What’s your name and position within the organisation?
Emily Caroe, Director of Mallory Group.
I set up Mallory Group in October 2016 with my former client at Jaguar Land Rover, James Toller. Jimmy and I felt there was a gap in the agency market for a small, hungry agency that has understanding of all four sides of the sponsorship strategy and activation mix. We have worked as rights holders, global brands, in the media and at creative agencies and this knowledge, when pooled, provides really valuable benefits and insights for our clients.
How did Mallory Group come to work with your current rights holders and brands? What “bigger picture” do these relationships seek to meet?
10 years ago there was a trend in the sponsorship industry that marketing agencies had to be either brand focused or rights holder focused: they could not be conflicted in any way. Now, however, the set-up is much more fluid. I believe that agencies that are both brand and rights holder facing actually have a greater level of understanding of the intricacies and complexities of sponsorship deals, with a viewpoint from both sides of the table. We understand the language they speak and the business challenges they are facing, as we have sat in their seats.
How is the effectiveness of the relationship(s) measured? What metrics do you use?
As an industry, for too long we have swept our brand clients along in a wave of positive, warm and fuzzy feelings about sponsorship.
The recent MKTG agency report revealed that €56 billion is being spent on sponsorship this year, but only 19% of sponsorship professionals are confident they can actually measure the business value return on the sponsorships they undertake and only 37% of practitioners have a standardised process for measuring sponsorship. This is unforgivable. As an industry, for too long we have swept our brand clients along in a wave of positive, warm and fuzzy feelings about sponsorship, justifying the Return on Investment on outdated media values, while being unable to attribute hard figures to the Return on Objectives, with rights holders being over-optimistic, or even unaware of, the value delivered (or not) back to the brands.
We are taking a very different approach: understanding the metrics and acting on the results we are achieving, whilst still in the campaign, is core to our creative delivery.
For every one of our clients, we create a ‘Partnership Value Scorecard’ (PVS) – a completely bespoke system that is created by getting to the heart of the objectives and business challenges the partnership is looking to address.
For every one of our clients, we create a ‘Partnership Value Scorecard’ (PVS) – a completely bespoke system that is created by getting to the heart of the objectives and business challenges the partnership is looking to address; agreeing KPIs that can be monitored efficiently and effectively and then also ensuring that this data is regularly reviewed to ensure the activation strategy is on track. The partnership ROO and ROI is reported back, both internally, at the brand, to the rights holder, as well as to all the agencies and partners involved, to ensure that everyone is doing everything they can to make the partnership a success.
The industry-wide issue we have, though, is that by creating a bespoke PVS for that brand, no two partnerships can be compared, as you are sitting an apple alongside a pear. This is something that we are looking at with our partners and we have ideas on how this can be resolved.
What are the current trends within your business area, and how are they affecting how you work and how you deliver on strategy?
There are going to be 5 key trends this year in the sports marketing world:
Esports – more ‘traditional’ brands (as seen by SAP with Team Liquid and Mastercard with League of Legends) looking to engage with an under 35, male-skewed market will enter the Esports arena.
Creating great content has to sit seamlessly with the distribution to the right audience. As our attention spans dip to that of a goldfish (8 seconds), we need to work our messaging hard and in an impactful way.
Content – continues to be absolutely key. But creating great content has to sit seamlessly with the distribution to the right audience. As our attention spans dip to that of a goldfish (8 seconds), we need to work our messaging hard and in an impactful way. Long-form, docuseries type content also has a really powerful impact and shouldn’t be forgotten.
What’s key is ensuring that a reasonable budget for evaluation is allocated at the start of the project and not compromised to rights fee or activation budgets.
Measurement – making sure our clients understand the value their partnerships are bringing them, not only for assessing the ongoing success, but also that these values give real collateral when renegotiating rights, or looking for more budget internally. What’s key is ensuring that a reasonable budget for evaluation is allocated at the start of the project and not compromised to rights fee or activation budgets.
Women’s sport – at last! This area is a great opportunity for brands to really make a positive impact and a difference. We now just need the media to catch up on the interest and start giving space to reporting on the matches.
Cause marketing – brands are being bolder and aligning to causes that really matter to them, allowing them to showcase their values, to motivate their workforce as well as inspiring change externally. A really exciting development that gives tangible ‘from the heart’ value to sports marketing campaigns.
How has sponsorship changed in your industry over the past few years? And how do you think it’s going to change in the next five years?
Professionalism of the industry: sponsorship has gone from a ‘nice to have’ in a CMO’s marketing mix, to the fastest growing marketing discipline. It is now perceived as a cornerstone marketing tool for many brands, and, with that greater focus and investment, comes greater talent, greater creativity and greater scrutiny, all of which we welcome, particularly the latter.
How are you harnessing and executing on digital strategy and what problems / opportunities has this created?
It’s the ‘always on’ nature of digital and social that creates challenges for global brands.
It’s the ‘always on’ nature of digital and social that creates challenges for global brands. We noted this particularly in the work we did for AkzoNobel in the Volvo Ocean Race.
As a global brand there is always an audience online for day-time content somewhere in the world, but when you have content coming in at any time in a 24-hour cycle, manning the delivery, editing the videos, writing the copy, could easily become a 24/7 role for nine months. Our mantra is always ‘less is more’: doing a few things really well rather than swamping feeds, and ensuring each of our channels has a very defined ‘voice’. Also, ensuring that content is timely, authentic and reactive – the Volvo Ocean Race called this RAW. This strategy was received really well by our audience – we had the fastest growing fan base of all teams in the race, together with the highest, positive engagement rates.
What challenges have you encountered, and how have they been overcome?
As a business that is only a little over two years old, we constantly come up against the challenge of larger agencies that dominate major pitches. This is understandable, given the size and stature of some brands and the breadth of their activation requirements, but we don’t buy the fact that larger agencies necessarily have greater international reach.
Over the last two years we have experienced working across 18 different countries, delivering a variety of sponsorship activity – from media events to launches, social activity to crisis communications. The world is a small place these days and with partner agencies with specific expertise in different territories, the global footprint of larger agencies is no longer a differentiating factor. We see this as a real growth area and opportunity.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
2019 is going to be a tough year, as organisations and brands tighten their budgets in an uncertain climate. However, I always believe these things are cyclical. We’ll work the budgets we do have harder, be hungrier, push through the challenges and look forward to the market settling down in the next 12-18 months.
Contact Emily:
e: info@mallory-group.com
www.mallory-group.com/