5 Successful Sports Marketing Examples to Learn from in 2019
When executed properly, a sports marketing campaign can not only increase the number of fans, but it can also attract sponsors and donors that will offer financial support for your team.
While we covered a number of topics on how to market your sports team, there’s no better learning experience than seeing examples of successful sports marketing campaigns.
In this post, we’ll show you 5 successful sports marketing examples you can learn from and share the main sports marketing trends and takeaways to keep in mind.
5 Successful Sports Marketing Examples in 2019
Here are five sports marketing examples to learn from in 2019.
Nike Women’s World Cup
Nike celebrated women athletes in their marketing campaign days before Women’s World Cup. This campaign features young Makena Cook living out her dream and being led around the stadium by successful female and male athletes.
The video is set to the famous tune Bad Reputation and jumps between showing Makena participating in football matches as well as in various moments behind the scenes such as interviews, photo shoots, and celebrations in the locker room. As such, it’s a great way to inspire the next generation of both male and female athletes.
Adidas Dare to Create
This promotional video by Adidas for their new line of shoes. The video is reminiscent of the Mission Impossible movies as it tells you the boots can be yours as long as you except a few conditions.
Famous athletes then detail what the conditions are: from owning your future, accepting victories and losses, and pushing through your limits and boundaries, exploring the unknown, and getting creative.
Nike Dream Crazier
Here’s another example from Nike and their Dream Crazier campaign which is the continuation of their iconic Just Do It campaign. In this promo, Serena Williams tells an emotional story of what it’s like being a woman in the sports industry.
Williams takes the stereotypes and offensive statements about women in sports and turns them into an empowering message for young female athletes everywhere. Throughout the video, you’ll see moments from sports history where female athletes pushed the boundaries, embraced their “crazy” and owned it.
Wimbledon The Story Continues
With new branding, comes a new marketing campaign. In this video, Wimbledon celebrates its tradition and reminds us of many great moments that happened throughout its history.
But the video had yet another important role. As their brand was going through a refresh, they started suffering from inconsistencies in their formal writing and on social media. This promo campaign is an effort to bring back the brand consistency and cohesiveness while at the same time positioning themselves as an approachable brand for all.
BudWeiser Lionesses
In this promo campaign, BudWeiser has teamed up with Lionesses ahead of Women’s World Cup and made an inspirational video that not only celebrates female athletes but also serves to inspire younger generations and rally the nation to support their team.
The video is a reimagining of Queen Elizabeth I’s speech, Heart and Stomach of the King. Although the wording has been changed to suit the modern times and the occasion, you can easily see that the video also aims to combat the bias against female athletes.
Takeaways and Trends to Keep In Mind For Sports Marketing Campaigns
Now that you’ve seen some of the marketing campaigns, let’s go over the main takeaways and trends to keep in mind.
Use Storytelling
Storytelling is at the heart of every great marketing campaign. Storytelling makes us relatable and forms a connection with our target audience.
The creators behind the campaigns in our examples know this and do an excellent job of using storytelling to tug on our heartstrings and stir our emotions.
Some aim to empower and inspire while others want to make you feel proud and pumped up for the game ahead.
Learn from their examples and use storytelling to connect with your audience and make your fans love you even more.
Stand for a Cause
Research shows that 91% of consumers are more likely to buy from brands that stand for a cause. Brands like Nike and Budweiser are a great example of how to use cause marketing in their favor.
Both brands made campaigns in relation to Women’s World Cup and both campaigns deliver a powerful message. Women in sports should be celebrated and bias towards female athletes has no place in sports.
Take cues and find a cause to support. This doesn’t mean you have to go all out and create a full blown video marketing campaign but you can make your stand known through your website as well as your social media profiles.
Go Where The Fans Are
As far as the marketing trends go, even the most effective campaign will fail if there is no audience for it. As such, you need to ensure that you’re marketing on platform where your fans are.
This means being active on social media platforms your fans are active on and mastering those platforms completely before moving on or experimenting with another platform.
Embrace Mobile Marketing
Given the rise in popularity of mobile phones, consider making mobile marketing a part of your strategy. This can be as simple as creating an app for your sports team website like FC Bayern Munich has done.
Through the app, fans can see fixtures and results, access player profiles, stay up to date with live commentary and more.
Experiment with VR and AR
Virtual and Augmented Reality are here to stay and you can take advantage of those technologies in your marketing campaigns through sharing AR footage of your matches.
A great example of AR being used in sports marketing comes from Major League Baseball and their app At Bat. The app uses AR to present live game data to fans all over the world and enhance the viewing experience.
With features like data on each player including errors, fielding percentage and home run statistics, a ball trajectory, launch angle, and more, this app shows the potential future of sports marketing as a whole.
Final Thoughts
Marketing your sports team can bring you a lot of new opportunities and there is always a new and creative way to get in front of your fans and potential sponsors. Use these marketing examples and takeaways to create your own successful marketing campaign and don’t forget to download the cheat sheet with the examples and takeaways so you can keep it handy.
