Throughout 2021 we were slowly introduced to pre-pandemic times. Sporting events and other forms of entertainment opened their gates with limited capacity, all the while most fans still watched from home. Teams, brands, and other stakeholders needed to embrace creativity, thinking outside the box to engage with fans beyond traditional activations that proved successful prior to 2020. Reflecting on the hurdles of 2021, we’re here to focus on some of the greatest hits of sponsorship activations. Here are some of our favorites from the past year:

1. “Dude With A Sign”

An original, in-person activation for Super Bowl LV. For those of you not familiar, “Dude With A Sign” is a social media influencer that brings humor to normal day-to-day activities by silently holding a sign with a typically ironic message. This activation included one of the oldest assets known to sponsorship, a sign in the venue. By partnering with Bud Light, Dude With A Sign brought a traditional asset to the 21^st century by leveraging social media and a popular meme. People took to Twitter with either humor or annoyance that the Dude “sold out”. There was also an Instagram post from the Dude’s account with a shout out to Mom and thanking Bud Light for the tickets and seltzers. The Dude had two signs with no direct mention of Bud Light but with seltzer in hand and a Bud Light branded mask, consumers were able to put two and two together. With over a million likes on Instagram, the Dude and Bud Light were able to reach more than just the 25,000 fans in attendance.

2. Mixed Reality

The Baltimore Ravens broke the creative bounds of reality in 2019 when they introduced a mixed-reality giant raven swooping through their stadium. Given this was virtual reality, the massive raven was only viewable by the TV audience and those watching the video boards in the stadium. Since then, several teams have joined the trend to give their intro videos and touchdown celebrations an extra punch for the viewers at home and the stadium. The Houston Texans brought this creativity to their partnership with Kroger in 2021 with a crowd favorite video board race. Instead of being constrained to the video board, the activation encompassed the entire stadium, making it larger than life for a typical in-game promotion.

3. Name, Image, Likeness (NIL)

We would be remised if we didn’t mention the opportunity for college athletes to profit from their name and likeness. It has been a perfect scenario for local businesses to partner with college athletes without paying the typical university partnership price tag.

We’ve seen some great partnerships ranging from University of Pittsburgh’s QB, Kenny Pickett, taking his Offensive Line to a weekly hog dinner courtesy of his deal with Spirits & Tales restaurant. Most recently, NCAAW basketball star Paige Bueckers out of UConn signed an historic deal with Gatorade, being the first college athlete ever to sign with the sports drink.

A fan favorite (or least favorite depending on fandom) is also a late comer in the season, as it has the perfect mix of an under-dog story and the swift cleverness required to create an impactful partnership. Jared Casey, a walk-on full back at the University of Kansas, gained internet notoriety after catching a pass on a two-point conversion in overtime to give Kansas its first win in Austin to defeat the Texas Longhorns. Thanks to Casey’s parents’ posting their video from the game, where they weren’t even sure it was their son who caught the touchdown, the Thrive Restaurant Group immediately jumped on the fame. Within 3 days Casey was filming his very own Applebee’s commercials promoting there “2 for $22” deal with the classic line “You’ve always got to go for two.”

4. Starbucks is a hometown team

In 2021 Starbucks announced partnerships with two of their hometown teams, NWSL’s OL Reign and the NHL’s Seattle Kraken. Starbucks wants to leverage these partnerships to make a positive impact within the community. Starbucks is the presenting sponsor for the OL Reign’s Legends Campaign, which “recognizes a female leader in recognition of her extraordinary contributions to [the] community and beyond. Reign Legends are selected from corporate, non-profit, academic, athletic, and civic organizations with a presence in or ties to the Pacific Northwest.”

For the Kraken, Starbucks is it’s Community Impact Partner to “help strengthen the community and advance inclusion and equity in Seattle…The partnership will focus on addressing the related, critical needs of access to resources and opportunity for young people.”  With two major local partnerships Starbucks shows consumers that they’re more than a latte by continually investing in their community.

Brands and rights are leveraging technology and creativity more than ever to reach their fans and followers. As audiences are more demanding on how they consume content, we are excited for how future activations will continue to evolve.

We are all busy people. Your calendar is filled with meetings, conference calls, and a to-do list that seems to never end. In the constantly changing landscape of business intelligence, how do we keep up with new technologies and skills while managing our challenging day-to-day work responsibilities? 

It seems like an impossible feat, but with some preparation and time you can determine which skills and technologies are most important to you and in what time frame you should accomplish them. 

Introducing the Time-Utility Matrix

In our research, we were inspired by this excellent 2018 Harvard Business Review article by Chris Littlewood on the topic of prioritizing data skills but wanted to put our sports and entertainment spin on it. 

Having a long wish list of skills and technologies to learn can be daunting. Where do I start? How much time does it take? How useful will it be? One way to help prioritize is to create a time-utility analysis based on the skills you want to learn. 

The analysis creates a 2 x 2 matrix based on time and utility. Running left to right is time; this is your best estimate on how long it will take you to master this skill. Running bottom to top is utility; this is the impact or usefulness of the skill on your work, it could be day-to-day impact or long term.

Understanding the Analysis 

Home Run (high utility, low time)

Maximum impact with one swing of the bat. A skill that you can master quickly and will have a direct and important impact on your work. 

Winning a Marathon (high utility, high time)

Pencil this one for multiple training sessions on your calendar. It will take time to master this skill, but the end result will be worth it. 

Dive Up the Middle (low utility, low time)

Have some extra time this week? Work on it when you can, but this one is unlikely to move the chains often so if something more important comes up you can move on. 

Bogeying 18 Holes (low utility, high time)

A long day without much to show for it. Re-think this skill’s importance to your daily tasks and send this one to the clubhouse. 

Try It Out

Now that we’ve explained the matrix and philosophy behind it, follow these steps to complete the matrix with the skills you want to master. 

Step 1: List all the skills you want to master within the next year. 

Step 2: Score each skill first by the utility you believe you’ll get from the skills (0-5), and then score the skill by the amount of time (best estimate) it’ll take to learn the skill (0-5). 

Step 3: Plot the skills on the matrix based on the scores in step 3. 

Step 4: Get to work! You should now have a clear idea of where to start in learning new skills.

Taking a step back and prioritizing your skill building according to the time-utility matrix will give you clarity and confidence as you expand your personal professional skill set. 

Skill development is a key part of your organization’s business intelligence strategy. Click here to view our whitepaper on seven key concepts in building a successful BI department. 

Today’s post was courtesy of Jordan Wetherbee, Business Intelligence Analyst for KORE Planning & Insights. It was inspired by this article from the Harvard Business Review.