Sports Marketing potential in Kenya

Sports marketing was once limited to sportsmen and women wearing corporate logos on their clothing or equipment, and stadiums ringed in signage touting various brands or services.  No more.

While these kinds of “endorsements” will likely play a part in sports sponsorship for years to come, today’s sponsorship proposition demands something more than a logo displayed by a sportsman or prominently placed in a sporting venue.

The most effective sports sponsorships are those that build brand equity, linking the brand to certain positive associations in memory, and providing a win-win association between sponsor and the sponsored.

The challenge facing marketers today is to enhance a sponsor’s brand by ensuring that its customers have the right kinds of experiences with its products and services in the context of sponsorship.

Brand recognition and recall are keys, of course, but so are less tangible links that connect customer experience with the values which characterize a brand and differentiate it from its competitors. These links can be symbolic, experiential, or functional – but they are essential in establishing a strong connection between the brand and its sponsored organization or event.

Sports is the 3^rd largest category of sponsorship spending in Kenya with almost Ksh half a billion spent on sports sponsorships in 2009. This number represented almost a third of all sponsorship spending in the same year. Experts predict that sports sponsorship spending will increase to more than Ksh 1.5 billion by 2012, and continue to represent between 55 and 60 percent of overall sponsorship spending in Kenya.

At these spending levels, marketers must maximize their investment, leveraging money spent across a spectrum of consumer, trade, employee and media activities. As one expert has noted, “A company will only realize the full value of the sponsored property when it is used as a central platform around which other activities are built. Knowing how to leverage sponsorship is as much in the interest of the sponsored as the sponsors.”

Sponsoring organizations should not be afraid of cost – but they should seek to make the most of their investment on every possible front.

One word of warning for sports sponsors: don’t get starry-eyed, zeroing in on your favourite sport, team or athlete with little or no thought to your brand’s target market. How similar are your customers with the fan base of the sport or team you are considering? What competing companies in your market are doing sports sponsorships, and with whom? And, are you willing to spend at least Ksh 5 in support for every shilling spent for a sponsorship.

If the fit is there, the opportunities are great for maximizing success in both short-term sales building, and longer term brand building. The greatest success with sponsorships can be realized when:

    • Engaged fans are greatly involved in the product/service category. The larger the percentage of a particular sport or event’s fan base that is heavily involved in a product category, the more likely the sponsorship is to have maximum impact.  A rally event is a better fit for the maker of shock absorbers or sports drinks than it is for a provider of home health care services!

    • The event is supported by serious money. If a company hasn’t invested at least as much in promoting the sponsorship as it has in acquiring the rights to an opportunity, the odds of success are not high.

    • The company uses the sponsorship to communicate a clear message about the brand to a responsive target. Linking a brand to a property or event to build brand awareness “in name only” is a poor investment. The connection between sponsorship and brand should embrace a common ideal or value – making the message as important as the property itself.

    • There is a clear link between the product and sponsorship. When the connection is weak or stretched, impact is diminished. If it takes longer than five seconds to explain the connection between your brand and a sports marketing opportunity – most target buyers won’t “get it.”

Seasoned marketers know that the cost of reaching new customers can be 6-8 times the cost of maintaining and servicing existing ones. So if an organization’s brand and goals align readily with the target audience for a sports venue, team or event, if the sponsoring organization is willing to commit the funds and creative capital necessary to maximize the partnership and if the sports organization has an infrastructure that can support it, the possibility for a win-win collaboration is high.

Rudisha lives up to his potential by setting a new world record

Exciting times for athletics fans this season! A new world record was broken this Sunday, a rarity for middle distance events nowadays, by David Rudisha who delivered on his exceptional promise to set the 800m world record in the Berlin Diamond League.

His time of 1:41.09 took the narrowest 0.02s margin off Danish legend Wilson Kipketer's previous best, set back 13 years ago.

Rudisha, like his predecessor, is a beauty to watch. Long, powerful strides and determined but smooth drive to the finish characterizes his form on the track.

Uniquely, this was the 1^st world record in the 800 meters by a Kenyan even though there have been many local athletes that have dominated the event for years.

Making up for his disappointment on the same track at last year’s World Championships where he failed to make the final, Rudisha came out with purpose and demonstrated to the world why 2009’s performance was just but an aberration to his fledging ascendancy of the event.

He went to back to the drawing board and came back motivated as ever to assert his supremacy of the 800m.

Looking back at his preparations for the year, I believe the catalyst of his successful season was the decision to improve his 400 meter times in the off-season in Australia to sharpen his speed. It has paid dividends now for the longer event as he is confident and comfortable at any pace.

Because the key to the record was a fast 1^st lap close to 49 seconds. Any improvement of this fabulous record has to come from running the first lap faster because physiologically, it would be difficult to run the 2^nd lap faster than the first. And Rudisha optimally did just that.

Even more impressive is that Rudisha is just 21 years and already he is the fastest ever! His natural ability, knowledge of and subsequent execution in the event is just mind-boggling!

As Rudisha mentioned in an interview earlier, “the first step to breaking the world record is to run without pressure”.

So will he run faster? I believe so. The 800 meters best hasn’t seen much of a drop like the other middle distance events in the last 29 years. It has only been reduced by 0.64 seconds within that period. If Rudisha can remain injury-free for the rest of his career and given his young age, he could slowly milk this 800m cash cow for years. 1.39 isn’t too difficult to foresee in the coming years.

However, the likes of Kaki and his other competitors must rue their chances as they came in on the wrong era. Where for the foreseeable future, the real race will be for 2^nd place!

Having interacted with Rudisha, I strongly believe Kenya has a superstar for many years to come. He has the tools and the personality to be a marketer’s dream. Much credit goes to Bro. Colm O’Connell for nurturing this phenomenal athlete from his junior days to top of the world status.  For now, let's celebrate a proud moment - a new World Record for Kenya!

Congratulations David Rudisha for the fabulous performance!

New Kenyan Olympic Champion 2 years later

The biggest news in recent times for Kenyan athletics was the revelation that Kenya could get its 6^th gold medal eight months later courtesy of the Olympic 1500m champion Rashid Ramzi’s A sample from Beijing testing positive for the blood booster EPO-CERA.

This news couldn’t have been better for Asbel Kiprop, the silver medalist in the event, who stands to be elevated to gold and Kenya who had its best Games ever, even without that medal. However with it, shows a complete dominance of the middle distances with a sweep of the men and women’s 800 and 1500 gold medals. A feat no other country has ever accomplished in Olympic history.

I was both disappointed and delighted at the news of the positive test.  But I and many others were far from surprised that Ramzi was a cheat. If circumstantial evidence were permissible for positive tests then Ramzi would have been close to the top of most people's lists. That he managed to join a celebrated group of world and Olympic champions has been galling in the past few years as there is no bigger crime in athletics than making a mockery of one of its premier events – the men’s 1500m.

Assuming his B sample comes back positive this week, he'll be stripped of his gold medal and banned for two years. But I believe he should be banned for life! Clearly there is no way one can innocently ingest EPO-CERA prior to the Olympic Games and expect to be welcomed back 2 years later.

I am very delighted at the retrospective tests that the IOC is doing now because it sends a strong message of deterrence. The emergence of CERA offers the latest proof of why holding samples for eight years is a good idea. There is nothing particularly new about the drug itself. It is very much like EPO in that it elevates red blood cell count and has legitimate uses for people with renal failure or cancer who have trouble keeping their counts elevated.

In the doping world, that makes it easier to take -- maybe only once a month instead of once a week -- but also more risky because it's detectable longer.

Those who got hold of it around the time of the Beijing Olympics may have been hoping no test would be developed for it -- or maybe they underestimated the amount of time it would stay in their system.

Ramzi’s rise was backed up with little or no recognition but was meteoric.  A former Moroccan with limited prospects as a junior, he joined the Bahrain military and prospered under the coaching of Moroccan Khalid Boulami, a former Olympic 5000m medalist and brother to Brahim, the infamous EPO cheat who was a thorn to Kenyan steeplechasers early this decade.

In 2004 he won a world indoor silver medal over 800m. But then, early in that Olympic summer, he stunned everyone by ending the four-year winning streak of Hicham El Guerrouj at the Rome Golden League event and lowering his personal best by nine seconds. 

In Athens, despite being one of the favourites, he mysteriously trailed in 11th in his semi-final. We hardly saw him again until the following year's world championships in Helsinki. He won gold at 1500m and 800m, unprecedented in the modern era. He almost embarrassed his competitors with his ease of victory.

Bahrain rejoiced but he was hardly embraced by the sport. Infrequent appearances added to whispered suspicions and, though he took silver at the world championships of 2007 it was his first competition of the summer. He was, if nothing else, enigmatic. His Beijing gold was Bahrain's first Olympic success and he was richly rewarded and feted on his return.

Ramzi’s presence at the past two major championships only served to delay Asbel Kiprop’s climb up the medal stand. Juvenile tactics aside, the teenage prodigy, as I had pointed out in this column, was destined for greatness.

So Kiprop will be Kenya’s 4^th 1500m Olympic champion albeit in a different manner and means that he joins an elite set of middle distance heroes that include Kip Keino, Peter Rono and Noah Ngeny.

The saddest thing about Kiprop’s ascent from being the silver medalist to Olympic champion is that he will probably receive his gold medal in an envelope, minus the adulation and celebration that the feat deserves.

And that’s the tragic thing about athletes who win by cheating. They deny the legitimate winners their moments of glory, that unforgettable victory lap, the sponsorship gains etc.

All I can say is good riddance for drug cheats like Ramzi and kudos to our newest Olympic champion Asbel Kiprop.