[Interview/Observer Network Yan Shanshan Zhou Yuanfang, text/Yan Shanshan] "Among the top 30 Chinese companies going to sea, at least 25 have taken advantage of sports marketing, and some even skip the domestic market and go directly to the target European and American markets. ”
Sports marketing has become an important step for Chinese enterprises to internationalize.
From 2022 to 2023, China will usher in a big year of sports, and the Beijing Winter Olympics, the Hangzhou Asian Games, the 2023 Asian Cup and the postponed first version of the Club World Cup will not only boost the confidence of the world, but also test the national and urban governance, corporate and brand image.
In the face of the big year of sports events, how do sports marketing head enterprises face the impact of the epidemic? How can we help Chinese companies continue to expand their markets through sports sponsorship? How to harness the impact of esports as an emerging sporting event? How to deal with the impact of new media on traditional media and marketing models?
On October 19th, SPORTFIVE/Lagardère Sport, as the only representative of the international sports and entertainment group in the whole venue, was invited to attend the Fortune Global 500 Summit. At the event site, Echo Li, Managing Director and Global Senior Vice President of SPORTFIVE/Lagardère Sports Greater China, was interviewed by Observer.com.
As the world's leading sports entertainment group, SPORTFIVE/Lagardère Sports has been deeply involved in the commercial expansion of comprehensive sports events and sports IP such as the Olympic Games, World Cup, European Cup, Asian Cup, AFC Champions League, African Cup, F1 (Formula 1), and provided relevant overseas marketing services for the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games.
In Li Ying's view, any enterprise wants to open up an unfamiliar market, sports IP and sports events are one of the "best marketing tools" for brands to go global. E-sports marketing is a powerful weapon used by brands in the post-epidemic era to seize the incremental market. "Esports is not a trend, it is the future."
On October 19, 2021, Li Ying attended the Fortune Global 500 Summit in Hangzhou
"Sports marketing is the most powerful marketing weapon for Chinese enterprises to go overseas"
For many Chinese companies, going overseas to enter emerging markets is a key step in the development process, and in the face of differences in political, historical, cultural and consumer behaviors between emerging market countries and regions, it is necessary to explore effective brand communication channels.
The competitive, participatory, ornamental and consumer nature of sports itself helps the audience to break down cognitive barriers, and sports marketing has become a powerful channel for Chinese enterprises to expand overseas markets.
Especially in the European Championships that started this year, Chinese companies occupied 4 seats among the 12 top sponsors, and once rumors spread that the Chinese advertisements of the European Cup were "virtual advertisements".
This phenomenon has also triggered a heated discussion in the European media, and the well-known French daily newspaper Le Parisien even asked: "What if the big winners of this year's European Championships are not Europeans, but Chinese brands?" ”
In fact, it is not new for Chinese brands to join hands with top international sports events and giant clubs.
In 2018, Hisense, Changhong, OPPO and other Chinese companies carried out creative marketing for the Russian World Cup; in 2019, TikTok reached a cooperation with Bundesliga giants Dortmund; in 2020, OPPO cooperated with the Boston Marathon globally, and Kuaishou reached a cooperation with the e-sports giant T1... Among them, there are SPORTSFIVE/Lagardère Sports.
In 2015, Li Ying, who was working in Lagardère Sports Group's Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore, was entrusted by the group to return to China to build a team from scratch. In 2016, Lagardère Sports officially entered the Chinese mainland market and set up Shanghai as the headquarters of Greater China.
Li Ying believes that sports marketing may be the most powerful marketing weapon for Chinese enterprises to go to sea, for enterprises, "sports is not only a tool for blood transfusion, but also a tool for brand blessing of hematopoiesis."
"In China, although sports marketing is regarded as a blue ocean market, the brand is still in the process of acceptance, but we have been doing sports marketing for the past 54 years, from our point of view, not only Chinese enterprises, any enterprise to step into an unfamiliar market, want to quickly get the recognition of the new market, and then patiently cultivate the target user to recognize the brand, to achieve sales conversion, sports IP and sports events are certainly one of the best marketing tools."
Li Ying said that the team has done statistics, among the top 30 Chinese companies going to sea, more than 25 have taken advantage of sports marketing to enter overseas markets, and some of them have not even done sports marketing in China, and have directly gone to the European and American markets where the brand is targeted to carry out activities.
"So I think this (sports marketing) is very helpful for improving, or changing the inherent or even wrong impression of Chinese brands in some overseas markets."
In response to the brand's sports marketing may gain resistance in the target market, Li Ying frankly said: "In fact, not only local fans will have some thinking after seeing Chinese brands, even in many marketing, we found that local fans see local brands to sponsor local events, he will also frown, because most iron fans will have an obsession, that is, 'sports should be pure', which in itself will increase the difficulty for any brand that sponsors sports events." ”
In the face of this problem, Li Ying said that their role in this process is to help enterprises face potential hidden dangers. "For example, before we open a sponsorship conference, we will think about various potential PR crises, multi-dimensional overall design of all marketing activities, in the company wants to tell its products and stories, fans really want to see the game, and how the sponsor can empower the fans to experience the game, to achieve a balance." 」
Li Ying revealed that the team's service content is not only post-execution and creative presentation, but also sometimes from the perspective of brand appeal, helping them to screen and match the most suitable resources for sponsorship.
But a sponsorship partnership is not enough. To make good use of the rights and interests of these sponsors, it is necessary to adjust the marketing content and rhythm in a timely manner according to the changes in the schedule and battle conditions, combined with the psychological changes of fans and consumers. After all, achieving brand consumption growth is the ultimate goal.
"I'll even tell some clients that we may have to suspend investing in sports or sports marketing during the pandemic."
In recent years, large-scale events have been intensive, which should have been a good development opportunity for the sports industry, but the variables brought by the epidemic have had a great impact on the marketing and operation layout of some enterprises.
Li Ying revealed that throughout last year, more than 30,000 sports games around the world were cancelled and postponed, causing losses of more than $60 billion, and many giant clubs lost more than $100 million last year.
"The suspension of offline events has made many companies temporarily not invest in sports or sports marketing, which I personally think is a pity, because even if offline events are not held, they can still promote and promote brands online and offline." However, the epidemic has made many customers, including Chinese companies, have to make a trade-off between long-term brand investment and short-term sales growth. Therefore, sports marketing, which must look at medium and long-term, or even decades of large investment, has been temporarily abandoned by many companies. ”
Li Ying admitted that under the internal and external pressure of the epidemic, not all brands are suitable for investing in sports marketing.
"In fact, in the process of last year, my team and I were facing a lot of customers, based on mutual trust, and I would even say to some customers, 'We may have to suspend investing in sports or sports marketing during the epidemic period', because at that time, even if the customer is a CMO (Chief Marketing Officer), he is not concerned about the brand investment in 2020."
For brands that have signed sponsorship agreements, the team will help brands strive for the best sponsorship rights and the highest cost performance, and also make the greatest efforts in force majeure clauses and compensation clauses, and will try to change the marketing form from offline to online.
As for the brand side, Li Ying suggested that it needs to be adapted to the conditions of the game and the Chinese market according to the time and place. For example, for the Chinese market, the value of the brand that the Olympic Games can give is much higher than that of the European Cup, which is the opposite of the European market, which requires the brand to make corresponding adjustments in the inclination of the event.
"Esports is not a trend, it is the future"
After the outbreak of the new crown epidemic last year, the suspension of offline events has allowed more brands to turn their attention to sports marketing to e-sports.
At present, China has surpassed South Korea and the United States to become the world's largest esports market. Li Ying believes that for brands, e-sports marketing is used to seize the incremental market.
SPORTFIVE/Lagardère Sports has been laying out esports marketing since 2017, and in 2021 alone, more than 120 brands of esports sponsorship cooperation and marketing services have been reached worldwide.
Li Ying revealed that the revenue of e-sports now accounts for about 30% of the group's total revenue, and has become the second largest strategic business segment of the group.
"We have a sports strategy analysis department at our headquarters, and through a series of global and regional market analysis, we can basically come to a conclusion: esports is not a trend, it is the future."
Compared with traditional sports, the popularity of e-sports has a tendency to catch up, will this situation affect the essence of sports "physical fitness" and the pursuit of "faster, higher and stronger"?
Li Ying admits that in the past 5 years, this view has been constantly discussed, and almost all traditional sports people have worried about it. However, after the epidemic, all the international sports people she contacted have accepted the full rise of e-sports.
"For example, European giant clubs or world-class IP events, instead of continuing to worry about the development trend of e-sports, they are now thinking about how to combine offline traditional events with online e-sports elements, how to retain the audience who like sunshine, health, and outdoor sports, while also facing up to the status quo - the Z generation of people, many people after 95 and 00 prefer virtual sports in the Internet world." There is even a greater goal, we will go with the traditional sports people to discuss, how to combine the elements of e-sports in traditional sports, and then pull these young people in the e-sports world back to this kind of offline traditional sports events. ”
For example, Li Ying said that the recently concluded EACC Autumn Tournament is a virtual football e-sports event, the participants are real football clubs, these clubs through the way of embracing e-sports to attract e-sports teenagers who may not have paid attention to the club before, through this virtual football game to let e-sports fans see the charm of football.
2021 EACC Autumn Competition, China Lyon Esports advanced to the semi-finals (Source: SPORTFIVE/Lagardère Sport)
"I'm a die-hard sports fan, but I'm spending less and less time on a full game"
In recent years, new media such as Douyin, Kuaishou, Weibo, and Station B have brought impacts to traditional media and marketing models, and after a sports game, the short video highlights on the platform often occupy more traffic than the full live broadcast of the game, and the way young people watch the game is also changing.
In this regard, Li Ying's attitude is very optimistic, "In this process, in fact, I have more experience, including myself, I am also a relatively hardcore sports fan, but I can really spend less and less time on a complete sports game." Especially if the competition is European and American time, I will also go to see the competition highlights the next morning. ”
In addition, in response to the phenomenon of netizens making short videos of sports events and even playing copyright "edge ball", Li Ying believes that from the perspective of sports practitioners, it is a benign development trend to see more and more UGC (user-generated content) appear on social media platforms.
"From a long-term perspective, as long as we can think of supervising and regulating such a space, in fact, more people are willing to pay attention to sports and embrace sports, which is also a good phenomenon."
During this year's Tokyo Olympic Games, many athletes held up their cameras to shoot Vlogs (video diaries) in the Olympic Village and during the quarantine period, sharing exclusive Olympic perspectives, this phenomenon of scientific and technological progress brought by everyone can live broadcast the Olympic Games, will it bring challenges to sports marketing?
Tokyo Olympics diving men's single, double three-meter board double champion Xie Sibei posted an Olympic Vlog on Weibo
Li Ying believes that short videos, including Vlog, although not a big trend like e-sports, are also a trend that sports companies must embrace.
At present, they are helping some influential overseas sports football clubs and celebrities in China to plan and open Chinese social platform accounts, and help them operate account content, including La Liga Atletico Madrid Football Club, Belgium national team and Spanish national team.
"The influence of the football star itself, including his behind-the-scenes stories off the field, the team recreated this content and presented it in the direction that Chinese users want to see, which I think is something that fans love and will become a good trend." Li Ying believes that this change is certainly challenging for some traditional platforms, but it is also a new direction of empowerment.
In the post-epidemic era, sports marketing, e-sports, and new media have all shown vigorous vitality, and have also shown Chinese energy to the world.
Next year, China will usher in the big year of sports, with the Beijing Winter Olympics and Hangzhou Asian Games successively held, look forward to more Chinese cities with sports to connect the world, but also look forward to more Chinese brands through sports to the world.