UP279 How to ambush the World Cup

Hello, welcome to Unafficial Partner, I'm Richard Gillis. Today, we're talking about ambushing. Hands up, there's a stick up, give me the money. Hands up, this is a stick up, give me the money. Oh yes, that's it. How is hands, this is a stick, how is your stick, this is not hand tool. There we go, dark hand tool. I mean, this is a stick up, how is your stick? It's horrific for Matthew. Oh, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Hands up, man. Hoppers dancing feet. It comes with a greatest player on the planet. It's messy, it's messy, messy, messy, messy. That last clip is what prompted this episode. It's the soundtrack from a current Pepsi commercial. You've probably seen it, learn all messy, run all denier, and pull Pogba playing football in the desert. There's no direct reference to the upcoming FIFA World Cup nor of the host country, Qatar, but anyone working in sport understands what's going on. It's a classic piece of ambush marketing, perfectly legal, but as you're about to hear, it makes some people really angry. Trying to work out what year your Olympic track suit top is. This is 2018, and Biong Shang. Is that your last one? It's my latest one, yes. This is Ricardo Fault, who's been a guest on the podcast previously, and he's someone who's views on this subject I often seek out because he's been there and he's done it, running global sports marketing divisions for Coca-Cola and previously, Visa, to a FIFA's longest serving official partners. So it's fair to say that Ricardo knows a thing or two about ambush marketing. You get quite emotional about it. We put a Pepsi ad up. Parasites, gorillas, ambushes, whatever we call them. What is it that annoys you so much about it, do you think? Well, I care about the industry. I know how important the sponsorship investments are for sports in general. And every time I see somebody cheating the game and just working around the rules to pretend they are involved, I think it's a sign for everybody else that it's possible to do it and therefore you shouldn't invest. And I don't want us to go down this path because I think that's the wrong thing to do and I think that's dangerous for sports. At this point, we just need to talk about money because this is a subject that's about many things. And through this podcast, we're going to cover the topic of ambush marketing from several perspectives about the legality and ethics of it, the strategic wisdom of it, the creative challenge it poses, whether or not football fans notice or indeed care about it. And finally, how the official partnership model might evolve. But first of all, let's just talk about income. In the last published accounts, FIFA, soccer's global governing body, reported revenues of $4.6 billion for 2020. The World Cup year. And the top line breakdown of that money is quite useful. The amount is made up of five main revenue categories. The sale of television broadcasting rights contributes to most with 56% of the total income and amounts to about $2.6 billion. Sponsorship income, which is what we're talking about here, the marketing rights comes second with $1.353 billion. And contributes about 29% to FIFA revenues. And that money comes from official FIFA partners. Currently, there are seven FIFA partners who've got global rights. That's the top end, the top level. And they can use FIFA's branding during all tournaments and across all branches. Those seven FIFA partners are Adidas, Coca-Cola, Wander Group, Hyundai, Kia, Qatar, Airways, Qatar Energy and Visa. And then below that, the second tier consists of World Cup sponsors. And these are companies that have got global rights as well, but are restricted to a particular World Cup tournament in the buildup and during. And FIFA has got seven World Cup sponsors, Budweiser, BGU, crypto.com, high cents, McDonald's, Meng Nui, Dairy, which is mentioned by Ricardo Lateran, and Vivo consumer electronics company. And in the current setup, FIFA has 68 slots for FIFA partners and World Cup sponsors. In the future, there's going to be an extra tier because they've recalibrated their sponsorship inventory to include specific rights around men's women's and esports. There's also regional World Cup sponsors, and you can knock yourself out by going and looking at that list. It's quite extensive, but you get the point. There is an official family of partners around the World Cup. The Pepsi ad is just a useful way in to talk about Coca-Cola and its official relationship with FIFA. And obviously given Ricardo's background, that's where I think we should go into more detail. Let's go back to Ricardo. How defensible is category exclusivity as an idea, do you think? Not much, and that's at the core of the problem with ambush. Because rights holders are selling exclusivity, but there's only so much control they can offer. So, ambush, what is real ambush? It's very rare to happen. And you have to be really unprofessional. You have to be really, you know, understaffed, under-resourced, not to pay attention in all the rules and do an ambush that is defensible. Most of the activity we see are not ambush. They are playing with the rules and there's nothing legal that can be done against all these brands. So, the exclusivity is a dream that the sponsors are buying and a promise that it's impossible to be fulfilled by the rights holders in practical terms. What would happen if you took category exclusivity out of the package that is sold? I think most of the leading brands will choose not to sponsor, because they grew up looking at the sponsorship as something that is exclusive that offers protections that differentiates them against competition. So, the moment to take it away, you are removing one of the biggest motivation for sponsors to invest. But you have to have in mind that very few events have the interest from sponsors to have multiple brands in the same category sponsoring. So, we are really talking about, no, three or four events in the world and not everybody else. This is not a question for the everyday sponsors. What was the conversation? You've been at Visa and at Coca-Cola to massive global brands with obvious competitor brands. And presumably you knew that something was coming each time. You know that there will be an attempt or there will be some work put out. What was the internal conversation at the brand about it? How much time did you spend talking about it? Well, quite a lot for different reasons. So, in one hand, you have to proactively work with the rights holders to make sure that everybody else that you think are your competitors are notified that they cannot do what they might be thinking about doing. So, we work with FIFA or the IOC or UF, you name it, to say you are going to send letters to this list of companies here to tell them that we have the rights they don't. And if they do something that infringes our rights, there will be legal consequences. So, this is part of the work. Then there is a second piece of the work which is just tracking and you know, having the people in the company aware of the rights so that they can track and help to report what's going on. And then there is a third piece of work which is often not very much discussed, which is educating senior management of what the rights are. So, you know, you know, CEO, CFO, CMO, they see something where they are consuming media or watching sports and they say, well, why they are doing this? And then you have to run to fix the problem that they perceive as a problem. When the reality is you have to educate them on this is what is possible, this is what you are likely to see, this is what these sponsors are doing or might be doing. So, that when they see it, there is no emergency meetings on a Sunday afternoon after a football game to figure out what to do. So, your concern then as a marketer within a big company is the C suite, CEO, C something and is surprised by it? It is one of the concerns. Of course, the main concern is protect the value that you bought, right? So, you pay for something, you want to make sure that only you get what you pay for and nobody else. So, that's the everyday job. The C suite is something that you also have to do to make sure that they help you sort out problems when there are problems. But they don't react emotionally when a no problem comes up because that will happen. Now, we saw some commercials recently being launched which are not an ambush per se. And I can see people inside all these companies complaining about, you go to the office. there and you tell FIFA that they cannot do this. When they're reality they can. And you have to, as a sponsorship profession, you have to deal with that. - Can you clarify, it's interesting, as you mentioned that a couple of times. I've seen, the two I've seen most recently are the Pepsi commercial in the desert, obvious connotations with Pogba and Messi and Ronaldinho, and they're doing the usual stick footballers and running through streets, et cetera. But there's an obvious connotation that this is somewhere in the Middle East. And we're expected to make that jump. That's the obvious story that's being told. And the other one is Etihad, which I've seen, which again, two old footballers mugging up, acting. It's not very particularly creative. They land on the fork and as the sort of symbol that's being flown over. But you're making a specific argument for a particular definition of ambush by the sounds of it. How do you define it? - Well, neither of these examples are legally classified as ambush because they don't use the marks. They are not pretending. They are sponsors. The setting and everything they show feels like it's Qatar, feels like it's the workup, feels like. But you don't have a case to take it to court. And I think that's the problem here. Because what we're discussing in most cases is a moral problem and not a legal problem. And you have to have this definition very clear because lawyers can do nothing against the competitor if there is a moral problem. I think what Pepsi has done, it's very smart, very well done, great execution, great story. But at the same time, they are trying to pretend they are something that they are not. And I know a lot of people at Pepsi, I have a lot of friends at Pepsi, they are great marketers in everything they do. So it surprises me that they will still default to this kind of tricks when it comes to the workup. Because think about the same situation at the NFL where they are the official sponsors. So if another beverage company, Kolkona decides to do something that clearly looks like the NFL, but it isn't, that's, I think that's exactly. And I'm not saying that all the companies that I work for have never done this. I've seen examples before, I was against them, I fought to prevent them. Sometimes I won, sometimes I didn't. But I think that companies that have the structure, the knowledge, the people, the money, to do the right thing, when they choose to do the wrong thing. In my view, what's wrong thing? They are detracting value from who they are. And I think that's a problem. In the Middle East, that's very common. So I wasn't surprised to see Etihad doing what they did. Because they play by rules which are not as the same ones as North America, Western Europe, where I have plenty of lawyers to take care of all of that. So that didn't surprise me. Same thing, you go to China, Ely and Manu, they are fighting right now during the work. Because Manu signed a sponsorship with FIFA for Qatar. So they have the official rights. And they have Messi as a brand ambassador, and which is their competitor. They signed the Argentina national team. So now you have Messi in two packages of two brands competing. And I guess both brands are losing this battle because consumers see no difference between them. So you've got ethical versus legal. I mean, as you said, it's legal, but you question the ethics. And it's almost like they can't help themselves. World cup, it's too big a moment for them not to do it. So it's just an impulse that they immediately do it. There's a question, I guess, in terms of, if you step back, I'm wondering if it works or what the implications of it. So if I'm Pepsi or if I'm Etiad or if I'm another, if I'm Paddy Power or I'm looking at this and say, "Okay, I'm going to do this." It feels like there's different certain brands have this position, the outsider position embedded into their DNA. Paddy Power might be one of them. Nike might be another one that strategically I can sort of feel that, yeah, that's consistent with their other work. That's the sort of thing they would do. But then there's others like Mastercard or Pepsi examples, where I think actually that's strategically a bit out of kilter. Do you think it says, "I'm just wondering what the strategic impulse would be?" And whether it actually fundamentally works for them as a brand? Well, I think it depends on some of the brands that you mentioned there. I think there are different examples of different situations. So Paddy Power, for example, they are clearly an ambusher. Clear, they push the boundaries of what can be done. It's part of their brand. They are funny and the kind of communication they do. So this is one thing. Pepsi is different because they are big, global, reputable brands. And they sponsor a lot. Pepsi invests more in sponsorships than Coca-Cola. I think they only, in beverage, they are only second to, has a bush in bed. So they are a big sponsor. So it's not like they play by the same rules. Because I think Pepsi has a lot more to lose than Paddy Power. And I think that's what surprises me when they do something like that. Not so surprised by the airlines in the Gulf, because that happens, and I've seen this happening before, but going back to the question of the moral issue, if I am a Wall Street analyst, and I look at the performance of the company, and we talk so much about, yes, G today, and how companies are managed, et cetera, et cetera, and then you see a behavior that is inconsistent with what the company is saying about, I respect people, I respect rules, I respect, I play by the rules, and you see this behavior. And you're an analyst, you're saying, OK, that's not good. I don't think that's sustainable over time. And I think that eventually, Wall Street will start punishing companies that are doing things like that. Not because they are illegal, but just because they are inconsistent with everything else they same who they are. So that's why I don't think there's any room for companies, no publicly traded companies, big global brands, two things like that. They have a lot more to lose than to win. And by the way, head Pepsi done is exactly the same commercial in New York. Now, the setting is no longer the Middle East, is in New York. It would still be a great commercial. It would still be entertaining. It would still make people think about, but it would be different. And I think it would be more acceptable for everybody, or everybody, no, for me. So this is why I think they're, at some point, they need to figure out who they want to be more than, just take advantage of the event. When category exclusivity was first developed, and I guess we're talking about in the early days, in the 80s, maybe, or 70s and 80s, various people will lay claim to being the founders of the model. But category exclusivity was around about 70s and 80s. When the rights holders were seen differently, I think, at that point, the IOC FIFA, they were relatively small organizations. And the argument that an official partner was part of the apparatus that defended sport in that way, in a moral sense. My personal view is that that's less of an argument now. It's very hard to stand up for the IOC and for FIFA. And you're referring away now and say, if I'm a brand, I stand with these ethical powerhouses. Because it doesn't feel like the same argument. The money at the time was much more important back in the 80s than it is now. And I just think, I guess the question is whether or not it's just an aging idea that brands have clung to because FIFA don't need defending by Coca-Cola. I think you're right, because if organizations like FIFA or the IOC decided not to include exclusivity in their future sponsorships, there will still be demand for that. There will always be companies in different markets that, you know, in a beverage company may choose not to do it, but there will be companies in other segments that will pay for it. And that will be okay. But as long as they are selling this, they have to do their job and they have to protect. And some do better jobs. I mean, I think the IOC does a very good job in protecting partners. FIFA does a good job too. And, you know, that's why you don't see a lot of the things that that proactively are addressed by FIFA or by the IOC. You know, never come to the attention of the fans, the public in general, because they take care before they hit the market. But I think that in the future, very few organizations can afford not to offer exclusivity because marketers have been trained to do it. So unless if you're working a very specific category, there is so much demand that, I don't know, maybe betting in some places. There's so many betting companies. Maybe the betting companies would accept other betting companies to do it because they don't have experiencing sponsorships in most cases. So they would deal with that differently. But in general, most traditional sponsors, I think they would reject the idea. Hi, I'm Sean Whartling. I run a small strategic consultant called Red Mandarin, specializing in sponsorship. Actually, I think ambush marketing doesn't raise the emotions intensely, except in a few people. The only people you find getting really heated about Amish marketing are major rights holders and major sponsors. Everybody else loves it. But if you're a Coke or a V-thru or an Amic, then yeah, you get very hot under the collar. The whole premise that this is going to undermine the delicate edifice of major events is nonsense. So the whole morality thing just to find a way. is as he to his parents saying, "I'm right, you're wrong." Nothing more than that. Or, actually, it's no more than social pressure and a lot of people like the marketing of Amish marketing. You know, that's the challenge. But one of the things, I mean, Keveta, what Cardiff said, I thought was quite interesting, that he went to, you know, that Pepsi will be punished for this by shelves. If that's bothered, if you look at where ESG is going, which ESG is afraid that he used, ESG scrutiny is increasing. But he also mentioned analysts. Analysts, what they look at, first and foremost, is financial performance. Analysts, analysts, they look at financial performance. And they don't give a monkeys around corporate culture, let alone the niceties of a sponsorship. But best they will look at, it will have an impact, culture will have an impact on them. If it's toxic and if there is a bleed out into the public domain where they will understand it, might have an impact on brand. ESG scrutiny is much more concerned about the grown-up issues of running a multinational multi-billion-pound corporation in terms of labor relations, in terms of the environment, in terms of the single-use plastics, for example, than whether it's somebody that's treading on my toes. In fact, if you were talking to an analyst, you would be saying to the analyst, look how much value we're getting out of not being a sponsor and not paying these rights fees, and the analyst is going to say, "Wow, brilliant, look at all this money you're saving and you're getting this brand thing." Because they just can't turn them out for performance. So it's, I think, that is a little bit of wishful thinking. It's money about brand. And one dimension of it, which I think is there, but nobody really calls out, is, yes, as a lambusher, you're an outsider, you're a challenger, but I think what you're actually saying is we are have elements that are anti-establishment, we have elements of youth and rebellion. And so I think the Pepsi-Coco-Colder in particular, it is just the question from a brand dimension of, we're going to stick our finger up at this establishment brand because they position themselves in an establishment brand and we're not sacking in, we're rock and roll. And I think that generates a lot of emotion because you're standing out as a grown-up, as an establishment, the finger of the parents, you shot that. So it kind of riles you when there's no way to, if they talk back, that's one element of it. The other element why I think there's a lot of emotion around ambusher is actually kind of a level of self- frustration because you look at it, I pay all this money, I have all these rights, I have all these advantages that the sponge, it gives me, I have so many assets, I can do whatever I want. And yet all of this doesn't unlock the creative and we know that you can do your hospitality, faultlessly, you can do your consumer promotion, it's brilliantly, you can affect the bottom line, but you get judged and the public judge you on the quality of your creative. So the rest of the sponge it which can be delivering fantastic value to the business, but if you fall over on the creative and you're just making buckets, I fall on over publicly and the one thing the people are going to see. Hello, I'm Gabby Mosslet, I'm a creative director with Homeground, so I'm programmed for mischief and sport and I'm very excited to be here. Perfect, I like program for mischief, is that in official, is that a sort of, no, that just happened, it happened, but I'm so excited, you know what, first of all, when you first mentioned the name, Ricardo Fought, I looked it up and I don't know if you've looked up Ricardo Fought, who is an incredible Argentinian entertainment sensation, and do yourself a favor, Google image, Ricardo Fought, and I was like, oh my god, this is a welcoming, credible man, and then I was like, this can't be him, and then I found the real Ricardo Fought, who's a very grown up, very adult expert in sport, and then I was intimidated because the entertainment delight, there was the former, it wasn't him, but please look, look it up, please, I'm not exactly a miracle, I'm not a miracle, that's fantastic, I didn't know that. What do you think about the whole subject of that delineation between official and unofficial brands and of an ambush marketing generally? So this may show up my ignorance in some way, but when you first mentioned ambush marketing, I didn't actually know what it was, and I think there may be a language gap between what I understand is gorilla marketing versus ambush marketing, and then as soon as I started to look into it and research it, I was like, oh no, this is something that I'm very familiar with and love as a topic because of its inherent spiciness, and so I was really, really intrigued when I discovered that's what we would be talking about today, and it definitely got me thinking in terms of the distinction between official and unofficial, and I will absolutely stay in my lane when it comes to this because there are far more educated and insightful voices from the licensing and the right side, so I'll speak purely from creative, and there's something I love about being on the unofficial side and being on the official side, so inherently those two briefs should they land on my desk, I'm excited by, and from the official side, there is a part of me as a creative that I love the challenge of having restrictions, so being able to wiggle and maneuver and make mischief within the confines is very, very intriguing to me, I love that challenge. Let's just pause on that for a minute because I think that's an ice idea, so constraints and creativity, let's just talk about that, how do they link together? I mean for me, if I didn't love constraints, I would be an artist, but the blank page that's like pure freedom is sometimes a bit scary to me, so having confines, it makes me feel, I almost know more to do within those, and so that's why a brief exists, that's why objectives exist, that's why competitors exist, so to have those barriers in place, you know, I love a challenge, and if there wasn't a challenge or nothing to rub up against, maybe I would be a bit stumped when it comes to knowing where to start. I guess what we're saying is that there shouldn't be an argument for not being creative as an official partner, because quite often this is framed as, the brand has to follow the guidelines and therefore is restricted in the idea that it then starts to campaign around. Absolutely, so there are in some respects, I think there is this inherent hindrance in a way, but it's my job as a creative to find the white space between those hindrances, and I think there is great opportunity there, and maybe it just taps into my personality of, you know, challenge accepted, I will find a way to make this cut through, to make this feel like something exciting, even when the rules are in place, and I love sport, I've played sport my whole life, and maybe it's my love of rules actually, which makes me feel excited about how can I bend them instead of breaking them. What's the excitement if you go to the other side of that? It's interesting, you use the word guerrilla because it comes with all sorts of connotations, and there's no one I don't think that doesn't want to feel like an outsider, that was the maverick, and we talked to Sean Motling, who talked about strategy, and he mentioned that quite often the official partner is framed as the parent, and the unofficial, and the guerrilla is the sort of scrappy child trying to irritate and provoke, poke fun and provoke. What do you think about that as a sort of framing? What's the excitement of the unofficial position? I think it has to be the freedom, so the idea that there is no one watching, and there aren't as many expectations put upon you, and no one is seeing you coming. Again, I mentioned that I love rules, but I also have been in love with making mischief since I was a child, and so the idea of sneaking in from the left when no one's anticipating you is so fun, and then surprising and surfacing at a time where everyone's thinking one way or looking in one way, intuitively that just makes me feel excited on a cellular level creatively. It's all about brands, because some brands have that in their DNA, don't they? There's some people go, "When you have the ambush conversation, people say, 'Oh, well, Nike, Paddy Power, Pepsi.' Now, I would argue there's a difference between those brands, but if you look at the idea of being the ambusher or the guerrilla, what brands do it well in your life, just and away from sport, but just in terms of just that have that persona within them, do you think?" This one isn't away from sports directly, but we were talking about it yesterday, and I think Red Bull is such an interesting one in terms of, "Okay, so we're not going to sponsor this event. We're actually going to go and create our own event." And all of a sudden, you have shifted the gaze from something that's very cluttered and very crowded or to something that is completely and wholly owned by you. And they have transcended kind of the traditional rules in terms of fitting into something and rather created their own paradigm for what that looks like. So I think that's an example that always felt like they keep, it's not even an ambush because they kind of go off and create their own, which is very unique. So that's the sort of, they're the ultimate rule-breakers because they've rejected the framing entirely of the major event and sport and they've just gone and done their own thing. And it must be infuriating because they are completely and anomaly when it comes to that. But then in terms of brands, the one that definitely comes to mind is Beats. And what I loved about the way that they, bushed or kind of snuck in was the subtlety. And I think in this space, for me as a creative, I love the examples that are a little bit more classy and the approach. And it all depends on the entrance. And I think there are some that feel very noisy and very brash. And they don't quite appeal to me on the same level that examples like Beats play which are just very elegant entrances. And it's interesting because I was listening to you talking, it's all gorilla and ambush and it's all very raw. It's all very serious, isn't it? And it's all very mayor. And it all sounds extremely dangerous and scary. And I think what we do in this industry and a lot of times in sport is we just take ourselves so seriously. And we all act like this is war. We're commercially of course, I'm sure it is. But from a creative perspective like this is heaven. This is the most fun, exciting, thrilling space. It's akin to playing sports and watching sport is those kind of feelings. So I love how seriously everyone seems to take it. And I wish we would do that less because it all just seems like you're missing the point. It's like it's called playing sport. Let's bring it back to that a bit. That's a really great point. I've not heard anyone articulate it before. It's very true. Particularly the male bit actually, I think, is a strong element of that in there. As you were talking about Beats, so I remember London 2012 and Beats became a thing around, you know, the athletes were coming onto the stage wearing the headphones. And it was a really clever piece of work. And it felt organic and it felt felt that's the sort of thing they would wear. And it felt like that's a sort of authentic positioning. They had bought no rights. The sports industry was outraged because of some of them were because they hadn't paid their Jews and blah blah blah. And they were they were seen as an bushing and they were an bushing. But you mentioned expectations coming from left field arriving in the space. And I've got a question about sustainability of the outsider position because 2012 was 10 years ago, obviously. And I'm wondering they feel much more of an official type brand now. I sometimes look at Paddy Power and think, oh, just grow up. And that's me being a parent, probably. But it just feels like, oh God, here they come again. There is a there's a sense that it's Paddy Power feels a bit like the bloke with witty socks, you know, at the party. 100%. It's interesting because I agree I feel a little bit fatigued by it. But on the flip sides, if I'm just a passionate sports fan, I feel like I expect them to show up and do something I want them to. And I think whether it's a brand like beats, whether it's Paddy Power, they seem to be an audience expectation around big tournaments where. Not only do I expect to see this, I encourage it. And that must be even more infuriating for the grownups. So while maybe we're a little bit more cynical of it, the sustainability point is interesting as long as you are showing up in a in a in a fresh way, not in a way that people just expect you to. And I think for me, Paddy Power, it is, I don't know what their next move will be, but I do without even seeing it. So I think it's about again, almost even if you are coming from from left field from the outside, still do it in a way that surprises by what you're saying, not just you being there. Yeah, I agree. This conversation is a very inside baseball type conversation. It's a, you know, it's things that people within marketing and sports marketing obsess over. And it's always interesting then to then say, right, okay, just go out in the real world and see who gets credit. And I'm sure that Paddy Power get a lot of credit. I'm wondering if people actually know whether they're ambushing or not or whether they, I'm sure they don't care. Are the regular people? Yeah. They don't care, they just want to be entertained. And they love, I think that, you know, conflict and competition is an inherently part of sports. I think they, they love that between brands. And I think as the years go by, we are more cynical and a part of us loves to see the big brand suffer. And you want to see someone come for them, especially within the scope of football FIFA, the head and the body being so far removed from each other. I think the body loves to see someone poking the head. Yeah, that's a very, really good point. So both the sort of establishment brand like a Coca-Cola or FIFA. No one really cares. There's no, there's no jeopardy there in terms of defending their position. Because quite often this conversation, as we said at the beginning, goes to ethics. People say, oh, it's their parasites. They're undermining the sports economy. Don't feel that anymore. No, I feel like that lives and dies within the boardroom that it's discussed. Beyond that, it's just fun and games. It's something you mentioned earlier, which I'm now thinking about, is, and it goes back to your point of the sustainability of it, is you have a reason to be there. And I think with some brands, you do, with the beats example, is that, of course, music is such a powerful tool in sport. And so it felt perfect, the seamless kind of integration of that into those spaces. For me, it's when brands aren't really have an authentic connection or a space. And then you're just leveraging and riding on the crotales. And it feels, it gives me theic anyway. But I think anything that is rooted in insight and comes back to that truth of whether you're in the complexity of headspace or the fan headspace, as long as you're being true to that. And I think sometimes brands don't know which side they're on. They don't know if they're talking like an athlete or like a fan. So I think all of this needs to be thoughtfully approached. And another point which we talked about earlier was the unofficial and official. And I think when you're on the official side, the planning and the, I mean, these campaigns are planned months and years in advance. And so what that does is it means you've got this like incredibly robust journey to that tournament. That doesn't mean you miss out on a lot of the more reactive opportunities in the very short term lead up and on the tournaments itself. And so I can imagine how frustrating it is to be on the official side and see some brand just pick up on a moment. And they're able to activate in that or just surface into people's lives in that moment. And I wonder if there is an opportunity for the official brands to have a little bit more flexibility when it comes to creating reactive content that's purely in the moment. So almost capturing the zeitgeist agile is the trendy word in terms of trying to respond, as you said, in the moment. And how to do that when you have got the sort of rights infrastructure in place where you're trying to then work within those constraints is a very interesting point. Well, I just think you know, I think there is there is still an opportunity to act unofficially even if you are an official brand. And we get very scared when there's that much money and the budgets of that that that extreme. And I would love to challenge those huge brands that there is fun in that and there is risk of course, but maybe a challenge to write holders would be just to live a little. Don't be so afraid of what could happen in the moment because it just creates such heat and exposure for the audience more than something that you would have been planning for months and months. Is this something about football? It's just talking about creative and football because there's some fantastic work out there. There's also a lot of cliched work. I mean, I was looking at the Pepsi ad and the Etihad ad. And it's almost like a trope that I knew, you know, you've got okay, you can see the wheels going around. And again, this might be just a bit, okay, you're in the business. and so therefore you're taking interest that other people wouldn't. But you've got a World Cup in the desert. So you've got football and you've got, okay, if I'm Pepsi, okay, I'm Messy and Pogba and then I'm gonna be running playing football with kids in the street and then it's gonna be a sort of, okay, it's desert, so it's an obvious ambush. It's a collet, you know, the link to the to guitar. They can't mention FIFA, they can't mention the World Cup, they can't mention all the things they can't mention, but they're playing in that space around that, but there's enough there to get them going. And likewise, Eti had two old footballers, bad deacting, doing stuff on an airline, you know, and then the gag is a falcon, which is the sort of obviously the symbol of the region. So all of it is perfectly okay, but it doesn't thrill me creatively. But is there something about football that what are the constraints around the game itself? How is that evolved? - I think the constraints are football players. I think using talent of that magnitude and that scale is obviously such a tempting option because of the reach and the recognition and power that those faces hold. But some of the worst performances, they were any of us have ever seen, and which a lot of us will have experienced in, really, really difficult to produce work and create a rounded where you have, okay, we have this person for three and a half minutes in this space and the variables around it change constantly. So it's a tough one because you do, you want the benefits that those characters bring, but they really make your life difficult when it comes to actually making the thing. So one of football's biggest challenges is the temptation to use players in the act. - It's quite interesting. So Pobba is not a bad actor, actually. - No, that's true. - I see him. - And I see he's got five and energy. And he, yeah, I think that is a very different example to some probably the slightly older. - I think I agree completely. I think 98% of them are terrible. But there is a couple, so it just struck me, I've seen Pobba do a couple of things to camera. And I think actually, yeah, no, he gets it. And he's very. - This performance, he is a performer. - And he's quite funny and quite nervous. - That's the difference. The humour and the funiness. And I think again, you know, going back to my point around seriousness is if we just lean more into the light side and the humour, because there are so much humour in sports and so much humour at football. But again, we, we, especially with big tournaments like the World Cup, we just, we just go incredibly inward and incredibly earnest. And of course, these tournaments mean so much and they evoke emotions in us that very few other things do. But again, it's just, I think that that fear of, of tapping into any other emotion is what makes the work feel and look so similar. A little kid playing with a superstar, like, sure, it summons three and a half goosebumps for three and a half seconds. And just finally, what are the pros and cons of going the fan route? Again, I was looking at, and this is not necessarily an ambush, but Karling's latest work around football. It just doesn't feel like real fans. - It's all very vanilla. - It's all very. We look, it seems to be treated like we look at fans like there's one happy, homogenous group and it's all very family friendly, very sanitised. Where the truth of being a fan is that it kills you and you love it and you live with it. You couldn't imagine living without it. And you don't see that coming through. You don't see the realness, challenges and the complexities of being a fan, especially with this tournament. Oh, we just gloss over that and it's all happy, very pleasant, very comfortable idea of what a fan looks like and feels like. There's not enough truth and where the truth is is where all the humanists and humour and the reality of that and I work that surfaces that truth behind being a fan. - The non-sponsors, they want to know where the boundary is. They want to know what they cannot say and how far they can push it. Hello, I'm Jeremy Stern. I'm the chief executive and founder of a company called Promo Veritas. We are a UK European and global promotional compliance specialists. So our job is to make sure that marketing campaigns of all types and all varieties by major brands and small brands are legal, safe, secure and compliant. I suspect in the back of their minds the major sports governing bodies actually sort of appreciated because it's magnifying the tournament. World Cup Olympics clearly have major sponsors who have paid large amounts of money, but if they were the only ones that were pushing those sports events, it wouldn't be so media attractive and the public wouldn't see it and feel it. It's partly because of the ambush and the separate marketing by non-sponsors that magnifies the glory of those events. And I speak as someone who used to be the open-parocean director of Coca-Cola. So I've seen it both sides. So I was responsive for the Olympics, for Coke, for the marketing programs in Europe for the World Cup. And clearly we had spent a shed load of money on these activities and we wish to protect our rights. But I was also aware that the more that the public get to see marketing activity, the more they get into it. And therefore we would have a spin-off benefit. But if you have a major beer brand that is an official sponsor, can you realistically expect every other beer to go quiet during that particular sporting event? It's just not viable. They're not going to allow the main sponsor brand to have the seniority for a six to eight-week period while they just go dark. That's just not realistic. Does it actually harm the Olympics? Does it harm the World Cup? If it does, I don't think it's significant. When you're running into a major event, what sort of questions do you get asked and what is the nature of that conversation? Well, our clients are both official sponsors. So for the Olympics, it was Toyota or it might be Coca-Cola or whatever, they are, and maybe the official sponsors. But we also have unofficial or non-sponsors, actually, sorry. And clearly, the sponsors are looking to leverage it. They know the rulebook. They know where they can push the boundaries in terms of the use of the sponsors, logos, and devices and phrases. So the task is more straightforward there. The non-sponsors, they want to know where the boundary is. And sometimes we have to pull them back. So the World Cup coming up, you clearly can't use the World Cup. So you use a major sporting event or some other analogy. So you've got a very sophisticated knowledge of the legal framework around the official partner model. And you're looking at space. Or you're looking at opportunities to work. Space is the right word. And we have to bear in mind that let's take the World Cup, let FIFA have their rulebook. And they are fairly rigid at trying to enforce it. But in the home countries, the host countries, they will have worked with the national governments to change national laws and make things a lot tougher and create those fan zones and the dead zones where non-sponsors can't advertise. So we have to know on the ground, as much as we have to know the paperwork that comes out of Switzerland. So yes, it is fairly challenging. But yeah, we do try to find the space between rules. But you're only a question talked about ethics. And that is a very tricky one, because ethics is what you feel a brand should be doing. And we will often turn down ideas from non-sponsors that we feel are ethically inappropriate, that they're training two near the mark. And they're just not right for the brand. Clearly, if you're a Ryanair or a brood dog, you're a cheeky brand to begin with. So you might get away with more ambush marketing. But if you're barking at his bank, you really don't want to be seen to be cheeky and on the edge. Nike is one. I find Nike interesting around sport, because there is a body of opinion that even from people like the IOC and FIFA, is that Nike are not ambushes. They've paid the ticket just by another means. They, because they pay for the players and the sports where they pay the teams for the license of the kit. You agree with that framing. Well, Nike do do sponsor formal act certain activities, but they try to get in on all the other activities. What I don't know is, is how they fight internally with their legal team, because their legal team will be trying to protect the brand when they're the official sponsor, but they're trying to bust the officials on the other. I mean, that's Jacob and I. I'd love to sit on some of their board meetings when they're discussing those things. As to where the FIFA believe that because they've sponsored a whole ton of players, that gives them certain rights. I suspect there must be some in FIFA that would have that view because they are supporting grassroots football and they're doing a lot for clubs, but those that are get their commission paid out of major sponsorship deals, probably down the green. But whether they should or not, I think that's the problem with sport. Money is such a major driver, in my opinion, there's too much money in sport. It's hard to argue that as a sports business podcast. Yeah, so your listeners, okay, my evening is, No, I won't get it. So let's get to the sort of nitty gritty we make. space from a conceptual idea but the actual executions, as looking through your list on your website and the sorts of things, a lot of prize draws a lot of obviously promotion, the idea of promotional activity is just very broad. What are the areas that you think worked really well in this context for an ambusher? Oh I think some stunts and one of my favorite ones is auto trader. They set up a crane on the south by hang a car from the top of it and they announced for this is for your own 2016 maybe. Every time the national team, not being able to mention perhaps, England scored in a current major tournament for the euros, that crane would drop a car and if you were the one that predicted the time that the crane would drop, you would win that car and no one really predicted that they would get away with too many cars. I think we put down five or six cars as our estimate. The 18 goals we scored in that tournament and that was 18 cars that auto trader gave away and they took it on the chin, they paid the money and in fact on YouTube they put out a conversation between the marketing director and the finance director, basically a fight between the two but it was a fun, it was a spoof about the cost of it, etc versus the national spirit of England scoring so many goals and I think events like that do do pretty well. Galvanises the support behind so win when we win is a good one. Absolutely. You tend to see weaker promotions, curries running one selling televisions and it's ostensibly say you buy a TV to watch the world cup and you can get your money back. There's a one in X chances of winning but the link is somewhat more chalk-torch-uous. It's also the dynamic between the finance guy and the marketing guy because it gets to what success is and how it's defined and how it's different for every client but in a case like that what do you think success is? Well it's one of the reasons why from a Veritas we tend to focus on promotional activation mechanics because they're measurable. The ephemeral world of brand advertising doesn't actually appeal to me. I really like reporting back to clients and linking it directly into their sales and that's what we can do with promotions. So what does success look like? Yeah at one level it's the number of entries. It's the number of participations. It's the database that you're able to build up so that that is a clear evidence. On another it's brand awareness but really can you actually measure the impact of one activity across a nation? Pretty difficult. And then we get into some of our activities are directly purchased linked. The auto trader one wasn't but something with Pepsi where you get a code on the packaging you've got to buy the pack to enter and then you win tickets to the euros so we can measure the sales impact but even there that's pretty difficult because was it the promotion that increased the sales or was it the fact that the sales team managed to get Don Dolor ends in Sainsbury's where they got extra display that then increased it so it can be quite challenging but we also take into a fact social media traffic and website traffic so we try to report back to applying against a range of different measures. I was going to ask you about the digital question because my assumption is since your you know days at Coca-Cola 2002 I think is that when I was there in 1998 to 2000 and in fact my last job was as new media director and I didn't even have a clue myself what new media was at that time. Don't call it that anymore do we? No new media is just social media now. Yeah and you obviously get a lot of people talking about performance marketing and that's always framed in a digital in the digital realm and they're talking about you know bottom of the funnel all of you know that all of the words that all come at the bottom of the funnel one-to-one relationships etc. I'm wondering how this conversation plays in that environment. I have a thing about digital it's not going away it's a massive advertising market but I believe only probably 10% of the numbers that I ever see on digital it is so prone to abuse it's so prone to trickery and fakery. Some of it may be from abroad from tricks as abroad some of it may be from the media owners themselves so you click on a link for an advert sorry you click on a link and you're on a link for a second you don't actually see anything because you realize you know interested or you distracted or it's the wrong one that's still counted. There are so many trickers if you want Facebook likes you give me a thousand dollars I'll get you 20,000 likes by the end of the day. I can buy those from guys in Turkey yeah that we monitor and watch out for I've just been dealing with one one of my team members even for a data entry where we ask people for their emails we're getting fake emails and we can tell because the IP addresses are in a certain pattern and the frequency. When we do television shows we oversee voting for things like the National Television Awards and major things on public broadcasts that I can't talk about we see the trickery that goes on. Though I am very cynical. And is the client cynical? No I think that's the problem I think the client believes them. The bad old days are gone we used to see briefs from clients to say we want to get up to 30,000 Facebook lights and that was their goal. Stuffed the money right there's no sales involved here but it was almost their ego it was self-congratulation so I've gotten my brand account has that I've got 30,000 likes that was their goal and as I said we can achieve that in moments with bots and the client actually wouldn't care because they hit their metric. Those are gone now now we're much more looking at engagement and they're looking for more social interaction and the number of shareings so it's got a bit better but I can still cheat those if I wanted. Do you think they don't care because it's interesting that and I've heard you know heard that argument before and I assume they know the challenges because they're on the whole smart people and they're in marketing so they know the arguments that these they're a bots. I wouldn't assume that they know and they believe that a big number is a good number but that's how they're incentivized. I don't see I disagree that they don't know I think they know but they don't care. Yeah okay the individuals may know the higher ups the finance director who you have to justify your marketing spend to may not know about the trickery but I can go to him and say oh I've got 150,000 likes in the last week and he goes well that's impressive. Spend on. Final question if you were to sort of someone says I'm a I so I'm a brand I come to you and say like I want to I want to ambush the hell out of the Qatar World Cup. What's the best two two questions? What's the best way of doing it and what's the cheapest way of doing it? All right the first question I'll say is why do you want to link to the World Cup yourself? One of the phrases I use is when everyone's zinging you's ag. We know that November December is going to be full of World Cup stuff and actually half the population probably couldn't give a damn about the World Cup in this country. All right maybe without being gender specific or whatever but we know that not everyone is going to be in the World Cup. So actually one of our approaches is that Zag don't talk about the World Cup. Some of my favorite promotions are actually activities that have had nothing to do with sport at the time of major sporting events because they provide light relief and actually that half of the public not interested flock to them because they're bored of everything about football. So that might be one angle but the other angle that we would take is is it necessary to be in a crowded space? As you rate to go up around the World and that may cost you more why not do it beforehand or away from till after when actually they often drip drop or if you're insisting on doing it then we will try and find that space, that angle that you can that you can focus on but it's not our first port of call. And what's the sort of easiest route in? We avoid anything to do with ticket that is appalling. There was a major campaign that we know of that was offering tickets to the World Cup a couple of years ago and they issued the tickets and then along came FIFA and banned all those tickets and that's that we weren't involved in hugely embarrassing for the brand and not something that we would ever want to get involved in but what we might do is related merchandise not official merchandise but it might be a caps it might be a need to home football experience with a TV and an inflatable goal. Fun things like that is where we might go but we're always conscious of how we designate the image of event and we also make always make sure that we're not going to fall foul and I'm have to say in 20 years of promo veritas operating we have never had a problem. There's another dimension which you might want to look at and that is how right told is in and brand's position. So on the one hand I would say that they should be arguing for the broader benefits of sponsorship rather than focusing on the protection they offer against copyright infringement. Secondly, given that we're in the age of the ecosystem and you know I'd always look to Apple as the greatest example because they've allowed and encouraged the whole ecosystem of suppliers to spring up around an area which they could choose to dominate but you know where Belkin plays and where a lot of suppliers play and so the headphones and and still are such peripherals. I think the real argument that the IOC or the fee for should be making is what we're aiming for is to build the largest in-case system the more public oxygen this takes up, the more space we occupy in the public consciousness. The better and so in actual fact if your advantages as a sponsor are as solid as they are we should not invite ambush but we should welcome people celebrating and participating unofficially in the moment because they're helping to they're actually raising your position as a sponsor. They're generating more excitement, more energy around it and but you have the crown jewels.