When I was a young copywriter at BMP, I saw a young account man going though a video of a football match with a stopwatch.
He kept freeze-framing the game, then rewinding it, then timing particular sections.
I watched what he was doing for a bit.
I tried to work out what he was timing.
Was it goals, or tackles, or passes, or fouls, or mistakes?
I couldn’t see any consistency in what he was timing.
In the end, I gave up and asked him what he was doing.
He said he was making a record of the amount of time the client’s perimeter board spent on camera.
Apparently, his client had bought a perimeter board at that game, and they wanted to know how much TV screen time they were getting for their money.
That struck me.
I’d stood there for ten minutes watching it over and over again, and I hadn’t noticed it once.
Because I was concentrating on the football.
That’s the difference between the way advertising people see ads, and the way punters see ads.
The account man and I were both watching the TV from different perspectives.
All he noticed were the ads, all I noticed was the football.
That’s how it works in the real world.
You notice what you’re interested in.
Unless the advertising does something particularly new or unusual or relevant to capture your attention.
In the days before Wenger was manager, Arsenal were a very frustrating team to watch.
JVC were Arsenal’s first sponsors.
David Bernstein, an avid Arsenal fan, told me he’d found out what the letters JVC stood for on the front of the Arsenal shirt.
He slapped his forehead and yelled “Jesus Vucking Christ”.
In those days fans noticed the names on the shirts because it was a novelty.
It was the first time it had been done.
So it stood out.
This was unfortunate for some clubs.
One of West Ham’s first sponsors was the athletic footwear brand PONY.
In east London ‘pony’ is rhyming slang (‘pony and trap’).
Not a good thing for a cockney club, particularly one playing like West Ham, to have on their shirt.
So everyone noticed the first sponsors, simply because they were the first.
There was no particular reason why JVC should be on an Arsenal shirt.
Or, in fact on any football shirt.
JVC made TV sets, radios, hi fi, VCRs, CD players.
There wasn’t really a link.
But they got noticed because they were the first.
That’s how novelty works, it’s new.
The second time around it isn’t new.
So it stops working.
The top eight clubs deals add up to roughly £123 million a year:
Liverpool £20 million, Man Utd £20 million, Man City £20 million, Sunderland £20 million, Chelsea £14 million, Newcastle £10 million, Tottenham £10 million, Aston Villa £8 million.
Below are the sponsors.
Apart from your own team, see how many you can place with the right club.
See how many you think got their money’s worth.
Aurasma, Virgin Money, Standard Chartered, Samsung, Genting Casinos, Aon, Invest in Africa, Etihad Airways.
The reason it’s difficult, is none of the sponsors have a genuine link to what’s being sponsored.
For it to work, you need a good reason for the name to be there.
A great example was Newcastle.
The Newcastle football strip everyone remembers had Newcastle Brown on the front.
Perfect.
The image of the Geordie beer and the Geordie club is totally consistent.
And beer is a perfect match for football games.
The pub is where most games are watched on TV.
Beer is what most men drink when they’re watching it.
Beer brand on shirt, beer brand in bar.
Every time they showed a Newcastle game on TV, it was a ninety-minute point-of-sale advert for Newcastle Brown.
That’s an advertising person thinking like a punter.
THINK sometimes, the money-making aspect is just too good to miss for the ad agency. I mean, if a client came to an agency and said, “we want to have our brand on the perimeter board”, it’s easy money. Just print the logo/brand name, no concept needed.
About the only time ‘creative’ work was done on the perimeter board was by an optician. Line was something like, ‘the referee isn’t the only one who needs his eyes checked’.
Robin. - 26 September 2012 10:51 am
A few years ago, the Welsh Rugby team were sponsored by Brains, the Welsh brewery. It was a great tie up like the Newcastle one.
Once, they played an away game in France, where alcohol sponsorship is banned. So they couldn’t have ‘Brains’ on their shirts.
The clever marketing people at Brains took their logo and switched it to “Brawn”. Same font, layout, etc. Everyone knew what it meant and who it represented.
Brains vs. Brawn. Clever, memorable and a good description of rugby.
Karan Chadda - 26 September 2012 12:09 pm
Excellent Karan.
I think you should put that story up here: http://www.predatorythinking.com/
Dave Trott - 26 September 2012 12:12 pm
Thanks very much Dave. I’ve posted it over on Predatory Thinking.
Karan Chadda - 26 September 2012 12:46 pm
‘If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our club’ – A big shirt or small writing 4 that 2 work, Dave.
Grilla Login - 26 September 2012 5:08 pm
Maybe Specsavers should sponsor the officials?
john p woods - 26 September 2012 5:55 pm
Dave,
Seems like Specsavers have already done the biz up in Scotchland.
http://www.beattiegroup.com/prclients/pr-press-releases/2012/july/boost-for-scottish-football-as-specsavers-commits-to-three-more-years.aspx
john p woods - 26 September 2012 5:57 pm
Etihad – Man City Because I was working in the KSA at the time.
Samsung – Chelsea Because some sing and some dont.
Man United-SHARP is the best and most relevant one I remember.
Charlton-Red Bus because it says red, but so glad they didnt’ go for Robin Reliant!
I wonder how much is governed by shape of the logo, size, colour.
I’m afraid we’re back to Pavlov’s salivating dog here with learnt behaviour.
It would be interesting to see if Man City sponsored “Champ”
would it help them retain the title or would they go to the dogs?
Kev - 26 September 2012 8:24 pm
At my very first agency, I watched as the MD took a phone call selling perimeter space for the international women’s hockey final. He berated them, saying no-one would watch, and whoever did would be concentrating on the hockey anyway. He beat the price down brutally, to almost giveaway. He then phoned our major client, a company that installed fitted kitchens, and sold it in, praising the exact demographic fit, unique media opportunity, high profile, aspirational, et al. He sold it into them for almost ten times what he’d bought it for (over twice my annual salary, incidentally). And of course, no-one who watched the final noticed the hoardings. I don’t know if that’s predatory thinking, but it’s certainly predatory.
Tom - 27 September 2012 7:05 am
I find Red Bull interesting. While sponsoring an entire F1 team and pouring money into an endless pit for exposure the old fashioned way, they also started Red Bull TV.
Cleverly, they stopped being the logo on the perimeter and became the TV station delivering the content.
They sell the content worldwide to regular TV stations and are the providers of cool.
Not just attached to it.
Some believed it to be a loss leading venture. Apparently not the case.
http://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2012/red-bull-media-house
Peter - 27 September 2012 12:03 pm
Does a rag get angry if u wave a red bull in front of it?
Grilla Login - 27 September 2012 12:36 pm
Dave – If some1 waved a banana in front of me I’d get hungry, not angry. (Mite get a little agitated if it was a red bull doing the waving tho).
Grilla Login - 27 September 2012 3:46 pm
Grilla,
As Bob Marley said “A hungry man is a angry man.”
Dave Trott - 27 September 2012 4:23 pm
Dave
He also said “And I hope you like jamming too, G.”
I said “Bob, depends what the jams in.”
Grilla Login - 27 September 2012 5:25 pm
Dave,
Just completed a great course about
Person-Centred Support Planning.
Only 7% of all communication is by Visual or audible means.
That seems to correspond frighteningly close
with your research on predatory advertising effectiveness.
It is also interesting to see that
hardly anyone in the class was able to
complete a set of 9 questions due to basic human assumptions.
The Tutor, explained the word “ASSUME” as
ASS
YOU
ME
I thought that was a brilliant analogy.
Apparently we are all neurotypical
which means we all make similar aasumptions.
However, if you ask someone with Autism the same questions
chances are they would get all nine questions right.
Which proves there is still so much we do not know
and how we fail to communicate on many basic levels of understanding.
What I do like is the connection in the 7%.
Why?
Because Psychology Tutors gave me a really tough time
during my degree because I worked in Advertising and thought freely.
One tutor even told me “Don’t think, they don’t like it
Just answer the questions from the information given.
They considered advertising below them due to academic snobbery
and yet no other business has more research into human behaviour
than Advertising.
Kev - 27 September 2012 5:45 pm
Robin ( First poster) Thanks for remembering the trackside ad for opticians. I created this way back in 1988. The client was called SPECTACLES. It got quite a bit of positive press coverage.
David Reid - 28 September 2012 7:37 am
Aussie Rules football has linesmen called ‘boundary umpires’.
I wanted to get Ford to sponsor their shirts, as the slogan at the time as ‘No Boundaries’.
Client didn’t get the joke so it never happened. Bet you they would have been noticed!
Ian - 18 October 2012 9:10 am