Innovative brand integration is become more key as partners count their dollars more efficiently. Logos on apparel, nets, side backboards, virtual signage are all accepted and used now, but the NBA this coming weekend will take naming rights to a new place, renaming the most popular part of TNT All-Star Saturday Night from HORSE to GEICO. Now is it a cheesy sellout, as Barry Horn pointed out in the Dallas Morning News, or is it a bit more innovative as Darren Rovell seems to think. If you are the NBA and the brand, neither matters. What matters is that the partner gets the ultimate in integration during the show, is alighted directly with the stars of the game and has created buzz that lifted the sponsorship off Saturday and into the brand pages. A little hoaky, a little break with tradition, a little more push of the envelope but end of the day, a great example of more unique integration in a big event by a league that finds ways to grow sponsorships.
Some other good reads…Michael Lewis on Bigapplesoccer.net had a fun piece of the goings-on at the Red Bulls training camp, a good example of what extra access can do to bring the fan closer to the player personality…Mark Cuban has his own ideas on the economic stimulus package on blogmaverick.com…Barry Janoff's site has a good All-Star weekend activation breakdown...and John Feinstein has a look at the surprisingly slow college hoops season in D.C.
