Member Spotlight: Reg&Co

What’s your name and position within the organisation?

How did the organisation come to work with Rights Holders and Brands? What “bigger picture” did this relationship seek to meet?

We have always worked exclusively with Rights Holders to unlock commercial value through partnerships and sponsorship. We work with rightsholders because it gives us such diversity in the people we can work for. The bigger picture for us has always been to be creative and to ensure we are tenacious in our approach on behalf of clients. I am really proud to say that some of our clients have been with us since 2003 working across a variety of campaigns and funding challenges.

The team has varied experience of sales and partnerships, from sports sponsorship to media and business to business sales and it means we work with many different sectors. The process is the same – create a compelling proposition and approach a lot of people. There aren’t shortcuts, activity is key and ensuring the proposition is tailored to deliver mutual value.

How is the effectiveness of the relationship(s) measured? What metrics do you use?

Our metrics are simple .. unfortunately.. have we delivered partners, sponsors, grant funding to help our clients achieve their ambitions, that is the outcome clients are looking for.

Helping our clients measure the effectiveness of the partnerships we broker is also key, to ensure we understand and can demonstrate the return on the investment or objectives. Some of the campaigns we work on are judged on tactical reach, PR, audience engagement across a short period – such as the recent Mastercard Brits campaign at North Greenwich with TfL using specific station tannoy messages, a choir entertaining audiences as they arrived and a competition across TfL social channels to win tickets. Also the re-branding of Westminster Station to Westminster Jungle with The Times with social media reach and PR, sharing being key objectives of the campaign.

Longer term partnerships often have more strategic objectives and it is key to understand these at the outset so that the partnership can be measured effectively.

Putting in a robust measurement plan to ensure a campaign is on track and achieving outcomes against a set of objectives is important. Also to innovate and respond to new initiatives, evolve the campaign is key to keeping a long term partnership relevant.

What are the current trends within your business area, and how are they affecting how you work and how you deliver on strategy?

Our business has been fundamentally the same since 2003 but there have been many exciting developments in how partnerships are fulfilled, the innovation in creative thinking with new tools to amplify traditional sponsorship campaigns. I am constantly energised and motivated by great campaigns, clients pushing us to innovate and deliver more.

The best ideas come from challenges and out of the box thinking – the imagine if? what is possible? could we? I am really proud of the work we have done particularly over the recent years helping some of our long term clients, TfL, CRUK and Landsec to change the way they think, look at new ways of working with partners, to ensure the campaigns are dynamic, engaging and of mutual benefit.

We are constantly innovating our offer with our clients; creating events, looking at loyalty schemes, exploring brand licensing, social media campaigns, and creating fully integrated propositions for partners.

One of our main focuses at Reg&Co is to also create partnerships with purpose and we have  been involved with some incredible projects; from a start up joint venture with Cook School – the ambition is to deliver cookery classes to 200,000 children this year. We are working with VIY to further their partnership strategy and engage even more young people in renovating their local community space or sports club and got involved in a project with Sea Life Trust to move two Beluga Whales from captivity in Shanghai to a new sanctuary in Iceland…

Apart from having a lot of fun with these projects I believe there is a shift to ‘purposeful’ partnership but that brands are also looking for engaging content, surprising ideas that inspire people to ‘share’. This is a new measure of success and a growing trend.

For me this is exciting – does the partnership have meaning, integrity – are you supporting a sport from grassroots to elite – are you delivering fans engaging new content, are you pushing the rightsholder and agencies to deliver even more creative ideas… don’t engage in partnerships/sponsorship that result in ‘so what’ or worse ‘I don’t care’. Benefit for both parties should always be at the heart of a partnership and we are constantly looking at ways to add value – giving us a role with our clients long term.

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?

The landscape and metrics have changed, but some elements have been constant for decades. The delivery of events has changed to a certain extent – esports, womens sport, new formats, athletes as platforms for content creation, social media amplification, brand created content, the role of influencers.

Gone is an industry relying solely on delivering a logo and tickets, which for me is a real game changer and a positive move. Football always strikes me as outdated with 60% of teams sponsored by gambling brands in the UK – and assets created are primarily shirt logos, player appearances, perimeter boards and tickets – this will change I feel and whilst there are some amazing examples of clubs innovating and engaging fans and sponsors differently it will be interesting to see how regulation against the betting industry has an impact. The Economist suggests ‘ a weak market for football rights suggest lower value for sport over the next few years’ and it will be interesting to see how this drives change in the industry. Spend is also falling globally on traditional sponsorship – 5% in 2019 globally and -10% in Europe, although rising in Asia and Africa.

Campaigns such as Bridgestone Tyres  Bridgestone – We Are Fearless | Boldness with backup, such an inspiring and ESA award winning campaign, Google Pay’s agreement with TfL that sees every oyster reader at every station (that’s 5,686 readers) to be rebranded with a Google Pay logo, show creativity and new thinking around traditional advertising or sponsorship.

We write a sponsorship proposal with benefits including awareness, social media coverage, online content, ambassadors / players / influencers, but the key element is the idea – the execution – the proper engagement with the audience/fans, staff, volunteers – the purpose delivered and the outcome/impact measured.

I think people have less time, are more stressed, time is a luxury and capturing attention and spend from audiences/fans in a cluttered and complex market will become increasingly challenging.

How are you harnessing and executing on digital strategy, and what problems / opportunities has this created?

Having a media background I see digital as an exciting, limitless opportunity to amplify a campaign. Maybe that is too simple, but I see it as a way of sharing your great idea, your compelling campaign rather than relying on PR, press coverage or a media partner.

As long ago as my time at Classic FM we were creating a website to post the Waitrose Crafty Cook recipes as a way of audience sharing information in real time rather than waiting for the Classic FM magazine or a recipe card to be posted to them (we did used to do that!). I think if used properly there is a huge opportunity for digital to enhance partnerships and sponsorship campaigns.

I am a big fan of Steven Bartlett Founder and CEO of Social Chain and endeavour to follow their campaigns and take on creating fully integrated social media campaigns. From being ‘an 18 year old broke, university drop out to running a 9-figure business by 25’, he has just published his first book with bold, actionable science-backed unconventional principles for surviving and thriving in a modern connected world.  Having not read it, yet, I can just surmise that his boldness and innovation is what has driven the growth they’ve experienced since founding in 2014. (Pure admiration).

It is key that brands inform any digital strategy with both creativity and integrity to engaging with all consuming social media platforms to stand out, be valued and create impact.

What challenges have you encountered, and how have they been overcome?

Lots of challenges, not enough lead time, a flawed idea, no detail – Partners want to know Where, What, When, Who, Why? A good idea will fly, but rights holders have to have faith and a plan to deliver without sponsors. Relying on ‘if we get a sponsor we can do an event’ is frustrating and the work we undertake in this scenario is often a waste of time.

Our new client, Championship Horse Racing, has the prize fund, racecourses, BHA backing and it’s happening (get involved karen@regandco.com) without this it is just a concept and people haven’t time to engage in discussions about events or programmes that might happen.

Running a business, any business is always about challenges but my motto is ‘onwards and upwards’ and to hope that the work we do, the relationships we build will stand us in good stead to overcome – even the Coronavirus – which is having the most incredible negative impact currently.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I have been very fortunate to meet the most wonderful people colleagues and clients and some are now also friends. It is important to keep faith and be tenacious, and of course there is no substitute for hard work but also act with integrity and be kind. It’s a wonderful industry and often really good fun.