RUGBY SEVENS SPECIAL: 5 Key Tips to Maximise Your Marketing During Sporting Events

Sports sponsorships are a great way for brands to gain exposure and recognition. As part of any sponsorship deal, the brand often provides promotional gifts to the teams or athletes involved in the sponsorship, and gains the rights to use the event’s brand and messaging in their communications to partners, customers and the wider public. A competition like the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens is such a huge event in the city that association with the name will boost your brand awareness.

We look at the opportunities for promoting your brand during the Rugby Sevens, whether you are an official sponsor or not. These suggestions will work for just about any large sporting event.

1. Creative an Effective Brand Message

Create an effective brand message that will resonate with your target audience. Make sure it is tailored to the sports event and speaks to the fans’ interests. Consider using visual content such as photos, videos, and graphics to help your message stand out. Make sure you are adhering to the rules associated with the event, whether you are an official sponsor or not.

2. Leverage Social Media

Leverage the event’s social media presence to reach a wide audience. Post content that reflects your brand and message, as well as content that will engage the audience. Use hashtags to help spread your brand message across social media platforms. Be very careful about how you do this as clumsy social media piggybacking can backfire.

3. Create a Lasting Presence with Merchandise

Create a strong presence at and around the event with branded merchandise, activities, and giveaways. This will help you build relationships with the fans and allow them to become familiar with your brand. Experiential marketing accompanied by promotional merchandise, and backed up with follow-digital campaign support, will help you form a strong relationship with your customers. Promotional merch is perfect for supporting these campaigns as it lasts well beyond the event.

4. Measure your Impact

Build your campaign with measurement in mind! Digital channels always feel more impactful because they produce so much data, but don`t let this skew your marketing - focus on what is going to work! Leaflets, vouchers and other printed material can have promo codes (incentivised with a free gift), allowing you to track response rates. Count visitors and participants at events and pop-up experiences. Print QR codes or campaign-specific URLs on promotional gifts. And do regular before-and-after surveys to check whether your customers have connected with your marketing. Before the days of Big Data digital advertising, these methods were the bread and butter of marketing, so don`t forget about them.

Play by the Rules, but Play to Win

Official sponsors usually have a lot more rights to usage of logos, names, artwork and photography, and of course access to the events. If you are an official sponsor of the Rugby Sevens then maximising the value of the sponsorship deal is essential. It pays to really understand what you are allowed to do, and what you are not allowed to do.
If you are not an official sponsor then you will have more limits, but these design constraints can help you get very creative. For Rugby Sevens, for example, you could give out gifts for fans to wear or use in the event, or items themed around rugby. Outdoor, rugby-themed pop-up experiences with linked merchandise will still build on the excitement of the event and attract the crowds, all without any risk of infringing copyrights or trademarks.