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 

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. 

Battling Terrorism; Time to defend the society that we always mirror

Yester night I watched two interesting documentaries Tide of Terror and Samburu State of War on KTN and NTV respectively. Definitely a lot of time was put into these interesting productions but what I am not sure of is whether or not these productions added value to Kenya as a country. I know marketers are already planning to tell me about the target audience of the station, while the editorial team will certainly school me on the role of media in the society and how it mirrors what happens in our surroundings. The two schools of thought are right, but the extent to which they are correct is what I beg to differ with.

When the infamous invasion by the United States of America to Iraq started, we heard over and again that the war was going to be fought in two fronts; the battlefield and the minds of the people via propaganda. The good guy (read America) ensured they sustained an exaggerated and subjective communication strategy that warranted that the rest of the world supports them against the bad guys (Iraq). That’s how the war was legitimized.

Throughout the period, the US thrived on not very true communication to fuel the battle as they worked through the war torn country. Propaganda became one of the key weapons for the dreaded US army.

Anyway, why am I talking about war yet our country is only grappling with some little security threat from some disgruntled jobless youth... With the alleged terrorism related activities becoming rampant in our country, we have to fight back as a nation, not only with the security forces, but also with the society’s mouth piece i.e. Media houses. For once we must start ‘misreporting’ what our government is doing to curb this national threat. We have to let the government work without necessarily publicizing detailed reports of how the Eastleigh operation is going on. 

Our journalistic instincts might push us to want to expose the porous borders and how money exchanges hands to own an Identity card. However, the mere fact that the terrorist might be watching these channels should be reason enough to make use of selective stories that reinforce the reasons and motivations for the government to act on this threats on the security of our nation.

Sorry to say this but I don’t see why we should not demonize the “enemy” and make whatever the government is doing, look right even when we falter .The negative image of the “enemy” should be continuously reinforced with rhetoric about the righteousness of our forces so that we can muster up support from all quarters and nurture the belief that what is being done is in the best interest of everyone.

When all this is done, we will rest assured that on the information perspective the enemy was beaten; after all we live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know about and shouldn't. Democracy only flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the media houses can decide whether or not to publicize what they know. 

How was your PR performance in Quarter One

As we approach the end of Quarter one of 2014, there is no gainsaying that a lot has been happening between the corporate affairs and marketing teams of any organization, together with their PR agency. Product launches have been done, corporate campaigns have been executed, and the internal communications tactics are in place with the company publications moving closer to the editorial review. Incidentally, 80 percent of the listed companies have actually announced their full year results. Some have recorded double digit profits while some have had a drop in profit (that’s the PR euphemism for making losses)

My interest is not really to share the PR diary since the beginning of this year, but to shed some light on how all this can be measured beyond the media clippings that we proudly fix on any single power point presentation we make to the business. But how can you prove beyond reasonable doubt that you played a key role in the business growth bearing in mind that the sales manager has already shared his sale numbers vs. the target while the IT manager has proved that he rolled out all the efficiency systems the business needed?

Well, do you remember the periodic PR audits I mentioned to you late last year; this is the opportunity for the internal team as well as the agencies to review together so that you can be able to measure the percentage of activities that you have undertaken so far. This PR audit should be combined with the annual PR plan that was presented to the business when you were lobbying for the budget from the business. 

This may sound like a tall order but as a PR practitioner this is the right time to engage the various user departments that you supported with PR activities, for instance the various product managers should be able to share with the sales figure before and after the product launch and campaign that was spearheaded by the PR team.

For the CEO’s office, you need to showcase the impact that the meeting you facilitated between the regulator and the business heads had on the business; after all a chat with the Kenya Bureau of Standards about the counterfeits being sneaked into your market is likely to have a lasting impact on the business articles in all the leading dailies on a Monday morning.

To cap it all, please spare a few slides to highlight the impact that the CSR campaign you launched in Q4 last year did to your business. But kindly desist from sharing the amount of money the business pumped into this noble initiative, instead quantify the impact. For instance, if at all you were investing in financial literacy, how many businesses picked up from that, and if all you did was on sanitation, did we see a drop on sanitation related illnesses?

This should secure you a speaking opportunity in the Q2 budget review meeting.

The PR Cry: Dear Client, Hear Me Out

Oh yee client from hell, Sticking out your head like no other,

Five minutes to five on a Friday is all you crave for,

To send me a brief with no head or tail like a centipede'

Shallow is the brief, like a millipede’s brain I can say.

While on many occasions I deliver on your brief,

All within the stipulated timelines,

You still mumble during the status meeting,
Always looking for a status quo on your brand positioning.

I have reminded you about my role which is not a call,

A consultant whom you pay dearly to offer counsel,

Not to hang banners around but to help you burn the rot in your brand.

When all is well, you stick to your lane seeing nothing but your glory,

Any glorification to your agency is via an informal phone call,

When we falter, you scream out on your keyboards.
Crafting emails longer than your usual briefs.

But then again, probably you pay us to make you shine,

On that you forget that on many occasions, we have more experience than you.

Dealing with brands that have bigger budgets than yours.

Not that we hate you Mr. /Mrs. Client,
 If only we could stick to the plans we prepare,

Plans that would leave your brand a winner, with no scene in the media.

Many a times you make us commit journalistic sins,

Like plugging your brand fifteen times on the press release,

All in the spirit of pushing for brand visibility.

Not forgetting those face me photos that you pose for,

As if in deep memory of the face-me matatus,

Dear Client who fears no tears, even if from the young PR Executives.

Even with our silence dear client, we will still offer counsel.

As long as your ego is massaged.

Social Media : The New friend of Public Relations

Barely a week after discussing  with a friend , Michael Owora on the challenges I was having with regular blogging, he sent me an email notifying me that I was to make a presentation on the role of social media in fostering  Public Relation. 

Basically, my role was to define what PR 2.0 was, its impact on our profession and how one could use it to enhance the organisation’s communications strategy.

You can follow the presentation below.

                                   

Well, despite the negative comments that have been mentioned in various boardrooms about social media, I firmly believe that Social Media is a friend to PR. All you need to do is to figure out how you can leverage on this platform

All said and done, I picked a few examples of success stories(both local & international) on the brands that have leveraged on social media

Kenyan Elections; the right time for a Brand clean up exercise.

The thought of receiving bad publicity has always been the worst fear for any PR practitioner .We live and work dreading the day we will wake up in the morning and find our brands languishing in bad press.

But on many occasions we release some news knowing that we will receive bad press for it and we can do nothing about it. When your client decides that they are reducing on their head count, all a spin master can do is to try and sugarcoat the whole exercise by calling it a “restructuring process that is aimed at re engineering the brand route to success” Ha-ha!! You are simple firing people because you cannot afford that wage bill.

Kenya Presidential Debate

Coming back home, it is clear that the first quarter will see the politicians dominating our dailies (see my previous blog) while many  of the PR practitioners are cursing the editors for denying them an opportunity to boast their brand’s AVE, I see this period as an opportunity to do a lot of ‘house cleaning’ as a brand. This is the right time to carry out all the activities that would easily have generated bad publicity.

Incase your client is planning to carry out a restricting exxcersice, sorry I meant planning to fire people, this is the right time to do so because it will not only generate little interest in the media but it also a time where you can evade sensitive stakeholders like unions (FKE & COTU) because they are all focused on aligning themselves with the next government.

Recently, a local Telco successfully revised their mobile money rates, but because all and sundry were busy finding out who their next governor would be they literally survived a customer’s uproar. To me, that’s a clear case of a would-be PR crisis being executed well and in a timely manner.

My interaction with many crisis PR teams have revealed that marketers tend over-estimate the negative impact of bad publicity on their target audience. So this is the time to convince them to drop that shitty product that they have feared to pull out of the shelves ,after all most people do not have the attention span or inclination to pay close attention to the details until after they elect the new President, Governor, Senator, Women Representative, Member of Parliament and County Representative respectively.

Young PR Kenya speak: If the attention that was accorded to the Kenyan presidential debate is anything to go by, then any corporate can ‘escape with murder’ because we are all immersed in politics  

This is why Kenya could not have hosted the highly publicized record-breaking jump

Felix cruising down back to earth from space

When dare devil Felix Baumgartner ascended to the edge of space donning a RedBull branded pressurized capsule suspended beneath a giant helium balloon many did not know that this was a PR opportunity that the manufacturers of Red Bull had spotted and decided to pursue.

Just like in fashion where the daring always end up as the fashion trend setters, A PR professional should be daring and ready to take some risks in order to make the brand to stand out from the rest.

Red Bull would have totally lost it had Felix’s Capsule exploded into flames while in space. Someone would have been question on the cost of funding that historic jump and many would have been fired because of that campaign.

Below are some of the reasons why that historic jump could not have been successful here in Kenya because of our PR approaches of always playing safe and keeping off unexplored waters.

“We do not have budgets for that campaign” would have been the first excuse to be given by the ever defensive brand managers.

“Our CEO is not a fan of extreme sports and thus he is likely not to support that event.” Would have come from the ‘very loyal’ employees in the marketing department.

“We cannot partner with “So & So’ because they are likely to hog all the publicity from us. If we have to do it then we want to do it alone.”

“We are not willing to sponsor the project because of security reasons; we don’t want our brand to look like we are interfering with the government security agencies especially with the terrorists threatening to strike our country.

“Many of our customers do not live in the open arid areas (assuming that the jump would have been held in a sparsely populated area) thus they will not be able to experience or rather see the jump.” While we all saw the jump being beamed by all leading media houses across the world.

“How long will the jump last? Are we likely to achieve any media coverage bearing in mind the short duration that the jump will last?

Finally, the Sales Director would have thrown in their ‘usual line’ how much sales are we likely to accrue from this activity.

All said and done, those are the PR excuses that would have denied Kenyans the chance to witness  the world record breaking 128,089 free falling jump that had a top speed of 834mph (1,342km/h) thus breaking the sound barrier.