What are the trends, opportunities and challenges facing sports, fitness and wellbeing brands? All types of people, from 18 to mid-life and beyond are watching, doing or talking about sport. The financial implications are immense; the sports market will grow to £500bn by 2019.
This presents a huge opportunity for brands. That’s why ±±¾©Èü³µpk10 is launching a half-day event for brand marketers. Future Fit takes place at Curzon in Soho, on 15 March.
In association with We Are Social Sport – the sports marketing division of socially-led creative agency We Are Social – we explore how tech-savvy consumers are forcing sports marketers to evolve, how brands can maximise opportunities in the sporting landscape, why culture is key and how to stay ahead in the storytelling game.
Future Fit’s speakers include marketing and business leaders from adidas, Nissan, Lucozade Sport, Asics, NFL and Sport England.
Sport transcends all borders according to We Are Social Sport’s director Joe Weston. It’s a universal language: "It naturally travels and audiences are hugely passionate about it – which makes it easy for brands to capitalise on, as long as it’s done in an authentic way. Where other markets struggle to get cut-through, sport has the opportunity to get past that and deliver real value for advertisers."
It’s that authenticity which makes sports marketing so effective, says We Are Social Sport’s creative director Gareth Leeding: "With sports and fitness, you’ve already got an audience that are already willing to engage – and in some cases people are actively looking for brands to talk to them. And there’s a new story every day in sport, the opportunities and conversations are endless. That’s why sports marketing lends itself to social. What we’re doing – and what we explore at Future Fit is how we’ve worked with adidas to build influencers from the ground up."
Leeding is talking at Future Fit alongside adidas’ senior social-media manager Stephen Cleary, about how We Are Social Sport have used influencer and experience marketing and made an impact.
Three talks you mustn’t miss:
Touchdown: why sport is the perfect platform for brands to connect with new audiences
Lindsey Eckhouse, director of sponsorship, NFL
Paul Southby, senior project director, Wasserman
The evolution of squads: placing adidas at the cutting edge of influence
Stephen Cleary, senior social media manager, adidas Football Global
Gareth Leeding, creative director, We Are Social Sport
This brand can: how brands use sport to maximise brand engagement
Owen Hughes, head of global sponsorship, Nissan
James Young, head of partnerships, Lucozade Sport
Helena Jennison, marketing and communications director, Movember Foundation
Nicky Kemp, trends editor, ±±¾©Èü³µpk10
We Are Social Sport has launched
We Are Social Sport is a specialist division within global agency We Are Social. Working with clients including adidas, Playstation and Gatorade, they are rewriting the rules of sports marketing.
"Sports marketing is a saturated environment full of lazy creative following trends, not starting them. We want to rewrite the rules of sports marketing using the power of social, recognising cultural trends and being first to move on them. At the cross section of social, sport and culture we believe we’ve found a unique platform to produce incredible work that creates fame, delivers results and most importantly is effective. This is what really excites me about We Are Social Sport," says Leeding.
Book tickets or find out more about ±±¾©Èü³µpk10 Future Fit here >>>>>