It’s no secret that one of the most difficult assignments that a sports marketing publicists has is gaining positive earned media for a brand’s promotion in broad range consumer publications. Virtually all brand promotion stories end up in trade publications. That’s because sports journalists are more interested in what athletes are doing than what marketers are doing.
However, the FIFA World Cup schedule provides a rare opportunity for sports marketing publicists. Why? Because the World Cup competitions will take place in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Seattle in the United States, as well as in Canada and Mexico. That provides opportunities for savvy publicists to create national publicity programs with local angles, because the nonsports media in those locations will be looking for World Cup stories that have local interest.
But in order to take advantage of those opportunities sports marketing publicists must take off their blinders and ignore sports writers. They must develop stories that appeal to journalists who do not cover sports but are looking for a World Cup tie-in because of its international flavor. These include local/national/international news, business, entertainment, lifestyle and opinion journalists. Why should PR practitioners concentrate on those instead of sports reporters for a sports event? Because there are many more journalists who cover those beats than there are sports writers and many of them will be looking for angles that apply to their beats, and because of the controversial nature of the event it provides elements that can be covered on more than pure sports reports. These journalists should be targeted with featurish sports-related angles and leave the playing on the pitch to sports writers.
One of the things early in my public relations career that caught the eyes of top management was my ability to expand the publicity map by promoting client’s sports marketing associations with journalists who normally do not write about sports. And because World Cup stories provide so many different elements and will be played in three countries, it should be easy for creative publicists who think out of the box to develop stories that appeal to the many different segments of print and television journalists.
The World Cup, which will be played between June 11 and July 19, is the world’s most popular sports event. And sports marketing publicists will be under intense pressure to promote their clients’ involvement. Sports writers will be busy filing hard news stories. Ignoring brand promotional pitches will be the norm, as it usually is.
But there is a way publicists can circumvent the problem: Ignore sports writers.
In keeping with the media craze that is sure to occur in the U.S. because World Cup competitions will take place in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Seattle, if I was strategizing a sponsoring brand’s publicity outreach, I would craft a six pronged strategy that would target local media: 1) I would engage a well-known soccer player and arrange interviews explaining the ABC’s of the game and target non-sports media; 2) I would arrange soccer clinics for youngsters featuring a well-known soccer player who would provide the instructions; 3) As youth soccer grows so does lateral ankle sprains, ACL tears, hamstring strains, groin pulls, and concussions injuries associated with the sport. Thus, I would engage a sports physician and arrange interviews about how best to avoid these injuries, some of which can be lessened by proper physical conditioning, and what to do if someone is injured; and 4) I would have a nutritionist talk about how an individual should eat before participating in a strenuous sports activity and what to do afterward.
All of the above are tactics that any novice PR practitioner should be able to recommend. Below are ones that take out-of-the-box thinking.
I would arrange interviews with business journalists for high-level brand executives in different countries during which he/she would explain why sports sponsorships are an important part of the marketing strategy, emphasizing how different marketing strategies are tailored for audiences in different countries. Because the World Cup will be televised internationally, the interviews should not be limited to the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
For political opinion columnists, I would have the client hire a well-known international analyst and arrange interviews during which he/she would talk about how important an international event like the World Cup is in helping bring people from different countries together.
I would present the above under the umbrella of “The World’s Most Popular Sport,” thus giving it a national and international angle. Instead of using one athlete as a spokesperson, as is the norm for sports marketing programs, I would employ different retired soccer players as spokespersons for different parts of the world and introduce them at a press conference prior to the beginning of competition in each country.
In implementing the above, I would break one of my cardinal rules – that publicity without client talking points are worthless. In this case, only the brand’s corporate executives in the United States, Canada and Mexico and selected other countries would be tasked to deliver talking points, because it would be difficult and an unnatural fit for many individuals involved to hawk a product. Client recognition would consist of extensive signage.
As a backup to press coverage of the events, I would engage with local photographers to shoot photos and rush them to the local wire service offices, local newspapers and international photo services covering the World Cup and make certain that all events were staged in locations that newspaper and TV stations found convenient. I would also have a TV crew do the same and offer footage to local television stations and to foreign TV media covering the World Cup.
Regardless of the type of account an individual is assigned to, I believe that the best way to catch a journalist’s eyes is to disregard the tenets of public relations and think out- of- the- box when crafting story angles. Because the World Cup will be played in many different locations and countries it provides many ways to do so. Doing it successfully will result in a happy client and catch the attention of top management at your agency as it did at the two agency’s I toiled at for 35 years – 10 at Advance Public Relations and nearly 25 at, Burson-Marsteller – before opening my own consultancy.
It separated me from the pack and led me to manage and play key positions on national and international flagship accounts, which kept me from being limited, as the majority of account handlers were, to try and convince journalists that a #10 pencil is better than a #9.
While I always encouraged people who reported to me to try and think out of the box, it’s not always necessary.
If you have a true hard news story reporters will jump on it; likewise if you represent an established news maker. But most of our offerings to journalists do not fit in those categories. They are soft stories that journalists don’t need, and they get hundreds of such pitches daily. Thus, if you can come up with unusual angles by thinking out -of –the-box the chances of its resulting in a call back from a reporter is greatly enhanced. And you don’t
have to be a member of Mensa to do so. Just dismiss the stale tenets of public relations that are taught in communications schools and practiced by most PR practitioners and think for yourself.
