Get the basics right and Paris 2024 should drive your marketing effectiveness

It’s nearly here … that one time every 4 years when the whole world (well, more of it than usual) will be glimpsing and glancing at your sport.

The question is:

What can we actually do to make people really care about us when there’s so much choice?

Here are a few last-minute things to consider that can genuinely make a difference.

OK, that’s not literally true, but when it comes to marketing I always think it’s a good starting point.

You’re (most likely) in an office obsessing about your product (sport) 24/7. Most other people are in the pub, church, park, cleaning away baby poo … whatever … the point is, they’re not thinking about you.

The good news is that the Olympics offers a glimpse of what you do – and the sport you work for – to millions of people who in a few short weeks will go back to their everyday lives and most likely forget all about you.

The moment you accept this, it’ll change the way you ‘do’ marketing … for the better.

Not bored of your sport, the Olympics, or other things you care about: bored of your company’s distinctive brand assets (messaging, colours, fonts, icons, etc.) that you have to be using consistently and constantly across all platforms to build positive associations and salience towards your brand.

Marketing boredom is a marketeer’s phenomenon. The reality is that the people who matter – aka the fans – don’t spend their days staring at your content and therefore rarely get bored of what you do creatively.

“Paris 2024 offers a glimpse of what you do – and the sport you work for – to millions of people who in a few short weeks will go back to their everyday lives and most likely forget all about you.”

It costs loads, and there’s scant evidence as to whether it’s effective.

It’s also incredibly expensive and, in the increasingly murky world of digital media, one could argue that the only real benefactors of the hypertargeting craze are the platforms that make millions from it.

Note: that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t target, you should. But do it with skill mixed with broad reach. A key to marketing effectiveness is acquiring light buyers (in this instance, casual fans). It isn’t done by spending thousands of whatever your currency on tiny online audience segments without any real proof of return.

Most of it is cr*p anyway.

We all want to attribute our success to something, but that’s often impossible … so don’t be fooled by the countless SAAS companies out there promising to detail the reason for your every win.

Decision making is a complicated and rarely linear process, so no, that google search wasn’t the singular reason for a person visiting your website … it was merely the final touchpoint.

If you’re Olympic strategy is a series of initiatives, then it’s not a strategy. It’s a plan.

Strategy is one of the most misunderstood and misused words in our industry, but I like the definition set out by one of the world’s great management thinkers, Roger Martin:

Strategy is a series of interrelated choices that positions your organisation to win.

Put even more simply: Strategy is about choices.

So why are so many strategies, well, not strategies? Because making choices is scary, we don’t know whether the choices we make are the right ones so we fall into a safe space of being in control … initiatives, activities, budgeting, etc. … in other words, a plan!

Make a few choices about what you’ll do during the Olympic period, then develop a plan about how to implement them.

It’s been proven that marketing effectiveness is largely down to a few key factors, one of the most important of which is size of brand.  Don’t believe me? Share an Instagram post and see how it performs. Then imagine that exact same post being shared by Nike and imagine how much better it would do. See.

So, if you’ve put in the hard graft to build a brand over the last few years (and are using a brand tracker to prove it’s working) you’ll be at an immediate advantage.

If you haven’t, use Paris – and the spotlight it presents – to start with.

“Write well, and if you can’t – find someone who can.”

Write well, and if you can’t – find someone who can.

Words are the foundation of our society – laws are written in word not pretty pictures – and although we can all write, this doesn’t make us all writers.

And remember, write like a human. Marketing people often turn into robots when they write for a company or brand.

Want a great example of the power of words? ‘Make America Great’ wouldn’t have been nearly as effective as ‘Make America Great Again’.

If you’ve read this far you might be thinking  this guy is pretty miserable. I promise you I’m not. But I am on a mission to instil a bit of trust and respect for a marketing industry many people outside of our world don’t take seriously, one that they see as full of hyperbole and bad practice.

I hope some of the above will help you achieve meaningful effectiveness whatever your sport.

Good luck over the next few weeks and enjoy the limelight!