The Open Scores Again…

August 25, 2010 by Joe Favorito · 1 Comment 

It remains the only major sporting event that brands can point to every year, at the same time, in the same location in New York. And when it starts the main draw next Monday (free qualifying goes on this week for those who can’t afford or locate a ticket) the US Open will again begin the brand activation bonanza that takes place in and around New York every year as summer moves towards fall.

NFL Drafts It’s Latest Prime Time Branding Play…

April 20, 2010 by Joe Favorito · 2 Comments 

Prime time. It remains the most coveted spot in media, that period from eight until 11 that makes careers and brands in entertainment, and now in sports.  The US Open women’s tennis finals now lives there, and the US Open golf will move partially into that space on the east coast this year.  It is where the NHL and the NBA launch their new faces with their draft every year, and now where the NFL will show its first round for the first time ever this coming Thursday, at least for one round.

CRONS prepped for the spotlight…and got a part of it…

March 19, 2010 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

It almost happened Thursday…almost.  Robert Morris University almost threw Villanova a knockout punch in the first round of the NCAA Regionals in Providence, but in the end too many close calls gone the other way and one shot too few sent the Colonials back to suburban Pittsburgh.  However, as pointed out in Thursday’s New York Times, the apparel brand coach Mike Rice’s team brought to the Dunkin Donuts Center may have been one of the bigger winners in the first round.  CRONS, which stands for Come Ready Or Never Start, was one of a handful of teams not to wear Nike or adidas in the field o0f 65 and is the only brand not available at retail.  It was also the only brand to not just score coverage with its unique story, but in delivering all the right messages and merchandising the story (a newsletter to all its coaches and partners that followed an email with a link and call to action earlier in the day) to give the story legs well beyond wtaherver RMU did on the opening day of the tournament.  The brand also positioned itself for followup with partners should RMU have pulled the upset, which would have given CRONS at least two additional days to re-tell the story, which links Rice, a former assistant at Pitt to company founder Pat Cavanaugh, who played for the Panthers and runs the company from Pittsburgh. The value of the story as a launch point for the brand to grow will be intriguing and seems like the next logical step in their growth process…from a grassroots brand to finding a niche with small colleges to Robert Morris to a deal with the Big South Conference…all the while occupying the same space that many of their clients also fill…that of the underdog.  It’s a great example of Cinderella showing up and bringing along a friend, and after her ball ends, the friend continues on thanks to a very nice boost.  A good story amongst many for the first round, and perhaps one of the better off-court collegiate branding stories in a while.

Beware Sponges Filled With Cash…And Other Lessons…

March 16, 2010 by Joe Favorito · 1 Comment 

Last year the brand of choice to fill displaced inventory on television and in stadia around the country was Spongetech. Their giant signs were splashed acroos all of MLB, their patches showed up on the NFL’s “Hard Knocks” show on Bengals jerseys, they appeared along the dasher boards at Madison Square Garden. Spongetech, and their pre-soaped sponges, appeared to be the cure-all for every team salesperson.  They helped balance budgets and create some buzz and all appeared grand.

Squeezing Til The Sponge Is Dry…

October 14, 2009 by Joe Favorito · 2 Comments 

In the 1970’s and into the 1980’s big tobacco fueled some of the most successful sports branding opportunities in history. Whether it was Phillip Morris’ support of Virginia Slims tennis or NASCAR’s Marlboro Cup, the cigarette brands created some of the most large scale and effective activation platforms in sports history. Then came all the legislation against smoking and the tobacco brands, and for the better in terms of health and social consciousness, all the spending stopped from those brands. So sports moved on, using the lessons learned in many of those activation platforms to bring in new brands who would spend, maybe not at the large numbers of tobacco, but who would continue to grow business and fill the gap. Banks and financial institutions, insurance, and technology, filled gaps with new money and new ways to reach the consumer.

The State of Rutgers Gets Some Great Guerilla Exposure

September 18, 2009 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

Saturday Rutgers will take on Florida International University in Piscataway, New Jersey but despite the result, the two biggest gains in popularity for the school may have been made away from any court or playing field this past week. First, on Tuesday night’s Jay Leno Show on NBC, award winning documentarian Michael Moore sported a Rutgers hat for his time on stage with Jay. Then later in the week, urban designer Mark Ecko announced that he was creating a line of Rutgers-themed apparel in honor of his alma mater. Moore has been wearing the Rutgers caps as a tribute to Scarlet Knights grad Ann Sparanese, who started the letter writing campaign to save his first book “Stupid White Men,” which criticized President Bush, while the limited edition Ecko line pays homage to the designer’s time spent in New Brunswick on the Rutgers campus (he is an alumnus) and will be sold online at Shopecko.com.

Even In A Down Economy, Open Activation Still Leads The Way…

September 7, 2009 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

As other mega-events like the Super Bowl, NASCAR, the NBA Finals, the All-Star game, golf’s U.S. Open shied away from large scale media activation and branding with many of their partners toward more subtle and community-oriented activation, the tennis US Open has moved steadfastly ahead in telling its stories, growing its base and solidifying its place as the mega event it has become, even in the slowest of years. Of course it helps that the Open is in New York at the same time every year, and can use its US Open series to build toward the two weeks. However the fact that the USTA and its partners continue to find stories from fashion, green efforts, celebrities, athleticism and grassroots, along with its business stories, is a testament to forward thinking business and smart and aggressive brand building. Even in week one, a look around found an NPR and Fast Company piece on the USTA’s leadership in green space amongst sports, stories on the value of selling oversized tennis balls, the value of the US Open “flame” as a brand motivator and story after story about the fashion styles of players and fans around the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Then there are the brand activation stories, ranging from Amex’s expansion of their partnership to IBM’s expanded role with the USTA. Throw in the new TV deal with ESPN, the controversy with issues of coverage with The Tennis Channel and some rising American stars on the court, and once again the USTA gives all large scale events and brands a great run for their exposure dollars, and shows how even in challenging times an event can be creative and resourceful with messaging and partnerships instead of the running and hiding that has been seen elsewhere. Great effort by all to again take a world class event and find world class coverage.

Will Soccer In New York Ever Hit The Goal?

August 30, 2009 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

With the first hint of fall you start to hear the bounce in thousands of parks and recreational centers across the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. It is the thwack of kids from four to their mid-teens dribbling and passing soccer balls. Like baseball and softball in the spring, fall soccer is a rite of passage more now than ever before amongst young kids. Still even with the grassroots success, the connection to the pro game still lags behind, perhaps in the New York area more than anywhere else in the United States, and it is that disconnect which has continued to slow the growth of MLS in the biggest media market in the world. While MLS has had great success in Washington, great buzz in LA, solid plans built out in Dallas and Columbus and Chicago and New England, the New York market remains a frustrating afterthought.

Black Knights of the Hudson Look To Build Brand, Seize The Apple…

July 23, 2009 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

It has long been one of the mysteries of sports branding. New York, the centerpiece of the sports branding and business world, has been a college football graveyard. Yes, bars full of displaced college alumni flock to watch games with friends on Saturdays, the Heisman is housed there, and there are many other things to do on a Saturday, not to mention the perception that it is a pro town with two NFL teams. The casual sports fan in New York has never been engaged by local college teams in almost 50 years, save for St. John’s terrific runs in hoops in the 1980’s. The last team with any local cache on the football side was Fordham, a program which lost its national stance in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. So can a local team capture the audience, the branding and the media attention? Judging by announcements this week, Army my just be making that push. The Black Knights of the Hudson, just 30 miles north of the City, have long been one of the jewels of Saturday college football, not for their onfield play but for the pageantry and patriotism that comes with games at Michie Stadium. This week, along with the Yankees (who need to fill suites more than seats), Army announced a series of college football games with Notre Dame, Rutgers and Air Force at Yankee Stadium beginning in 2010, which will give Army a great local stage to compliment their games up the Hudson. Now can it parlay into great new branding and revenue for Army? Maybe. It will become a great non-baseball sales tool for Yankee Stadium because of the opponents as much as Army. But with this week’s announcement of a presenting sponsor for Army-Navy, a new coach, a huge void in a football team to root for in the New York area (Rutgers too will still try and fill that void), maybe just maybe the Black Knights can become New York’s college football team.

Multiple Sports, Multiple Activation Platforms Highlight A Week Of Success For Sports…

July 11, 2009 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

As we head into mid-July, what has normally been a slow season for sports brand activation has unveiled a host of positive programs and good signs for sports on all levels. Starting with Mixed Martial Arts and the hundreds of brands and thousands of fans that have descended on Las Vegas for UFC 100 this weekend. The LA Times had a good look at the UFC’s success and its ability to build fans around the experiential platform that they have created and can execute for their followers, both on site and on pay per view. Great weekend for the UFC, which continues to be the only true national brand in the sport. Adding in the success that the World Series of Poker has sustained in Las Vegas over the last month, the City will enjoy a stretch of “new” sport excitement this weekend that will compare to and surpass any other July time frame. Then fans can look east to St Louis, where MLB has done an outstanding job of taking their partners and finding ways to create grassroots and charity activation programs in the community and on a national and international scale leading into All-Star weekend. Whether it is Bank of America working to give people access to tickets and Fan fest through their local branches or their Hit For Hunger campaign, or MasterCard’s Stand Up To Cancer platform, each brand is being integrated into programs that have both great exposure and tremendous giveback for the community. The women’s US Open in Pennsylvania also didn’t miss an opportunity to link their brands to charity ties in the area and expose their athletes to activation platforms both on site and prior to the event’s start, and NASCAR’s Thursday night special on CNBC gave fans and brands an hour of access to show how all is working in the world’s premier motorsports circuit, leading into a weekend which gives NASCAR some of its biggest major market exposure of the year, with the Sprint Cup Series at Chicagoland Speedway. Now is all right in sports and brand activation these days? Obviously not…but as industry, from the down and dirty world of MMA to the established sports like baseball and golf, a look at the success of brands over a five day period shows that the business of sports is working hard to succeed in the slowest of times, which is a good sign for the future. While many businesses struggle to adapt, it seems like sports and the brands associated are working among the hardest to turn the corner quickly.

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