What’s your name and position within the organisation?
I’m Mary Gleeson, Head of Brand Partnerships for Underbelly.
Underbelly is a Rights Holder in the entertainment sector producing a number of live events and festivals across the year. In 2018, we will produce 8 live events in London and in Edinburgh and these include Five Guys Named Moe in London’s West End, Underbelly Festival on the Southbank, London, Underbelly at the Edinburgh Fringe, Edinburgh’s Christmas and Edinburgh’s Hogmanay.
In 2017, we sold more than 1.3 million tickets and attracted a footfall of more than 5 million to our events.
How did the organisation come to work with the current sponsors? What ‘bigger picture’ did this relationship seek to meet?
Underbelly was first established in 2001 with our first season of shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Since then, the company and events have grown year on year.
Most of our events feature outdoor bars which are integral to the event.
Sponsorship has always been an important element of each event and in recent years we have attracted partners such as Hilton Hotels and Resorts, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines, LIDL and Standard Life to our events. We also have developed a number of successful partnerships from the drinks industry, as most of our events feature outdoor bars which are integral to the event. Our current list of partners includes Molson Coors (year 5), Diageo (year 10), Whyte & Mackay (year 2) and Jim Beam (year 1).
How is the effectiveness of the relationship(s) measured? What metrics do you use?
The Hilton Hotels and Resorts partnership of Udderbelly Festival in 2016 was awarded both an ESA Excellence Award and UK Sponsorship Award in the Arts & Culture category, leading to a renewal of the partnership and another nomination at the UK awards in 2017.
Our main metrics are footfall and ticket sales, we also conduct research for some of our events. For the drinks industry partners, sales volumes are critical when it comes to measuring success. Industry recognition is also important, the Hilton Hotels and Resorts partnership of Udderbelly Festival in 2016 was awarded both an ESA Excellence Award and UK Sponsorship Award in the Arts & Culture category, leading to a renewal of the partnership and another nomination at the UK awards in 2017.
We’re very lucky, as we can be very creative with our activations, whether they be video installations, big wheel takeovers, ice skating rinks or bars. Our team works closely with the brands to come up with fun activations, which all add something to the spirit and vibe of the events.
Activating with a bar at one of our events can really drive sales for a brand, for example, our Bailey’s Treat Stop bar at Edinburgh’s Christmas 2017 sold more than 60,000 Baileys Hot Chocolates and our partnership with Rekorderlig at this year’s Underbelly Festival has seen the shift of cider sales, so that cider accounts for one in three draught drinks sold, compared with one in seven draught drinks sold in 2017.
Lidl measured the success of their partnership of Edinburgh’s Christmas by giving visitors vouchers to drive customers into their stores – and were impressed when vouchers were redeemed in every store in Scotland. Hilton used social media to measure their success, their onsite video activation at Christmas in Leicester Square allowed them to directly engage with 18,000 people (and indirectly with a 1.8 million footfall).
What is your rights holder USP?
Creativity! As a live entertainment company we are experts in providing quality entertainment, including award-winning live comedy, international circus acts, West End musicals, risqué Burlesque, unique cabaret, and quality theatre. Entertainment is at the heart of everything Underbelly and we have a team of creative people who are passionate about what we do.
We can come up with creative solutions to target a market, including onsite activation, ticketing, PR opportunities, product sales, providing unique locations for conferences or team meetings and circus workshops.
We work with our partners to ensure they are very much part of the event. We don’t provide partners with advertising banners or perimeter boards, but we can come up with creative solutions to target a market, including onsite activation, ticketing, PR opportunities, product sales, providing unique locations for conferences or team meetings and circus workshops. We’re open to all ideas, the more engaging the better.
What are the current trends within your business area, and how are they affecting how you work and how you deliver on strategy?
The association with our event is not enough, more and more it has to result in sales or engagement, directly or indirectly.
It’s becoming more evident each year that partnerships are much less of a badging exercise and much more driven by their results. Proving a measurable return on investment is essential, partnerships play an important part in a brand’s marketing campaign and brand teams need to prove that they’ve invested wisely.
The association with our event is not enough – more and more it has to result in sales or engagement, directly or indirectly. In order to achieve this, we work with brands to deliver creative solutions to drive results.
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 appeal of a non-sport platform for a brand partnership is certainly becoming more popular.
Our events do not rely on partnerships, but they have become more important in recent years, particularly with Underbelly’s events becoming bigger and more ambitious.
Lower level of investment (in comparison with sport), affordable activation costs, access to full-service production team, extended period of activation (our events run from 6 weeks to 6 months), access to quality footfall and long dwell times.
The appeal of a non-sport platform for a brand partnership is certainly becoming more popular and brands have become more aware of the benefits of working with an entertainment rights holder like Underbelly. These include lower level of investment (in comparison with sport), affordable activation costs, access to full-service production team, extended period of activation (our events run from 6 weeks to 6 months), access to quality footfall and long dwell times.
I can only see this growing over the next five years, but we are not naïve, we also foresee other events and festivals identifying similar opportunities and seeking more partners for their own events, making it even more important for Underbelly to keep evolving and reassessing our partnership opportunities and striving to be the best partnership platform in the events and festivals category.
Brands are certainly becoming more aware that sport is not the only arena when it comes to large partnership opportunities. How are you harnessing and executing on digital strategy, and what problems / opportunities has this created?
It’s necessary to stage events which generate unmissable and shareable content.
The evolution of Underbelly’s digital campaign has allowed us to achieve some great results, both for the event and for its associated partners. Edinburgh’s Hogmanay 2017 may have happened in Scotland’s capital city, but global online coverage reached an estimated 10 Billion. To achieve this, it’s necessary to stage events which generate unmissable and shareable content.
We also sell most of our tickets via our online box office, which is hosted on our event websites, so creating content which drives traffic to those sites is also a fundamental aspect of any marketing campaign.
Social media – cure or curse?
We’re big fans of social media and the way we use it is ever changing, +87k tweets featured an Edinburgh’s Hogmanay hashtag over new year 2017/18, achieving a reach of more than 100 million people. Social media is a key channel in all our marketing campaigns.
What challenges have you encountered, and how have they been overcome?
To show them we’re a serious contender when it comes to who you invest in as a brand partner.
Our main challenge when it comes to partnerships is getting across to new brands the opportunity of what Underbelly has to offer. To show them we’re a serious contender when it comes to who you invest in as a brand partner.
Our best sales tool is our events themselves. We like to get brands to come along and immerse themselves in an Underbelly event, get a real feel for what we do.
Email Mary: maryg@underbelly.co.uk
