FAU’S Schnellenberger Sinks His Teeth Into Activation

April 18, 2008 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

PR Move of the Day: The ability for athletes and coaches to participate in sponsorship activation is key for any partnership, but this week Florida Atlantic University football coach Howard Schnellenberger took that activation to a new level, agreeing to get his teeth whitened as part of a promotional campaign with FAU sponsor SmileXpress (as reported by Sarah Talalay on her sports business blog). Obviously FAU, which continues to improve under legendary coach and needs creative marketing to battle for the sponsorship dollar with area powerhouses like Miami, Florida, Central Florida, and Florida State, scored some big points and nice dollars with this one. Hopefully if they land a cosmetic surgery or weight loss center the coach will be able to pick and choose his spots of participation.

MLS Gets It’s Kicks In As Draft And Camp Approach

January 16, 2008 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

PR Move of the Day:  One of the keys in gaining strategic play is announcement timing.  Ironically in today’s 24/7 news cycle the “bad” times for announcements…used to be holidays, Fridays, Sundays and event days, have pretty much narrowed to the days on the calendar which are crowded with games or other events of historical significance.  While next week (the Super Bowl off week combined with the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday), the day after the NBA All-Star game and the day after the MLB All-Star game are the usual quiet days, politicians have been using the Sunday midday platform for several years now, and the digital space has given us holidays as prime time for exposure as well, with little competition.  This week the MLS Chicago Fire took a day with no local pro and little college activity to get some quality business PR exposure leading up to Friday’s SuperDraft and the training camp right behind it. The Fire announced Best Buy will be their front jersey sponsor, an annoucement which garnered some real quality brand awareness and coverage nationally today, and a nice Chicago Sun Times piece as well.  The move stirs nice debate as the jersey space, long used abroad with sponsors, comes under considerable debate as one of the last clean spaces in American sport, and will no doubt set the pace of what is “to be watched” in American sport going forward.  Nice timing, nice coverage, nice brand building PR.