What’s your name and position within the organisation?
My name is Chris O’Donoghue, CEO of Mongoose Sports & Entertainment.
We are a fully integrated sport and entertainment marketing agency with specialisms in PR & Communications, Sponsorship Activation, Commercial Partnerships, Experiential, Design and Digital campaigns.
As CEO, I oversee all aspects of the agency with a particular focus on sponsorship across our extensive portfolio and the development of new commercial partnerships in the B2B and B2C realm.
Give us a brief overview of Mongoose as a company in general and your approach to sponsorship and partnerships specifically?
Mongoose is a no-nonsense, straight talking agency. We are creatively led and commercially focused in all aspects of our work.
According to Rudyard Kipling the motto of all the Mongoose family is to “run and find out”. We felt this motto and the traits of the feisty animal were attributes that we wanted to incorporate into everyday client work with a major focus on being agile, nimble and tenacious. Every single employee was and is hired on this basis resulting in us working with marquee brand names over the years, including The North Face, New Balance, Bridgestone, UEFA, the British Army, the RAF and NFL team -the Jacksonville Jaguars.
With teams based across the UK, Singapore, and Republic of Ireland we run global campaigns for clients across multiple disciplines.
Our team of specialists have senior experience at some of the largest global brands, most renowned rights holders and award winning agencies which provides us with great confidence in identifying, unlocking and monetising the value proposition for rights owners. We offer an end to end solution, from defining sponsorship propositions to taking them to market and securing new revenue streams for our clients. We Out Wit, Out Think and Out Play the competition for our clients.
Firstly, in Out Witting the competition, we focus on the beginning of any relationship we work with to ensure we understand the brand’s DNA and business objectives, so no time is wasted in our consultations to find the best, most cost-effective and powerful strategic solutions to our clients.
By Out Thinking, our fully integrated service covers everything from insight and research right through to creative development and activation, meaning there are no boundaries as to where our end goal can take us or our clients. This requires particular focus on measuring and assessing each campaign at every turn to ensure maximum ROI is delivered which is something we are exceptionally proud of and diligent to constantly improve.
Out playing might seem like an odd thing to advocate but it is also what makes us unique and passionate about our business. We work very hard to execute our ideas to perfection but we have a core belief in the business, that the best work goes hand in hand when you are enjoying it. Therefore, we place a lot of importance in developing strong working relationships with clients and our employees, so that everyone is positive and happy with the work we produce.
As part of MISSION Group, we partner with the other Group agencies and as a result, we have on hand, some of the best creative minds in the business and the resources to aid our clients with whatever they need.
How do you measure the effectiveness of your sponsorship campaigns? What metrics do you use – and how has your approach to this evolved in recent years?
As we all know, sponsorship has been traditionally driven by brand awareness and customer acquisition initiatives. We of course still factor this in however we believe the main focus is surrounding audience perception and the shifting trends in consumer behaviour and therefore authentic activation is a must.
The effectiveness of a sponsorship is often informed by its direct impact on brand perception and loyalty as well as customer retention and so qualitative analysis must be incorporated alongside quantitative metrics to truly understand the sustainable impact a sponsorship. This essentially means the more data, the better. As technology continues to develop, we become more advanced with our findings which is why it is a really good position to be in sponsorship right now, as you can pinpoint the direct benefits from each campaign, or area’s which aren’t working, and adapt accordingly. So whether this is website analytics, social media analytics or PR reach –we can take into account the whole user experience with the brand and rights holder, demonstrating the real business impact of sponsorship activity. This, and a personalised and flexible approach to each client’s measurement forms the foundation of Mongoose’s measurement approach.
What are some recent clients you’ve worked on campaigns for, and how do these campaigns speak to wider new and emerging trends in your business area?
Most recently, we worked with Simplyhealth, the trusted healthcare partner to England Rugby on its Ruggerbox campaign. For context, Mongoose was tasked with creating an exciting and engaging content campaign that launched the SimplyMe health app, whilst promoting a clear mental and physical wellbeing message to a rugby focused audience.
As a result of COVID-19, we had to combat the lack of opportunity to launch this through events, subsequently creating an entire campaign that had to sit online.
Utilising two famous faces within rugby and the addition of amateur rugby brothers from Essex, we created a Gogglebox style content series. Hitting a variety of target demographics, our families were made up of former England captain Dylan Hartley, England Sevens player Heather Fischer and The John Brothers from Old Cooperians rugby club.
This being the third installment of the Simplyhealth RFU sponsorship activation, we reinvigorated the messaging and excited our audience by investing in high quality creative content. Filmed at home with remote planning and minimal crew, the social miniseries was tailored for each episode to focus on core rugby trends whilst aligning them to the five data points of the new SimplyMe app.
Results were staggering with 2,622,395 social media impressions (15,000% increase on Simplyhealth’s current organic social community size) with an average engagement rate of 26%. More importantly, the app was download 3000 times which directly increased product sales.
The main takeaways from the content series was that during this difficult time, we as a business still need to be brave to think outside the box, whilst still being true to the consumer to show real understanding. The episodes being launched in advance of a live game, helped our customers feel like they were part of an experience online.
Currently in sport, health and mental wellbeing is one of the most discussed conversations. As a business, we have shifted our position to bring purpose driven activations with the consumer at the heart of it, so we can secure mass engagement. Ultimately, we have to be more open with brands when certain ideas may miss the mark by being too corporate focused. Essentially, effectiveness has to be about consumer engagement, building relationships and understanding. Since COVID-19, charitable activity and CSR led activations have been the best performing across the industry.
How has the way fans engage with sponsors changed in recent years, and how is this affecting how you work and how you deliver on strategy?
There has been a notable increase in fan engagement due to greater talent engagement and the rise of personal campaigns.
The current climate means we have had to respond to what fans really want and that is activations that are meaningful but also those that provide the opportunity for engagement.
With global headlines and social posts being dominated by adverse headlines, the global crisis had now highlighted that people are very frustrated with brand-heavy activations and are more interested in the importance of interpersonal relationships.
Therefore, we are always adapting our approach and strive to invoke togetherness in talent and influencer marketing. Consider that brand sponsors of sport properties are faced with an even more receptive audience than ever, which means we can take advantage of this need to connect with fans on a personal level and those talents, alongside the combined authenticity of the brand and the rights holders.
We feel within sports, both rights holders and teams have an incredibly powerful platform to help promote global and community-led initiatives in being able to leverage their national and global standing.
How has sponsorship changed over the past few years, and has Covid-19 caused this to accelerate?
The sponsorship landscape has changed for numerous reasons related to the above but unfortunately as a side effect of COVID, sports right holders are facing an anticipated 37% reduction of sponsorship rights fees this year.
That being said, amidst this uncertainty, the ever-present demand for sporting content is only greater now, stemming from both passion and an opportunity to help ease the pain caused by this global pandemic.
We, as a result, can innovate more and reach authentic messaging in a positive way. Digital content is so important now to maintain optimism and this period will have a lasting impact to be one of the most creative and partner-led instances to provide cause-related engagements.
Separately, sponsors are negotiating term extensions and/or additional rights due to postponements and cancellations of live sport. As we look to the future, it is important to recognise that the intensified broadcast coverage of spectator-less sport is likely to heighten associate media values, and in turn, influence how sponsors enter the market.
Now, the best partnerships are ones that impact consumers/fans attitudes. Alongside the companies that are fast enough to fill the content gap due to the absence of live events. We now have the power to fill a content void in people’s lives and enhance the experience.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
As we look to the future, we have every reason to be ‘realistically positive’, which is something I’ve been advocating during this difficult time. We aspire to be a truly global organisation serving brands and rights holders in multi-territories with their sponsorship implementation needs and we know that we have the deep talent pool to do so.
Our agency DNA is based on creativity and multifaceted commercial knowhow which ultimately helps sponsors leverage specific brand objectives and rights holders deliver on commercial revenue budgets in this tough time.
