Why sponsoring (even) through digital channels can provide huge benefits.
If you are reading this article, it means that you are in front of a screen: whether it is pc, mobile, tablet or other, it matters little. The “digital revolution” that we are experiencing, and which is a protagonist of the daily life of each of us, opens up endless possibilities: in these few lines, we will try to delve into the topic related to investments for digital sponsorships, an opportunity for companies to gain more and more visibility (and most of the time at low prices).
Thus we enter the concept of “Digital Marketing,” which, in a nutshell, is nothing more than the promotion of one’s business through digital channels. And the concept of “Digital Sponsorship” is its direct consequence.
Referring to the world of sports, the most usual and historical examples of partnerships (both for top realities and in the amateur world) are related to the presence on the match jersey, rather than the visibility on the LEDs on the sidelines, on the mega-screens of the facilities or on the “interview backrops,” but also to the positioning of one’s brand on paper productions and/or flyers made by the Companies and distributed on the occasion of the matches.
But, nowadays, the perspective has changed. The digital revolution allows the creation of an innumerable amount of content that, if exploited in a concrete and dynamic way, can generate enormous visibility to potential partners of sports realities. We are talking about dedicated posts on social channels, visibility on official websites, presence on matchprograms, in newsletters or through dedicated communications on Telegram or Whatsapp: in short, everything that is usable at any instant, with a simple “click,” scrolling the wall of your favorite social network or reading a message.
All these possibilities, bring with them several positive aspects: the “social fanbase,” i.e., the sum of individual users who follow the official profiles of a team or sports entity, is always greater than the number of people actually present at an individual event. This means greater visibility, more people reached and, therefore, more potential new customers.
In addition to this, there is a temporal factor: sponsorship during a sporting event is tangible exclusively with the ongoing circumstance (taking a football example: every two weeks for about two hours) when fans are focused on the challenge at hand; in contrast, visibility on digital profiles can be (of course depending on the agreements between Company and client) daily, immediate and not “disturbed” by other factors that capture the fan’s attention more.
Speaking of numbers and analyzing the market, in the “Predictive Survey 2022: “The Future of sponsorship – Changing to endure” carried out by ChainOn and StageUp, shows how the sports sponsorship market is worth, globally, more than $57 billion, and in Italy $1.2 billion. Thanks to digital, it is seen as a great opportunity because it allows storytelling and content marketing to be managed, making it possible to break away from the advertising melting pot and, at the same time, offer new formats with strong potential even for SMEs and start-ups. In all this, it should not be forgotten how the digital evolution is also evident on the broadcasting of championships and major events: streaming will increasingly be a catalyst for sports phenomena, and opportunities such as the “Metaverse,” will be increasingly dominant and open up new and additional market opportunities and visibility.
There is still a current of thought today, which evaluates social media as an unserious and ineffective “pastime.” This reluctance leads, inevitably, to missed chances and opportunities: keeping up with the times, especially in the world of marketing and business, is fundamental and essential.
More and more sports entities are offering potential clients sponsorship packages that put digital visibility at the center. Digital sponsorship is the present and the future, and companies that today decide to invest in this area to make themselves known undoubtedly have benefits in the immediate term. But also, and perhaps most importantly, in the future.
ChainOn is at the forefront on the issue of digital sponsorships: within some “exclusive” packages offered by the Platform, in accorto with the various vendors, there are in fact collaboration possibilities that also include visibility on social networks, official pages, websites and whatnot. All this, leveraging blockchain technology and artificial intelligence, but also drastically reducing the time to create a collaboration and have everything available as soon as possible: these are aspects that, today more than ever, can revolutionize the sponsorship market. This is also an example of a “digital revolution.”
