Why it won’t pay to wear our heart on Hotspur’s sleeves

South Africa experienced a perfect storm last week when a marketing campaign with a “gigantinormous” price tag collided with a situation in which there appears to be a conflict of interest, in a climate of general government mistrust, within a nation living on broken promises.

Of course, I’m talking about the proposed (signed?) R1 billion deal for South African Tourism to sponsor football club Tottenham Hotspur over three years as a means to market South Africa and bring in much needed tourism.

If I said everyone had an opinion on this, it wouldn’t be hyperbole! In the blink of an eye, we’ve all become destination marketing gurus, sports marketing strategists, “opinionistas” on the allocation of public funding, and more. So with my hat on as a marketer who has worked with sponsorship properties (even football), fought for budgets, missioned to deliver return on marketing investment, and with my heart on my sleeve as a South African who loves our country and someone who is unequivocal about good governance, here’s my take on the situation.

We’re cross. How can the government spend so much money on this when we have no lights and no roads, no decent healthcare, no reliable water? We’re tired of smelly deals and irresponsible spending. I’ll stop there.

But marketing a product, business, or country is as essential as any other role in business or government. If a product isn’t positioned and marketed to potential customers, how do they know to buy it? Or visit?

So, my first point is to stop thinking that it’s either/or. It’s both/and. We need decent roads, lights, and water, and to market South Africa as a tourist destination. All of it needs to be done well. Budgets need to be spent responsibly, efficiently, and effectively, like in any other business.

Whether or not sponsoring this particular soccer team – I’m not qualified to opine on this – is the right way to market our product is another question entirely. And having been pitched numerous properties, having bought and leveraged another bunch (including a soccer team), a few things leapt into my mind when I first read about it. The first is that sponsorship is a sexy game. Deals are often presented by brands with more glam and glitz than your own, and to whose star you’d love to be hitched. Indeed, that’s what it’s all about.

A friend who ran the sponsorships division of a large beer business in South Africa described sponsorships as “borrowing equity” from another brand. And borrowing that equity, getting that light to shine on your brand, can be a winning partnership. Think about Sunfoil and cricket, just off the top of my head. Sponsorship is a huge business.

It usually promises exciting events, hospitality, and entertainment, exposure to luminaries, and such. Most often, I’ve been presented with quite vanilla proposals where I have to “order off the menu” and pick the silver, gold, or platinum package and the accompanying “value” such as tickets to the events, my logo in various places, the privilege of giving a branded gift(!), and so on.

If I asked you to name the sponsors of any number of events, you’d battle to recall them because usually there are a plethora of logos plastered everywhere and the average consumer neither cares nor pays attention. That’s why fit is so important. Does the property being offered for sponsorship “match” the brand in terms of values, positioning, and target markets for starters? The people too! It’s usually a long-term relationship, and a great connection, vibe, and working energy is a critical ingredient. Sometimes we’ve been offered really cool stuff, but an alcohol brand doesn’t go with an airline, and motor racing isn’t a fit for an insurance company. Even when there’s a match, and eyes are all sparkly, the price tags are the most misleading part. You see, the conventional wisdom is that for every R1 you invest in the property, you need about R3 more to leverage (or market) that property. That reality has taken the stars out of my eyes many times.

It costs money to set up the hospitality at the cycle race, or to fly guests to the cricket match, or to make the adverts to create awareness about the partnership in the market (or else you’re winking in the dark). It costs money to brand gazebos, signage, and suites. And more money to give gifts to your guests, who often send their second cousin and his kid (because they forgot they had a golf game) and your relationship building is then down the proverbial. Then, you need to hire agencies to do all this work. So, R1 billion for the property needs another R2 billion or R3 billion to market it!

Sponsorship lesson nearly over, save to say that it’s always part of a mix of marketing approaches and I’d never put all my eggs in one basket. And while I should never judge another marketer until I’ve walked a mile in their moccasins, I reckon my numerous trips around the block allow me to have an opinion. To spend a third of my budget – and I’m not clear if what’s been quoted in the media is marketing budget or operating budget – on one target audience (some say a saturated market) via one “campaign” isn’t something I’d do. Huge exposure – huge risk.

And I’m not going to lecture you on communication objectives – are you creating awareness of the brand (like Rwanda needed to build via its soccer deal) or trying to make leads and sales, which is what we need? Converting awareness, which I don’t think we need, to actual visitors is going to take some nifty attribution skills and maybe some magic, never mind even more campaign work and spending to make it happen. A sponsorship which raises awareness but also seeks to convert to bums on planes needs to show the country’s assets – I call them proof points – in rich, gorgeous, and hardworking communication. Logos on sleeves and around stadia aren’t enough.

Whether you do what I do all day or not, smart and savvy (and sick and tired) Saffers have a sense of all this. It’s just off. But that’s not why we’re cross. Because in the mix there’s also something smelly in the form of a conflict of interest between the acting chief financial officer and the agency (unknown in the sports and sponsorship marketing field but apparently good at what they do otherwise, by the way) who stands to profit big time from “brokering” the deal. And for the record, declaring a conflict doesn’t mean the conflict goes away. We have an irate acting chief executive officer who fumes at South Africa at press conferences, an invisible chief marketing officer, a minister who’s taking it all very personally, and three board members who resigned in disgust and are apparently themselves being smeared. Government bodies, much like any department in a business, need to operate in service, not in arrogance, and not in apparent desperation.

If it quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, well…

• Passionate about South Africa and the power of brands and humans, Heidi Brauer has for more than 25 years been working with, researching, writing and teaching about, and adjudicating brands and marketing, as well as leading brands like Kulula.com, SLOW, and Hollard.