Patrick Browne

A couple of weeks ago I attended quite a few talks during Social Media Week in London. As usual some betters than others. Among the better ones, the LBMA presentations and panel on Location Based Marketing and the Olympics was quite an eye-opener, I’ll share a bit about it here.

As most Social Media marketers would, I arrived thinking about Foursquare, Gowalla and the likes. But I was wrong. That’s only one of the use-cases of the technology. And actually, the LBMA defends that Location Based Marketing is any kind of marketing related to your location, including offline media such as billboards. And when you join them you get something that reminds me of Minority Report.

Several examples were given, but one situation related to the sponsorship world was the one that really got to me, because of it’s potential and – why not – dangers. Have you ever heard of geo-fencing? The short version is that Geo-Fencing means you can mark an area on a map and target mobile marketing messages within a designated area. I’ll give an example.

Let’s say you are a British Airways Executive Club member. You have the BA App (which you use for the virtual boarding card) already on your smart-phone. As soon as you enter the pre-determined area (i.e. Heathrow Terminal 5) the app can recognize your location and British Airways can send you a welcome message, maybe even an invite to the VIP lounge if you’re a bit early for your flight. Interesting?

What about customizing the mobile ads on your device to the Geo-context? Then when you visit Facebook on you phone, you won’t get ads for a coffee shop across town, you’ll get them for the one around the corner instead.

Now imagine that happening in London at the Olympic Stadium in August 2012. A fully-booked venue which could end-up getting all the advertisements on the websites they visit through their mobile devices pointing to KFC at Westfield instead of McDonald’s. Now that’s what virtual ambush marketing can look like this summer!

Though this technology might be quite recent, online, sponsorship marketers and  rights owners need to be aware that defending their brands in the physical space is not enough any more. The virtual space is currently up for grabs and if they don’t move, maybe someone else will.

Last week the main concern in the social media industry was definitely SOPA and PIPA. Of course, people still had time to talk about the brilliant Captain De Falco, Luiza who was still in Canada, and everything else in FYD. Still, the bill brought up by US lobbyists, senators and congressmen (yes, in that order) gave us a not so ordinary day on Wednesday. Specially if you were a student divided between writing a paper with information from Wikipedia or procrastinating on The Oat Meal.

In case you were in any other planet or fantastic deserted tropical island and just arrived back, you can check the TED video which basically sums things up.

Everyone in the industry spends hours and hours everyday discussing how can we involve our customers more with our brand, how can we turn them into fans who promote the brand to all the people they know. Well, how about this, let’s try by not standing in their way while they are trying to do so! And actually encourage those who do great work, just like Pixar did:

I’m not trying to undermine the importance of fighting the piracy industry, but when you come up with a law that doesn’t even allow you to upload a video of you signing the latest Adele or Justin Bieber song without being considered a criminal, you are fighting your fans, not piracy. And in doing so, missing out on a new source of revenue.

A great example of that, IMHO, is the current approach that you find in YouTube for most of the record labels. When you add a video which has a copyrighted song on it, instead of blocking the whole video, it adds a link to purchase the song through the legal ways (i.e. iTunes), turning it into an advertising opportunity.

If only the money, time and effort spent in lobbying for outrageous bills as SOPA and PIPA was spent in rethinking the business model to deal with the innovation in the industry, we could see more aggregated value to the original products making them relevant and consumers more involved…

While here, I’m trying to keep to New Years resolutions by getting back on track writing on my blog; back home in Brazil, teams make their final adjustments on signing players for the new season. The question I have is: are they analysing their squad and new-comers with enough concern about the brand?

A company has no asset more valuable than their brand. It is the reason why people connect to them, want to work with them, purchase their product/service, do everything. Knowing who you are and the image you portray is vital whether your are Manchester United or the local youth team around the corner. And the players who join your club are a key element to define who you are and who you will be. But are all football clubs aware of all of this? I believe that most major clubs in the world neglect that specially in Brazil…

In “The Elusive Fan”, Irving Rein, Philip Kotler and Ben Shields discuss how building a sports brand includes the important stage of selecting the Sports Type Imprints that relate to your club. Of course, a team is not built on a single type of player, but fans of different clubs will connect to a player according to how his type fits with the clubs type. So – even though there will be many players who might “stay in the background” for the stars – when deciding where to invest heavily for a key star player, these attributes should be considered . Would a Phenom kind of player fit an Underdog team or does a Hero work better?

To put it into context, let’s take as an example the up and coming Brazilian star who, despite signing a new contract with Santos until 2014, still generates a lot of speculation about his future: Neymar. He could be considered a Natural, a Genius or even a Brat, depending on where his career takes him. So far, rumours have “put him” in clubs as Real Madrid and Barcelona. But which club brand would fit Neymar’s brand best? Or which club brand could benefit the most from signing Neymar? Or still, which club brand would benefit Neymar’s brand the most?

I won’t dare to make a deep analysis of such a complex issue in a short blog post, but I will give you some extra info to help you think about it.

Neymar defines himself with two words: “ousadia e alegria”, directly translated as boldness and joy, though I believe “daring and playful” might sum it up best in English. With his Mohican hairdo and being chosen the most beautiful goal in 2011 by FIFA he is creating a differentiated brand in every move.

Since around the year 2000, Real Madrid got itself the nickname “Los Galacticos” (The Galactic) for being the club that signed the main stars in the world in a team that joined Ronaldo, Zidane, Beckham, Raul, Figo and Roberto Carlos. Despite not having the same stellar squad, with Cristiano Ronaldo, Los Galacticos is most likely the image that still remains.

Barcelona FC, currently considered the best team in in the world, also has one of the strongest brand images around, with a clear motto which they promote really well: “Més que un club” (More than a club). And Barcelona works on being “more than a club” in all it does, including an extensive grass-roots program to nurture new talent – out of which star players as Xavi, Iniesta and of course, Messi came – while educating them on the history of the club and region.

So what are your thoughts? Out of these brands, which is the best marriage?

Marketing shouldn’t be the only goal when evaluating a player signing, but the impact a player will have on your club is something that cannot be neglected in building a stronger club brand.

There has been a lot of debate recently about the Brazilian national team, and national teams in general as not attracting the same enthusiasm that “they used to”. In Brazil specifically, every time the team plays, you’ll see a lot of comments on Twitter, Facebook and all. Comments against the coach, the team, against the pitch, the air, whatever they can complain about. And the current 7th place in the FIFA World Ranking doesn’t help much to quiet things down.

To add to the discussion, this week, a Brazilian player refused – or in better terms – asked not to be part of the team for the match against Argentina tonight in the “Super Clássico” second leg. Several people considered that an offence, and to be honest, that was my first reaction too. Independent of that, all these factors add up to one question, is the “Seleção” not as attractive as it used to be?

The first thing we all have to keep reminding ourselves is that we live in a different world today than the one that existed before, be it in the 1970s or 2000s. Fans will continue to be more elusive as time goes on as there are numerous sources of media and entertainment available to compete not only with the Brazilian national team, but any sort of entertainment. So, quite likely the country won’t stop to see who has been called in for the squad, but they definitely still follow the matches as usual.

Another thing that has changed is that anyone and everyone can have a voice and amplify it through all social media channels, with Twitter being the most significant example. And, to be honest, sometimes these spaces can be like high-school all over again, where to “be cool” you had to both pretend you understand about whatever people are saying and being “against the system” was the safest bet. In Brazil, that usually means against Globo and criticising the “Seleção” even if you have no idea of what the offside rule is about.

When we look at the actual number, the top audiences for football matches in the country this year were Brazil friendly matches, and the Libertadores Cup final. In Belém, where they are playing tonight, 25,000 people went to the stadium to see the pre-match TRAINING SESSION, throwing gifts specially to Neymar and Ronaldinho. A full-house is expected for the actual match.

And if those numbers don’t seem to be enough, the biggest revenues for Brazil matches ever have been all (but one in 2004) in the past 4 years when “everyone hated Dunga and the Seleção”. Though we have to take in to consideration the impact of inflation, the revenue increased from R$ 2.5 million to over R$ 6 million, in similar sized stadiums.

So, IMHO, Brazilians always love to criticise our dear national team, and even try to say that we prefer our involvement with our clubs than the Seleção. And despite there being a lot of space for improvement in increasing the involvement of the country with the national squad (as there is everywhere), I don’t believe there is a disconnection. Only a natural process of entertainment worldwide which everyone in the business has to deal with. And the connection of the people with the team will always be there, and goes strong.

I’ve been trying Google+ for a bit now. Took me longer to get started because it was launch just on the day I had left on holidays, and even an addicted guy like me needs a break. And to be honest, so far I’m not convinced.

I joined Facebook in around 2007, I believe. At that point I was just on Orkut, just as most of my friends in Brazil, but as all of my international friends were on FB, I joined too so I could also keep in touch with them. So that was the unique selling point of Facebook to me back then. Staying in touch with friends around the world. Later, as I got to know FB I knew other Brazilians would follow, as Orkut always had problems with bugs and lack of features.

When I look at Google+, my first question is – looking solely as user, not a social media professional – why should I join? What is Google+’s unique selling point?  The first originally mentioned were the circles. However that was such an easy feature to copy (Facebook already has groups and Twitter has lists) that FB has already caught up to it with the launch of its “Smart lists”.

The interesting features so far have been the Hurdles and Hang-outs. The idea of having the possibility of easily sending messages to different groups of friends (specially on mobile), and of doing a “Chatroulette” only with your friends, also seems interesting. But still, those features need quite a critical mass to get it going.

I believe a single or even a few specific features won’t make you change from social networks, unless it really solves some kind of problem in a way others don’t. Twitter is a good example, with what I call “the blogging solution for a ADHD society, where people can’t focus enough to write more than 140 characters”. Don’t get me wrong, I love Twitter, but that is the gap it fills.

As you would expect in any Google product, the real chance Google+ has is to integrate fully with other Google products in a way that others “just can’t”. So far, they’ve announced using YouTube and Google Maps. But for me, it’s still quite far from enough to make it my main social media. Though I do appreciate the improvements it will force the others to make.

From it’s lack of a clear unique selling point and features which don’t quite fulfil a demand, for now Google Plus is yet to convince me. For the time being, I get the impression it might turn out to be just another Google Wave, Google Buzz… IMHO.

Last weekend (let’s include Monday in the “weekend”, ok?), tennis fans everywhere had the chance of watching two absolutely fantastic matches with the top three tennis players of the world. The three of them are amazing, with both Nadal and Federer having shown that to the world on numerous occasions.

Oddly enough, during the duopoly period with several epic battles between Federer and Nadal, I can honestly say I never had my favourite. Maybe because of the incredibly levelled duels or maybe because there was something which for my personal preference, they both lacked.

With Djokovic’s current season – where match by match he shows that not only has he reached the level of the previous top 2 players, but he is currently playing at an even higher level – I believe I’ve picked the one I support, and which I believe adds a lot to the sport and it’s marketability.

Nole is a outstanding player, as he has shown in these epic matches we’ve seen this season, but more than that he is also an all round entertainer. One who knows his audience, and even on a very tough night can win them over “just like that”, as we saw against Federer.

Federer and Nadal’s achievements and contributions to the game of tennis are countless and will always be there, even if they don’t win any more Grand Slams (which I find extremely unlikely). However, IMHO, Djokovic is the player who brings more value to marketers. As he adds an extra bit of flair and charisma which can reach new audiences in a heart-beat.

So this is the first post of my WordPress blog, let’s see how it goes. Besides testing the platform, the idea is to have this blog to fit within the other social media I use in a complementary way. That way, things don’t overlap each other too much, and you can follow whichever you are most interested in.

The others I mentioned are:

• Rio – Oslo – London The blog I started before moving to Oslo back in 2008. The original intent was to share my views on that new experience and to keep people aware of what I was up to, somehow. So it’s a more personal kind of blog
• Tumblr – I believe the description says it all. Things that I see, like and share.
• @ptckian – Need I say more? It’s twitter, you know how it works.
• Flickr – I have struggled to keep updating it, because of some problems with my photo editing software, hopefully soon it will be updated. In any case, it’s the world seen through my eyes.
• Picplz – Also my pictures, but these are the ones taken on the go, with my mobile phone
• Facebook, LinkedIn, Orkut – Logically, these are not very public ones, so you’ll have to connect with me in order to see what I’m up to, ok?
• YouTube – Random videos I’ve made at some point =P

I intend to use this blog as a space to share my thoughts on things happening around in the Sports Marketing and Social Media industries, as those are the ones I understand more about. I do already put my opinion briefly in other channels, but here I hope to – every so often – comment and analyse what I think is right or wrong with different things I see around.