How Leicester Tigers provide added-value for commercial partners

HOW LEICESTER TIGERS PROVIDE ADDED-VALUE FOR COMMERCAL PARTNERS

Adam Sandham, Partnerships Business Development Manager at Leicester Tigers, shares an insight into the club’s innovative approach and added value for commercial partners.

The historic Leicester Tigers have become a stalwart of English rugby union, with a number of impressive records and achievements that hold them up as one of the best teams in operation throughout the Premiership Rugby era.

Their success on the pitch has led to effective commercial growth and with their forward-thinking ideas around positive relationships between themselves and their commercial partners, it can only be seen that this continues to flourish long into the future.

What association do you seek to make between Leicester Tigers and the sponsor?

As a club, we are all about our proud history and exciting future so when we are working with a partner we really want to transfer that over to them. At the moment, we are all about the journey; obviously we have been going through a bit of a difficult time during Covid and beforehand on and off the pitch, we have now brought in Steven Borthwick as Head Coach and Aled Walters as Head of Physical Performance. We’ve brought these people in because we are going through a new journey led by Andrea Pinchen, who became CEO in May 2020.”

What makes Rugby and Leicester Tigers attractive to a sponsor?

We don’t really call them sponsors as such because it is a partnership, we work together to deliver specific objectives relevant to the specific brand and their challenges. Every partner we work with has a goal and has to benefit from this relationship and we strive to do that effectively, which is testament to why our average partnership last 5 to 6 years as proof we continually deliver, season after season.

We are a very commercially (forward) thinking club. When working with partners we sit down with them and drill down why is it you want to achieve these goals and how we can work together, acting as that natural extension of their marketing department.

We try to work with our partners as close as possible to monitor what they are doing, what is working and what isn’t. It’s a difficult time for everybody and you’ve got to get that messaging across.

An example of how we have done this is through one of their longest partnerships with Leicester based national brand, Mattioli Woods. One of their biggest objectives is to meet people to build connections, which in the world of coronavirus is very difficult. So, what we did is sat down with them and formulated a virtual plan to enable introductions. We found there was still an appetite across the Midlands for business professionals to connect with one and other, however, everyone seemed Zoomed out. What we decided was to utalise a virtual platform that enabled virtual networking tables and couple this with the Leicester Tigers Business Club. After reviewing the events so far, we found it to be a great success!

Through using Leicester tigers and this business networking opportunity to draw fans in for Mattioli Woods, they were able to build report and network because as soon as this all finishes, when people are allowed to meet again, they are on the front foot already and are able to get out there and connect.

What role do you think sponsors can play in rebuilding the live sports experience both at home and in stadiums?

They’ll be key, acknowledging that the supporter experience and sponsorship world is going to be very different. There is going to be a lot more emphasis on human touchpoints and

brands being able to create those touchpoints on a matchday and through virtual experiences outside of those at the stadium. What people are starting to act on is the wider fanbase to target fans on a matchday, to get them involved even when they are not at the stadium.

The pandemic has allowed us to be able to sit down and take a moment to really think about what we are doing and where we want to go. Sometimes you can often get lost within a season.

However, a real positive is that it allowed us to become more innovative in creating new commercial opportunities and thinking more digitally, one thing this pandemic has done is speed the digital age up by something like six years.

How do you judge the return on investment for both parties?

It’s all about talking to each other. When we meet partners, we want to drill down on what their objectives are and the metrics of success that apply to each objective because, ultimately, that allows us to monitor it much easier and provides clarity between both partner and Club around expectations.

It’s very important to keep working with partners and speaking to ask ‘Is this working?’ And if it’s not, let’s try something different.

For us, having that open conversation with companies and flexibility as a club if things aren’t working, really goes down well. We know that we are in this partnership together and we want to achieve as much for them as they do for us because ultimately, that leads to a positive long-term relationship. ◆

Leicester Tigers have created a ‘pop-up’ marketing support division to assist their commercial partners through the COVID-19 pandemic, and now beyond. Known as Tigers Help & Expertise (THE) Hub, the new division effectively acts as an in-house agency, providing support for club partners to dial in as they need it across areas including design, creative, sponsorship activation and sales.

“We have held lots of conversations with our partners about how we can support each other through a challenging time, especially those partners who’s resource has been halved or more potentially, and how we are here to help,” explains Adam. “When we have partners come on board, not all brands are fortunate enough to have big marketing teams, some only have a small team and don’t have time to put aside for this stuff. So, we give them access to our videographers, graphic designers and marketers – whether it’s to do with Leicester Tigers or wider capabilities across their whole business.”

Adam asserts that THE Hub will continue to assist partners in various ways over the coming months, including helping to activate other partnerships in the brand’s portfolio or providing design services for the production of annual corporate brochures.

“A prime example is Toyo Tires, our Tyre partner. If they haven’t got time to create the artwork they want on a news release for their wider business, they can send us a design brief and we create it as if an agency would. It cuts out that middleman and some brands don’t have that money to use an agency.

“It has added big value to our partnerships, even the bigger brands that we work with as well. What we’ve realised is you can never have too many hands and some companies may unfortunately have people on furlough so they might not be up to the normal numbers of staff. This gives them the support they need, and we want to add value in ways we never have before.

“The pandemic has brought us closer to our partners and, by offering this wider support mechanism as they continue to support us, this will be great for the long-term development of the club, our staff and future partnerships.” ◆