Talking about the weather once the hurricane has passed is easy, and despite the possibility of falling into the easy criticism after the debacle, I will talk about the dreamed sporting successes turned into advertising and marketing failures.

In fact, it is not uncommon for unusual and even inexplicable things to happen when talking about sports. This is what I understand gives greatness to the practice of sport, the unexpected, the surprise, the impossible. David has already proved it against Goliath in the first Olympic rolling stone launch. One, who is from Atleti, knows quite a bit about this, by the way.

Random things don’t like in marketing. This is probably the reason why for years and years the sports sponsorship scheme in Spain was almost exclusively subject to the appealing tax relief and significant amounts of money saved financially associated with large investments. All this thanks to a put me there a logo and write me very clearly an “official sponsor” on your campaign original. A very poor bet so that now, in a peek-a-boo or a tiki-taka, we get back from the sport the little given. I think that in fact most of the time the first decision does not go through the marketing offices but through the financial ones. Many brands have been attracted by a string of good news and unparalleled Spanish sporting successes. A far cry from those years in which seeing a Spaniard on TV in a sporting event was almost a miracle of Lourdes, even if the Tour of Spain did not pass through there. Poor people, how small and lonely they looked surrounded by a thousand Germans, a thousand Italians and ten thousand Americans.

Playing with jokers is easy and so is sailing downstream.

There are brands that have been supporting sport for years in this original way, and very few, although there are some, that are where the root of sport lies, in grassroots sport. There are not so many brands there anymore, nor are they expected. It also seems that how well the Treasury serves the big sponsors is inversely proportional to the meager support for small brands or even local businesses that try to help their respective amateur teams in the neighborhood. Curious way to support the sport.

In a country, Spain, where there is an abundance of artificial grass fields and bicycle lanes, put in place by the awarding of works for the sake of higher commissions and not so much for the real need for them, the situation could not be sadder. Here we support the winner, but not the one who to become a winner has to be a loser along the way. These are the ones to sponsor, those who are in the acquisition period, those who wear the “L” of practices on their jerseys, the future winners. Those who already win are supported by anyone, man.

 

Lance or stick

One, like the undersigned, who is used to practicing a minority sport like rugby, wants to break a small spear here, almost toothpick, for those sports forgotten by the sponsors. People who pay for everything from boots, to bags, to underpants, to travel, to t-shirts and first aid kits, and still have the strength to convince others to continue the sport they love. I admire them all and thank them for their sometimes futile personal efforts.

Marketers, engage your target from the very beginning and you will not miss opportunities at specific moments in time. Less tiki-taka and more investment in the real sport, the one that is not remunerated, the one that you sweat and enjoy as if you were winning a World Cup every weekend, even if it is only getting to the finish line in last position, but getting there.

See article in Anuncios Magazine