Chasing the Sweet Spot of Sponsorship x Social Media in Sports

There was a segment on SportsCenter that used to end each show back in the '90s and '00s called 'Did You Know?' It would leave viewers with a fun or interesting fact and it was brought to you by Invesco. Because as the voiceover told viewers, "You should know what Invesco knows."

Decades later and I still remember it so well. That's what good sponsored content can do.

It's that sweet spot that people like Alex Kopilow are chasing — where fans enjoy the content (I loved 'Did You Know?') and the sponsor accomplishes what they're after. Kopilow sits at the center of the growing ecosystem of social media in sports and sponsorship. In helping to construct digital and social activations, Kopilow and his colleagues aim for that intersection where fans and partners win.

“I think about what translates across any industry is, whether it's organic content or branded content, you really have to think in terms of strategy of matching the expectations of fans when they hit the follow button," said Kopilow, who is the Senior Manager of Digital for the Global Partnership Solutions group at MSG Sports, which runs the New York Knicks and New York Rangers, among other properties, following his time with the Chicago White Sox. "Why do they follow the White Sox? Why do they follow the Knicks or the Rangers?... It's all about matching expectations of why people are following you in the first place and when coming up with any idea you need to keep that as your North Star when building things out.”

Tracing back the history of sponsorship in sports often goes back to the billboard — the signage on the walls and boards at games. Not every fan may know what Citgo does, let alone what makes its product superior, but any fan that attended a Red Sox game at Fenway Park over the years surely remembers the Citgo sign that sat above the big 'Green Monster' wall at the famed venue. The ballpark billboard still thrives today and extends to the social media realm with the logo-ed graphic.

If there are 162 games in a Major League Baseball (MLB) season, that's 162 starting lineup graphics with a brand logo and millions of impressions, for example. Such frequent exposure is great for brand awareness, so it makes sense for a sponsor where brand awareness is a key objective of the partnership. But that's one of many potential goals for a partnership in sports and it's the responsibility of Kopilow and his group to uncover fan-friendly, viable, feasible ways to activate a partnership that aligns with the objectives of both sides. Kopilow talked about the framework with which they approach a sponsor and how to arrive at that magical sweet spot.

“We go throughout the marketing funnel, so you definitely have your awareness goals where you have partners who just need brand recognition within your audience. So those are really great for high frequency, you know, your starting lineups, your final scores, something that's going to appear every single game day...," said Kopilow, who went on to explain the partner goals that go beyond awareness.

“I think a lot of partners now want to go a little bit deeper," he said. "They want to really push product consideration and, you know, what are the best ways to show off your product? Is it the New York Giants using a Pepsi Zero Sugar can and doing a can challenge with their players and trying to roll it to the end of the table without it falling off and that's a natural integration?...

“Then of course lead generation. I think there's a lot of opportunity with lead generation that can continue to be used throughout the industry to help generate leads for partners. I think the teams have a lot to offer by way to get that information whether it's tickets to a game, whether it's unique experiences that teams can offer, it really gets people to opt in and be willing to pass along their information to the end goal partner...

"If you're doing the right kind of partnership from the jump, that means there's an attraction to have that audience and now you've generated it for a partner.”

Lead generation is where the promise of social and digital really comes to the forefront. It's not impossible, but it's not easy, to tie new individual customers or purchases to a billboard or logo placement — with digital and social platforms it can be. But remember what Kopilow said about fan expectations and why they follow their favorite teams on these platforms? Their primary purpose for spending time with their team's content on social is not to discover a partner deal or learn about its latest product or promotion or sign up for a sweepstakes or special offer subscription.

That doesn't mean fans won't engage with such content on social media, but it's not the recipe for keeping followers engaged and winning their trust that stopping their scroll for your content is worthwhile. Kopilow discussed how teams can approach lead generation with their powerful platforms on social, matching the right strategy to the partner goal.

“I think the big thing when it comes to lead generation is it's a natural fit with sports partnerships. I think where teams can go wrong is when they try to do that only via organic social media," said Kopilow, who started his career pursuing sports broadcasting and journalism. "They're trying to drive lower funnel tactics with organic social, which is really not made for that. All these social channels are really telling you ‘We want to keep you on the platform.’ Meanwhile, you're trying to drive them off, right?

"So it's making sure, again, back in that beginning stage of saying like, hey, if we're going to try to drive people to this website, we need to make sure we're [using] the right tactic, maybe using paid media, maybe using email, SMS, using your app to really drive people that way to make sure that you're achieving that goal.”

Teams are rightfully protective of their organic social media, because when you're competing with tons of other brands, creators, celebrities, and a fan's friends and family for attention any rupture of that trust, of that relationship, can be detrimental in the short-term and catastrophic in the long-term. That's why the increased collaboration in recent years between the social media and content teams in the daily trenches and those putting together the deals like Kopilow is so essential.

It was not all that long ago when sponsored social meant an incoming email from the partnerships teams with a verbatim post meant for copying and pasting onto the team's platforms. Thankfully, those days are largely long gone as partnerships and content teams work in harmony, playing within established lines of repeatable content series, as well as flexibly creating and innovating new ones.

"The most important thing is speaking directly with your content team and being in lockstep with them," Kopilow explained. "You have to be deeply ingrained within your content team to understand what are their brand standards, what can we offer, how are they feeling about an execution and what's going on in the market.

“So a menu [of sponsorable social media assets] is definitely important to have and also important to have from an organizational standpoint to see where are the opportunities, where do we have too much, where do we have too little just to understand as you're going throughout the year. But then yes, no matter what you do, you can have the best menu out there, there are going to be opportunities where you have to come up with something completely custom and that's fine."

Social media evolves quickly, and the trends and the algorithms that lie beneath the platforms evolve even faster. So as opportunities arise, the lines of communication, coordination, and cooperation have to keep up, Kopilow described.

"It's sitting down with the teams and understanding what's the flow of a game day and a non-game day, what are we already doing and are we comfortable putting a partner on it, and if so, how?" he said, talking about what forming that initial menu can look like. "But then also making sure to stay close with your content teams about how they feel about it. You know, just because it's on the menu — and this is what I tell my content teams all the time — just because you've told me we can put it on the menu doesn't mean I'm just going to go and sell it. Like at any time during the season if it's going to go in a pitch, I'm going to check with them and be like, ‘Are we still good and are we still as constructed?’"

We're talking a lot about the benefits of a collaborative relationship the partnerships and content squads on the team, but we can't forget about the party who's ultimately signing the checks — the sponsor. They may come in with their own ideas, or they may pick something from the menu that the team later determines isn't working well anymore, for whatever reason. This is an important part of the greater conversation — and central to landing on that sweet spot where the activation is something both the sponsor and the content team are excited to bring to fans. Luckily, Kopilow said, data drives that conversation and helps lead the direction.

"As long as you come with that data-backed rationale and the fact of how it aligns with their goals and their standards, I think anyone's always willing to shift," he said. "I think partners are super amenable to that. Like, if you're just upfront with them about the why and the rationale, why wouldn't they want to perform better? I think everybody wants the top performance. So I think if you're doing a good job of that storytelling and presenting that data, then you're really going to succeed.”

Kopilow went deeper in discussing data, which gets better and more sophisticated with each passing year. It's easy to focus on the biggest numbers, the so-called 'vanity metrics' — and sometimes that's fine — but richer, more analytical framing of data can get at more important measures of what signifies a successful activation.

"I think it's really important when you report on the back end to frame up the results in the way that's going to be impactful," explained Kopilow. "So what I mean by that specifically is instead of reporting on just total impressions or just total engagements, it's impressions per post and how does that compare to your channel average or the way it went last year? Engagements per post, engagement rates — what are the benchmarks you can compare that to? And then there are some in-depth metrics that you can use if you're talking about a little bit more long-form video content, what is the average percentage viewed and how long are people listening?

"I think it's just being good about putting data forward, contextualizing it with benchmarks, and making sure it really fits the goals and their target audience. So it's basically showing that you listen to the partner when they said, ‘Here's what we want’ or ‘Here's what we want to achieve’, right?... You need to show that the data represents that you've listened to the partner and why you’re recommending something.”

It's something special to see sponsored social media content that just works perfectly. Where it seems like such a perfect fit for the team's content and the partner's messaging — it's the proverbial round peg in the round hole. Nail it and decades later a generation of fans may just remember that 'You should know what Invesco knows.' Mission accomplished for that partner goal.

LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH ALEX KOPILOW