McIlroy & Brailsford - a tale of two sports deals

Later today Rory McIlroy will step out at Abu Dhabi’s Fairmont Hotel as the new face of Nike and as a result will take home a rather tasty £156m (ish) over the next 10 years.

Given Nike's track record, it's widely expected that he will have severed ties with his other sponsors including Jumeirah, Oakley and Titleist. That last one's interesting - Titleist, widely regarded by amateur golfers around the world as the leading innovator and manufacturer of golf balls. They are also a heavy weight player when it comes to the design and production of golf clubs themselves, in fact McIlroy has used them for his entire professional golfing life. Their wedges, irons and drivers are considered some of the best quality products on the market along with the likes of Callaway, Ping, Mizuno and TaylorMade. One name you won't see on that list is Nike. Because despite their future £156m investment (and even bigger past investments in Tiger), Nike equipment is still seen by many amateurs as an inferior product to that of its rivals, a large multinational that was late to the game and lacks the focus of other golf 'specialists'.

Rory's new clubs snapped yesterday by golfdaily.com

For Rory, a young sportsman with a finite number of years to earn his crust as a top sportsman, you simply can't turn down 156million quid - even if it might impact on your performance for the first year. I could't turn it down.... but you know what? I think (Sir) Dave Brailsford probably would.

Last week, the biggest (and currently the most successful) cycling team in the world launched their new ultra modern, innovative kit for the 2013 season. But Team Sky's clothing is no longer made by adidas. In a year when the team will recieve more exposure in Europe and particularly the UK than ever before, Sky have opted to move suppliers to Rapha, a tiny british manufacturer based in Kentish Town. Rapha has just 65 staff and sales in 2011 of £13m. To put that in perspective, Adidas has 47,000 employees and sales of around £10.8bn, so it seems fair to assume financial motivations didn't top the list of priorities for the team principle at Sky.

Rapha has been around for just 8 years, they design and manufacture beautiful (and rather expensive) cycling gear for the well heeled enthusiast. It is a great coup for Rapha and you can read more about their ethos and how the business has grown in this recent FT interview with the founder Simon Mottram (the fact that this article is even appearing in the FT says a lot about the transformation of cycling in this country over the last 10 years).

Imagine seeing a decision like this made by Manchester United - you won't - because it simply wouldn't happen anywhere else. But Dave Brailsford does things differently.

“Team Sky has achieved this year’s level of success because of a strong and steady vision to find improvement at every level to help our riders win. I see Rapha joining us next year as another step in that direction. They share our ambition and vision for cycling," said Sky team principal Dave Brailsford.

Famed for this attention to detail and desire to find small incremental improvements across every aspect of the sport, the only public inkling of what may have brought this decision about came last summer from a SportsPro interview with Sky Pro Cycling's head of operations Carsten Jeppesen, he alluded to the point that adidas often outsourced its cycling manufacturing to specialist 'white-labelling' outlets in Italy that produce equipment for all of the teams.

"Some of it is made in Italy through Moa," Jeppesen said. "They make a lot of bike kit for different brands. So you do get a set of gloves that are made somewhere, and maybe they have another factory that is Adidas-approved that makes something else. The expertise comes from Adidas, but they get it manufactured wherever there is manufacturing expertise. They outsource it"

For Sky to gain that micro advatage in their clothing, they need something no one else has got, and if that means dropping one of the biggest sports brands in the world for a home grown local shop, then so be it.

I'm not used to seeing that - a decision in sport, based on what's good for the sport. I look forward to appreciating the difference it makes to the team on the French roads this summer, now let's just hope Rapha can get some more server space and keep their online shop functioning for more than 5 minutes.

 

10 observations on my Olympic experience

After being lucky enough to attend three fantastic days of Olympic action, i thought I'd jot down a few observations...

1. The Brand Police really did stop at nothing

How many people honestly know what on earth 'fruit cup no.1' is? And if you do, would you spend £10 on it? (Well, sadly my wife did)

Any one for Fruit Cup No1?

Independent stall holders at Eton Dorney cover up their 'highly contentious' names...

2. We need more wild flower meadows everywhere.

Wild flower meadow at the velodrome

3. Advertising in an 'Olympic' station is an utter utter waste of money.

LOCOG did a great job with high visibility signage and hundreds of volunteers - especially at Stratford. The result was that everyone knew where they were going and no one even noticed the McDonald's advertising everywhere.

No time or space for McDonald's ads at Stratford Station

Contrast that with Gillette who covered 3 tower blocks on the way to the venue itself - much more effective in gaining standout, and delivering huge impact.

4. The crowds really were fantastic as this wobbly video testifies


5. The military ought to run the airports

I underwent 3 security checks across my three visits, all fast, seamless, pleasant affairs - if only the military could take over airport security when they've finished at the Olympics.

6. The BBC was hit & miss

While their online and mobile offerings go from strength to strength, the prime time presenting and pundit teams leave a lot to be desired. The biggest criticism has to be the lack of expert breadth. If a presenter and pundit know nothing about a sport they would do better to say nothing at all and refer to a report, than engage in outdated, uninformed, pub chat. Two examples...

Gary: Do you think the final day conditions suited Ben Ainslie in the sailing?

Sean (ex hockey player): Well i don't know a thing about sailing but i think....

And even worse, following the Dressage success...

Gaby: So our first gold ever in dressage...

Steve Cram & Chris Boardman: Yeah but home advantage has played a big part for us there, not having to transport the horses to say Beijing, i presume that was a massive advantage.

Now i don't know a huge amount about dressage but then I'm not being paid to talk about it on BBC1. What i do know is that Germany have won the last 7 Olympic Dressage events.The last 7! Half of which were on the other side of the world, so credit where it's due - the Dressage team managed something unprecedented, regardless of the transport arrangements.



7. Empty seats can only be avoided when sponsorship contracts are agreed

Empty seats at the swimming

Alright it wasn't quite as bad as that picture above suggests, we were there very early. But on that particular night, the night of the 100m freestyle final, there were a block of 20 seats left in front of us. Five minutes into the action around 40% were filled by guests of Lloyds Bank (according to their lanyards), the rest were wasted. It's not just Lloyds' fault. Games organisers need to wake up to two key issues. 1. If someone gets something for free, they value it less than someone that paid a tenner, or £95 quid for the same thing. 2.  If a company spends £100m sponsoring a global event, they want value for money, and for them that means (among other things) quantity of tickets. More, more, more, despite the fact that a decent % of those extra tickets that they recieve will be for a morning session that no one wants to attend - especially when gifted them for free.

A further caveat to that, is that the IOC 'family' receive 50% more tickets than sponsors (12% versus 8%) which must amount to well over 1 million tickets - is that really necessary?


8. Coke & BP experiences looked impressive, albeit i decided not to queue for 45 minutes to experience them

BP park pavilion

Coke's move to the beat pavillion

9. The quality of merchandise was a bit of a let down, but that didn't stop the longest queue in the park forming.


10. The Orbit looks best at night time, when you can't really see it.

I know the LOCOG budget didn't put it there, and i do think the park needs the height of such a tower, it's just a shame that the Orbit looks like such a mess and by all accounts, doesn't provide a great view when you're up there due to the fully enclosed nature of the public areas.

The public viewing deck and access points are all you notice when you look at this structure, compared to say the Eiffel tower where they are neatly hidden away. Why has one of the World's most successful artists had to cave in to Health & Safety? If Danny got away with it regarding those sheep, surely Anish could have managed it for a structure that could be there for decades to come?

The mailing opportunity of a lifetime

Imagine the DM pack opportunity of a lifetime. A piece of mail that you haven’t just been expecting, you’ve actually been looking forward to. A package that rather than just binning without a second look, you pick up, tear open and pore over every last piece of literature inside.

Over a million people across the UK have received such a package in the last 4 weeks, so what’s inside? Well there’s your information guide, your free zone 1 to 9 tube pass, your sacred Olympic tickets and of course, some sponsors inserts.

Imagine that – as part of your £60m+ sponsorship fee, your brand can begin to benefit from the very first personal moments of Olympic fever becoming reality for millions of people across the country.

Inside my envelope that arrived last week, I received two pieces of communication from sponsors. An interesting looking set of key fobs from BP and a rather drab flyer from Lloyds TSB.

Lloyds TSB and BP Olympic mail inserts

My drab flyer turned out to be a Union Jack sticker or a ‘bib’ as Lloyds call it. Take a pic of myself with said bib, upload to their Facebookpage (having first ‘liked’ it), and I could be attending the Team GB closing party.

As for BP – visit their site, or scan their QR code to get there quicker (just), and use the code on the fob to offset the carbon from my journey to the Olympic Park as part of their ‘target neutral’ campaign. Not only that, once activated if I take my fob along to the park I can get a picture of myself in front of the stadium free of charge.

BP home page

Both have their merits, there was a time when uploading this, that and the other online was a sure fire way of turning everybody off – it was simply too much hassle. These days, with smartphone technology and a simple Facebook app, those barriers no longer exist. However I think this idea still falls short on two other counts. Just how willing is a consumer to ‘like’ your brand? My guess is not very, when you consider the industry Lloyds TSB operates in – a brief look at their Facebook page provided a mixed bag of ‘come on GB’ posts alongside ‘You ripped us off’/’excessive charges’ posts. But even more important than that, by offering a ‘star’ prize, most recipients are less likely to feel they have a chance of winning at all, and that just doesn’t feel very special, or very Olympic.

Lloyds competition app on Facebook

Contrast that with BP, a highly relevant environmental helping hand that everyone benefits from and can feel good about. Not only that, there’s a nice tangible benefit on your special day at the park as well – ensuring that the BP area will be awash with people rather than ignored in favour of more exciting experiences offered by the likes of Coca Cola.

The numbers who have taken part so far seem to reflect this – BP is currently just shy of 200,000 sign ups to what is a slightly clunky process though nicely personalised.

Unfortunately for BP, i'm racking up quite a bit of carbon from Guernsey

There i am, in the light green along with nearly 200,000 others

Lloyds on the other hand has amassed less than 100 uploads, spending just a few minutes on the Lloyds page you get the general feeling that so much (worthwhile) effort and attention has gone into their torch relay support, that this golden opportunity to build (or resurrect) the brand in the hands of millions of ticket holders has been somewhat overlooked in comparison to BP.

Wiggle on Tour

Wiggle, the online cycling store is a firm favourite with enthusiasts up and down the country.

Nothing makes a grown man want to buy more kit than watching some live action on the TV, which means that when the Tour De France kicks off, Wiggle has to ensure that they’re front of mind for that 'essential' purchase of a 4^th bike or 3^rd aero wheel.

But when official sponsors are spending a fortune supporting teams, how does a brand like Wiggle even get a look in on a minuscule budget. Well, in 2012 they’ve made the inspired decision of sponsoring a modern day icon of the race, instantly recognisable to anyone that’s followed the tour in the past… Didi the Devil.

Every year since 1993 Didi Senft has been driven by his passion for cycling and transformed himself into the Devil. Didi made his costume choice after learning that commentators refer to the last kilometre of cycle event stages as 'the Devil's Lap'. He has an established group of fans who look forward to seeing him at the roadside of the world's most famous cycling event every year. A regular at both the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia, Didi is instantly recognisable because of his bright red outfit, firing up passing cyclists with motivational shouts and running alongside to spur them on.

It's great to see a brand thinking differently about how to capitalise on such a major event in the sport. Didi’s red outfit will turn orange for a couple of the stages as well as him featuring in Wiggle’s press/online advertising and CRM.

Wiggle advertising

Wiggle email to past customers

The cut through and the PR is impressive, never mind the ambush potential on the live TV feed and highlight shows across Europe. And it doesn't stop there, Wiggle are encouraging people to interact with their site further by using Didi's Trident symbol as a treasure hunt prize across their site - to collect them, simply add the product page to your wish list, another nice example of taking the idea through the shopper journey all the way to purchase.