Michael Cullen asks Livewire’s partners to outline their business plans
Anyone doing an online search for ‘Livewire’ will find what Google calls up is “an energetic and unpredictable person”. The people behind Core Media’s new sponsorship unit are no doubt happy with the “energetic” part of the definition. “Unpredictable” is more fraught as it conjures up thoughts of a maverick whose ideas may not sit easy with a cautious marketer.
But no worries. Livewire’s partners, Jill Downey and Jamie Macken, did their homework. They got a specialist names agency in Dublin on the case. Expert opinion by Create indicated that Livewire sparks lots of positive connotations in people’s minds, not least “vibrant”, “memorable”, “responsive” and “immediate”. When all was said and done, Livewire won out and five or so other options – none of which Downey cares to mention – were sidelined.
While various figures are offered as to the value of Ireland’s sponsorship market, Onside Sponsorship claims total spend rose by nine per cent to €136 million in 2014. A 12 per cent increase is predicted this year, giving a record high of €152m. Driving the increase will be the Rugby World Cup in England, economic growth and a jump in sponsorship rights fees.
Former Starcom deputy managing director Jill Downey said Livewire came about because of a growing trend towards sponsorship specialist agencies globally. Clients are in the market for dedicated expertise but nothing was available in Ireland covering the whole gambit: from strategy to rights negotiation and evaluation for brand owners and rights holders.
Livewire partner Jamie Macken produced TV commercials for P&G and live advertiser funded programming (AFP) for Nokia, Kellogg’s and Unilever in Cape Town in South Africa. He was a researcher on the Late Late Show and produced the 2010 Fifa World Cup for RTE Television. While at Thinkhouse, he worked on Heineken, 3 and the Irish Open golf.
ENERGETIC DUO Core Media’s Livewire will develop strategies, negotiate rights and evaluate brands and property rights. Jill Downey was deputy managing director at Starcom where her clients included AIB, Musgrave, the National Lottery and An Post. Jamie Macken, son of former Ireland international showjumper Eddie Macken, has extensive marketing expertise.
Dr Tony Meenaghan is – to use a soccer term – a loan signing for Livewire. As a professor of marketing at the UCD Smurfit Graduate Business School, he is a seasoned practitioner in commercial sponsorship. He is the author of Commercial Sponsorship, published by MCB University Press in 1984, widely regarded as the first major publication in its field.
He edited Researching Commercial Sponsorship, which Esomar, the world market research body, produced in 1995. His CV reads like a blueprint for an A-Z in sponsorship, with position papers for agency body International Advertising Association (IAA) and the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), which, like the AAI in Ireland, represents client interests.
He has chaired the Marketing.ie Agency of the Year awards and IAPI’s Adfx. In 2007, he was invited to join the GAA’s management committee for three years. He has helped judge the European Sponsorship Association (ESA) awards for the past six years. At the ESA’s most recent show in London, Liberty Insurance’s support for the GAA won silver.
Meenaghan says sponsorship is no different to most other areas of marketing in that it was adversely hit by the recession and clients cutting back on budgets. For years, sponsorship growth in most western economies climbed by at least 10 per cent annually. Suddenly, it all fell away as the revenue reliables – financial services, car brands and property – got hit.
Sponsorship spend is bouncing back again, albeit at a much slower rate. Meenaghan says rights holders have become more sophisticated. There was a time, not so long ago, when rights holders were naïve and unsophisticated in their practices. But with the switch from sponsors to rights holders, such as Uefa, the power to negotiate deals transferred over.
Growth in corporate social responsibility (CSR) through sponsorship developed. Meenaghan says there is a big demand for sponsorships seen to be acting altruistically. The trends in cause-related campaigns run by the ESB and others are catching on. CSR-related events are highly popular overseas, with bodies like the Football Association (FA) in England.
“The advent of social media has allowed sponsors do a host of new and different things,” Meenaghan says. “It’s allowed them engage and connect on a one-to-one basis and be responsive in real time.” Downey says Livewire plans to do surveys related to trends using Core Media’s Ignite Research and regular report updates on sponsorships spends.
The agency will conduct in-depth interviews with stakeholders to determine the successful ingredients which make relationships work. While there has been some uncertainty as to the value of sponsorship returns, Livewire intends to carry out its own studies which will allow it issue more rigorous and exact budget figures across categories and brands.
“The media data out there is getting more robust,” Downey says. “But if it doesn’t include sponsorship, it’s not giving clients the full picture. We’d like our system to be an add-on to the current ad spend model, helping rights holders. Where figures are underestimated, it’s not doing sponsorship any favours. So our job is to be sure about spend and stand over it.”
What about client conflict of interest? Downey smiles broadly, saying that if conflict is a problem from day one, let it happen. For any agency providing specialist expertise, especially in a market as small as Ireland, avoiding conflict is near impossible. Problems can be avoided by the right structures, such as confidential agreements, being hammered out in advance.
Government plans to ban or curb sponsorship of sports and arts events by drinks companies have been waived following intensive talks between Government departments, including the Department of An Taoiseach. Worries about a lack of replacement funds to support major sponsorships in the event of an alcohol ban, are said to have influenced the decision.
Spend from drinks companies on sports and arts sponsorships are worth about €25m a year. Health Minister Leo Varadkar says the focus will be on introducing legislation aimed at controlling alcohol minimum pricing, adequate calorie content labelling on products, structural placement of alcohol products in-store and new advertising regulations.
Ireland’s fifth annual Sponsorship Summit takes place in Croke Park on February 26. About 300 delegates are expected to turn up to hear speakers from near and far discussing sports, arts and music sponsorships. Among the headline speakers is Patrick Nally, the man credited as the driving force behind the multi-tier sponsorship model created in the 1970s.
Dedra DeLilli, head of social media, marketing and corporate sponsorships at Nebraska-based online broker TD Ameritrade, will share insights from her work with London 2012, Sochi 2014 and the NFL. Richard Ayers, boss of Seven Leagues and former head of digital at Manchester City FC, will explain how marketers can up their digital media game.
For Livewire’s Man Utd fans, it’s game on.
