as classic sales presentations, digital tours or time-consuming stadium tours, which fail to convey the attributes and emotions of a hospitality experience in sports or do so only inadequately. This is especially true for new customers who come into contact with hospitality for the first time and want to get a comprehensive picture of hospitality products in an uncomplicated way.

The Padded Seat solves this problem by reducing the respective staged hospitality experiences to the essential and relevant facets in 60 seconds, building up emotions, reaching millions of people and thus offering clubs and rights holders the chance to no longer just sell hospitality, but to finally market it.