What the 2022 Masters Can Teach Sports Marketers
Tiger Woods fans hoping the 2022 Masters would deliver a Hollywood-worthy return to form for the all-time great had to settle for less during last weekend’s tournament, when Woods finished 13-over. But Woods still likely juiced viewership numbers and received a standing ovation in his first tournament back on the green since a serious car accident took him off the tour almost 17 months ago.
For marketers hoping to capitalize on the Masters and similar sporting events via sponsorships, the event, which saw Scottie Scheffler edge out Rory McIlroy and capture his first major, came with a few lessons. Among them are telling creative stories aligned with the sponsored event, building audience-targeted campaigns, and accounting for shifting viewer demographics.
Let’s dive into what it meant for marketers to maximize the value of Masters sponsorships — and how these lessons can guide sports sponsors in general.
With sports sponsorships, tell creative stories that fit the event
The Masters, golf’s Super Bowl, is famously wary of corporate advertising. The tournament this year had just six sponsors, according to Forbes: AT&T, Delta, IBM, Mercedes Benz, Rolex, and UPS. And while logos proliferate at other golf events, they are scarcely to be seen at the Masters, which is believed to have modeled its pristine look on the logo-averse Olympics.
These restrictions force the sponsors who do get the opportunity to work with the Masters to tell creative stories that fit the event’s unusual parameters. For example, Mercedes, incapable of slapping its logo on signs throughout the Augusta National course, gave this year’s golfers the new electric Mercedes EQS to cruise around the tournament. It also provided sprinter vans to shepherd around VIPs.
While more overt out-of-home advertising strategies are imaginable, Mercedes’ approach drives media attention and also fosters the air of sleek, luxury service for which both the auto brand and the Masters are known. Mercedes could further maximize the value of its sponsorship by using location data to corroborate whether anonymized devices tied to the Masters can be connected to post-event purchases or dealership visits.
Another example of golf sponsors telling a good story through strategic sponsorships is Centinel Spine’s past sponsorship of Tiger Woods. Woods, who has suffered from debilitating back issues, partnered with the company, which focuses on anterior column reconstruction and played a key role in Woods’ own comeback from back injuries. The targeted nature of this partnership means a small logo on Woods’ back at an event would go much further with golf fans than the average sponsorship — something sports marketers can measure via data such as searches for Woods and the company name.
Craft sports sponsorships around specific audiences
Another lesson the Masters offers in sports marketing comes from IBM. Just as Mercedes got around the event’s signage restrictions by offering free rides to golfers and VIPs, IBM thought outside the box by offering its computing power to the tournament. The company used its technology to predict player performance each day based on 22 factors such as weather and past performance.
What’s remarkable about IBM’s approach is not just that it responded to the Masters’ constraints through a display of its technology, which likely goes further toward converting fans to customers than a commercial or sign. IBM’s sponsorship of the Masters is also targeted toward a fan demographic that is skewed on the side of high-level corporate decision-makers. This audience is disproportionately likely to follow golf and to be the target audience for IBM’s solutions.
IBM’s Masters sponsorship is another example of how sponsors working with limited real estate or TV time can maximize the value of their investments through creativity and a strategic, targeted approach.
Account for shifting demographics
When most marketers think of golf fans, they likely think of relatively old, white, affluent audiences. And in large part, this is likely still true.
But golf is getting younger. In addition to the 25-year-old champion Scheffler, six of the other athletes in the top 10 are under 30. The top 10 is increasingly racially diverse and global. In addition, a new Netflix docuseries set to be shot in August promises to bring the tour to disproportionately young streaming audiences.
The lesson here is that marketers must remain abreast of shifting demographics and capitalize on opportunities to connect sports sponsorships to new audiences. For example, sponsors might consider partnering with some of the younger top athletes, maybe even engaging those with lively social presences for campaigns on youth-focused platforms like Snapchat or TikTok. Brands previously foreign to sports like golf might also consider getting in on the action.
For all of the above, data can guide the way, taking sports out of the limited realm of brand awareness and into direct-response campaigns, bottom-of-funnel conversions, and multi-touch attribution. With the right data and targeting, brands can transform sports sponsorships from a long-term brand awareness play into a full-funnel effort with measurable returns. As Mercedes and IBM demonstrated at this year’s Masters, that’s the path to beating par.
FanAI helps brands understand and measure sponsorship impact on sales using unique insights to maximize investments. Our mission is to help brands realize the true value of sponsorships by proving their impact on sales, and our vision is to be the leader in optimizing brand marketing performance.
