Creating A Great Sports Campaign: Tim Crow’s 5 Lessons
This week saw the launch of UK sports marketing agency Redtorch’s new monthly podcast series: SportOnCreative.
With the tagline ‘great sports campaigns by the people who made them’, the series is dedicated entirely to the creativity of sports campaigns and aimed at those working in the industry.
Each episode features someone from the industry discussing their favourite campaign; how they made it, what worked, what didn’t and what we can be learned from the experience.
Episode 1 welcomed Tim Crow, the former CEO of international sports marketing agency Synergy and a key mind behind the marketing of the London 2012 Olympic Games.He focused on a particular campaign from the event – when he sent a fleet of remote-control mini MINIs whizzing around Olympic regulations to steal the show at the London 2012 Olympics and, in the process, created a new tool in the sports marketers’ playbook.
With three decades in the business here are the five lesson we learned from the discussion…
The Olympics called for more creativity than ever before
“No logos are allowed [across the Olympic Games] and there is so much noise around the event. It means you have to be exceptionally creative with your campaigns.”
Bravery is essential
“Really great campaigns require an element of bravery if you are going to cut through and generate headlines. It would have been very easy with the Mini MINIs campaign to say this is too risky, let’s play it safe instead. You can imagine some of the headlines might not have been great if they had broken down.”
A good strategy is not just what you’re going to do but what you’re not going to do
“If you have a good strategy in sports marketing then when opportunities come along you know whether they are the right fit or not. Because MINI is such a fun brand we knew when the opportunity came up.”
Great team chemistry is key
“When you’ve got great chemistry between the client, the agency and the rights holder that plays a huge part in the success of a campaign.”
Sports marketing shouldn’t forget to entertain
“I see a lot of sports marketing campaigns that are well-meant and purposeful, but I think a major reason people loved the Mini MINIs was for their entertainment value.”
For more campaign insights you can watch the show the SportOnCreative podcast is available on all platforms now.
