Sports Sponsorship should be made more impactful, sustainable

In the past five years, hundreds of millions of shillings have been pumped into various sponsorship initiatives in this country.

In addition to soccer and rugby, which have received immense support from betting companies, telcos and beverage manufacturers, athletics has also been at the funnel-end of a lucrative web of organisations keen on contributing to Kenya’s economic growth through sports.

A decade ago, the sponsorship conversations revolved around specific initiatives like stadia development and specified tournaments or partnerships with sports governing bodies. The board leaders then were Safaricom and EABL, yet little did we know that those would not be long term flicks. The betting companies moved in and changed the sponsorship game not only on the numbers front but also in regards to the objectives of sponsorship.

Considering the huge amounts involved, you would imagine that sports and event sponsors would have clear answers when asked about their expected return on investment (ROI). You would be wrong to assume that.

A simple dipstick survey among key stakeholders reveals that about a third to half of sponsor companies do not have a system in place to measure sponsorship ROI comprehensively, which potentially costs these organizations in many ways. Failure to comprehend the impact of sponsorship on our economy through sports might just be one of the key reasons for our poor performance in various sports. .

To manage sponsorship spending effectively, stakeholders must first develop a clear sponsorship strategy—the overall objective of the sponsorship, the target demographic, and which area the sponsorships can support. For instance, a lot of funding has been pumped into the soccer arena in this country; the national league plus the top five league teams command a staggering one billion in terms of sponsorship.

While this figure looks appealing, the general growth of the sport is wanting. All we have been doing is adopting short term measures of branding team apparel and stadia, which has contributed zilch to the growth of the sport.

In an ideal situation, potential sponsors should be jostling for strategic opportunities to put up or revamp stadiums in the outskirts of Nairobi which would serve as feeders to the league groups. Granted, we have Wanyama at Tottenham in the English Premier League, Mariga in Serie B, Italy. But what we require to drive the sports agenda as a nation is a strategic plan that is supported by a talent identification mechanism at the grassroots level as well as development of sports infrastructure that is driven by government in collaboration with sponsors.

Without a doubt, sponsorships have the potential to reach beyond short-term sales to building a brand’s identity. Brand strength contributes between 60 and 80 per cent to overall sales, making this benefit critical for sustained, long-term sales growth.  

While in the beginning it might make sense planting all your logos on Yego’s apparel for visibility and brand identity, as a brand you are likely to reap more value if you took the bold step of establishing where Yego and his javelin prowess originated from and set up a world class Javelin training facility that is open to locals. In five years, your brand could be hosting its colours on 10 athletes flying high in the junior championships and by the time you are done with the medal marathon in junior championships, half of that team will have joined the national team. At this level you could get nothing short of Olympics glory for your brand!

On soccer, the journey to the EPL might not be just through the apparel. It should be be a journey for many local stars who in return will deliver national glory for the country and your brand too.

This article was also published in the Business Daily 

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Leveraging Public Relations to grow the Kenya Rugby brand.

Every so often, I get opportunities to shed light about PR as a profession and the opportunities that this practice can provide to many organizations. For the longest time, my presentations were always for aspiring PR practitioners in schools thank to the Public Relations Society of Kenya that has been spearheading this initiative of knowledge sharing with upcoming practitioners.

However, one week ago, I got a totally different assignment. The Kenya Rugby Union, which is the governing body for Rugby in Kenya, was hosting their second National Rugby Conference.   This is an annual conference that brings together all the rugby stakeholders across the country. Essentially, this delegation meets to deliberate on issues that revolve around the growth of Rugby in Kenya. This year’s conference came at a time when Kenya is preparing to make the maiden appearance into the Olympics with our Rugby Sevens team. This team has been awesome all through the season bashing many renowned nations in the World Series before walloping other African teams (apart from South Africa) to book a slot in the cherished competition.

Alot has been said about this team that is yet to become a professional team but has overcome many hurdles to stand on the same medal podium with other great rugby nations.

Yet, as a nation we have not optimized our efforts in building this Rugby bran. All people think when they see Kenyans is a group of long legged athletes ready to conquer another marathon.  From a PR perspective, the Kenya Rugby Union has an opportunity to profile this sport as a Kenyan brand.  That’s all I was tasked to talk about at the Rugby Conference. Feel free to share your views too. 

With digital migration, market segmentation has moved a notch higher in Kenya

We live in interesting times. In today’s world of crisis and scandal, all we look up to is an avenue to unleash our positive or negative energy.

We have evolved as a species. But so has the media we consume. Forget about the chariot-led armies that ruled the world. We now live in or are part of the strong-fingered, yet faceless online army.

Once upon a time, all you needed as an adman was to feature a product with a short description of its uses. For the platforms, all you needed was to plug the commercial onto any television channel.

In Kenya, digital migration gave birth to tens of new television channels, from a nation that thrived on very structured news segment that was dominated by political, business and sports news to targeted channels that are sector-specific in terms of content. 

In 2015, Elimu TV became the first channel to deliver digitized educative programs that are aligned to the country’s curriculum. The launch of Farmers TV, which is purely an agriculture-based station, has opened up a direct forum for engaging farmers in the East African region.

As we migrated Kenyan eyeballs to segment-specific television channels, the ever rigid print publications were also on a revolutionary trend, moving from the typical full page adverts to customized special covers with defined numbers of issues set for delivery to certain towns.  Furthermore, publishers have taken it a notch higher by mapping databases that can deliver the specific publications to the relevant target. How about running a cough syrup advert in a daily that will be delivered to all the new mothers in all the leading hospitals in Nairobi and Mombasa? Clearly, market segmentation has moved a notch higher.

What we are experiencing in Kenya is an evolution of communication channels. With digital embedded into more traditional channels where most radio, TV, print channels now have an active social media page, always competing to broadcast their content online while engaging their consumers.

Programs on radio and TV are keen to push their Twitter and Facebook assets as the points of engagement rather than the usual call-in sessions that we were accustomed to.

With over 70 per cent of the county’s population being youthful, the entreprenual nature of Kenyans will drive media consumption to another level, whether you either target your communication to the right audience or your brand will perish. Truly, the combo of a devolved government and a fully digital television platform riding on our high internet connectivity is poised to drive this youthful economy.