Month: July 2021

The world of sports is not immune to gender bias, as evidenced by the notably lopsided coverage of women’s sports by the media and the disproportionate level of brand sponsorship spend allocated to men’s sports. This situation changes, however, during a two-week period every two years when the eyes of the world focus on the Olympics, the only global sporting event characterized by true gender parity.

Unlike other events, the Olympics features men and women competing in the same events in the same stadiums for gold, silver and bronze medals of equal importance. Perhaps more importantly, broadcasters and sponsors don’t differentiate between genders at the games. As the biggest sporting event on the planet, the Olympics elevate the premise of gender equality even higher.

The elevation is important, as media coverage for regular league events heavily favors men’s sports. For example, a 2018 Nielsen Sports study found that the volume of media coverage of women’s sports across Europe ranged from as low as 2% to just 12% at peak times. The balanced coverage during the Olympics is especially warranted when we look at interest levels in the Olympics. In fact, interest among females in the Winter Olympics is higher than overall interest in the games.

The balanced nature of the Olympic audience hasn’t gone unnoticed among brands, as many have tailored their campaigns to be inclusive and meaningful for a broader base of viewers. Procter & Gamble’s “Thank You Mom” and “Lead with Love” campaigns, for example, tap into the emotion of the games by highlighting the support that families provide to aspiring athletes, as well as the caring side of the competitors. 

The structure of the Olympics is a notable benefit in the drive to foster gender equality in sports. In addition to serving as a platform that represents the pinnacle of achievement in sports, the gender balance within the Olympics is ingrained in the event from the start, with access to participation, coaches and facilities structured into the events right down to the grassroots level. The visibility of role models is also balanced across both genders. Comparatively, interest in women’s sports that are structured separately, such as soccer, rugby and cricket, started from a much lower base. That base is growing rapidly, but still has much ground to gain to approach parity.

Given the global spotlight on the Olympics, the games present women with the greatest opportunity to gain worldwide recognition and stardom among both sports fans and the general population. Importantly, marketers looking to associate with these athletes don’t need to wait for the medal ceremonies to know which stars will be the most effective brand ambassadors. That’s because Nielsen Gracenote’s medal winner predictions and Nielsen Sports’ valuation of athletes’ partnerships with brands across social media in the lead up to the games provides critical insight into sponsorship potential.

And when we look at the predicted female medalists with the largest social media followings, we see that they have shared almost twice as many posts with sponsors to date this year than they did last year. The result? An increase of 83% engagement with partners for those posts. On the flipside, the top 15 predicted male medalists have also posted more, but engagement with those posts and therefore partners, has declined.

As we’ve seen in other sports arenas, Olympic athletes are actively using their platforms to talk about and tackle issues and topics that they’re passionate about. The same is true for the brands that choose to partner with them. For example, Allyson Felix and Simone Biles moved from Nike to partner with Athleta, a brand that aims to “empower women and girls.” For Felix, mother of a young toddler, maternity protections for sponsored athletes and working women was a critically important issue which inspired her decision. The move is aligned with causes Olympic fans feel strongly about, as 66% of U.S. fans say they are passionate about gender equality, according to Nielsen Fan Insights.  

Prior to mid-June 2021, their Instagram posts mentioning Athleta have, on average, generated two to three times more engagement and value than other branded posts on the two athletes’ Instagram accounts this year. Fans and customers have responded, with social conversations around the Biles-Athleta partnership topping 10,000 as of June 16. 

But social media isn’t the only partnership opportunity. Data from the Nielsen Sports Sponsorglobe database is tracking an increase in commercial deals with female athletes. Between 2017 and 2020, the number of sponsorship deals has increased by 31%, with each deal increasing approximately 65% in value. For comparison, the increase in sponsorship opportunities and value among women athletes stands in opposition to the trends in Europe, where commercial deals grew by 10% between 2017 and 2019, and then fell 23% in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Although individual sponsorships for women account for a small portion of total sponsorships, and tennis players dominate the larger deals, we are seeing an increase in sponsorships for female athletes like Simone Biles (gymnastics), Megan Rapinoe (soccer), Mikaela Shiffrin (alpine skiing), Pusarla Venkata Sindhu (badminton) and Katie Ledecky (swimming).

In aggregate, the Olympics represent an even playing field in the world of sports competition. The event provides female athletes an opportunity to compete on a global stage in front of an incomparable audience within a two-week window of equality. For National Olympic Committees and sporting bodies as well as brands and media, it’s a key pinnacle moment in sport to showcase athletes and sports of both genders equally, as well as engage a very gender-balanced and wide fanbase. 

The beauty of the Olympics lies in how they reveal potential—not just among talented athletes, but also among ideals, such as fairness and equity. Broadly speaking, the Olympic games are clear evidence that gender equality is possible in global sports. Given this, brands, rightsholders and media have unmatched opportunities to win by embracing the Olympics and women in sports more generally. With long-term strategies and increased investment, the true potential of women’s sports can be realized.

If there’s one rule B2B marketers have had to abide by over the past year, it’s been to be flexible. According to Nielsen’s 2021 Annual Marketing Report, many brands had to adjust their 2020 marketing mix spend to one degree or another. For example, nearly a third of technology companies significantly adapted their spend.

These findings make sense: the pandemic drastically changed not only consumer habits, but also business priorities and budgets for many organizations. Marketers were forced to find ways to do more or with less or course-correct on tactics. Successful adaptation is often easier said than done though. So, what can marketers do to remain agile while still making a positive impression on their target customers?

1. Gain control of measurement

A common roadblock to adaptability for marketers is a lack of insight into how to revise their tactics. Nielsen’s report found that only 20% of large companies ($10M+ in marketing budget) are confident that they have the right marketing technology in place to measure ROI. This means that many campaigns may be underperforming without marketers realizing it. Worse yet, even if they do realize their strategies aren’t as effective as possible, they don’t have clarity into which specific elements of a campaign are underperforming. By consequence, they may elect to cut the entire strategy instead of making acute, cost-effective changes.

While ample resources are certainly helpful for executing swift campaign adjustments, so too are advanced measurement tools that illuminate changing customer behaviors in real time and enable marketers to adjust their strategies along the way. Marketers have always needed to stay ahead of shifting preferences, but the pandemic accelerated the rate of change to a point where it could be overwhelming (if not impossible) to stay up to date if monitoring engagements needed to be done manually.

Static marketing technology of the past won’t cut it, though. In today’s digital world, marketers have ample data at their disposal—meaning they need tools that extend beyond data collection and are capable of synthesizing what’s most important to their brand and tactics. With future-forward technology capable of securing granular, targeted insights into how audiences are responding to their efforts across platforms, marketers have the context needed to confidently and quickly adjust their marketing mixes to ensure they address targets on the channels they’re currently using and not wasting spend on the ones they aren’t.

2. Reconsider the potential of omnichannel

Taking an omnichannel approach to marketing isn’t a new concept—many marketers already strive to create a seamless brand persona across online and traditional store experiences that guide the customer from the top to the bottom of the funnel. Now, however, is the time to focus on the customer experience across each individual touchpoint, versus only the point of purchase, and align investments across platforms to maximize customers’ engagements.

As brand goals evolve, marketers should be updating their activations at every point of the customer journey to work holistically, with every touchpoint serving an explicit and measurable purpose. Nielsen found that customer acquisition ranked as the top objective for the year for surveyed marketers, and yet most marketers only plan to increase spend on social media and search to achieve this goal. Instead, marketers should balance their allocations across customer touchpoints, making sure that those touchpoints work together to move customers towards overarching brand goals.

3. Above all, resist the urge to stop marketing

Uncertainty over change may make marketers hesitant to continue spending on new initiatives, but pulling back has the potential to stunt business success in both the short and long term. Consider: Nielsen’s database of long-term effect models suggests that brands that stopped advertising in the second half of last year could see revenue declines of up to 11% this year.

Marketers don’t need to stop campaigning—they need to leverage available resources to help them succeed. Again, dynamic measurement tools will prove valuable in this pursuit. Budget is often the primary barrier to the adoption of marketing analytics and attribution solutions. But basing investments on industry assumptions over true customer insights risks marketers’ efforts falling short, thereby wasting even more spend. As the pandemic places increased pressure on marketers to perform, measurement tools can help marketers allocate their resources wisely and validate their efforts to executives who may then be convinced to increase spend on more campaigns in the future.

The current moment stands as an opportunity for B2B marketers to make a positive impact on customers. As companies navigate their new normal, now is the chance for marketers to demonstrate why their product or service is more important than ever. And with the right measurement and creative thinking, marketers can ensure their tactics map to specific objectives that move the business forward during this unique time.

This article originally appeared on dmcny.com.