One of the fastest-growing hacks in destination advertising today is the sponsorship of sporting events. Countries and business corporations alike are taking to sponsoring sporting events and various teams to advertise and promote their products, services, and destinations. Is Kenya exploring sports sponsorships to promote Visit Kenya?
Advertising includes any set of mediums that marketers use to reach consumers, provoke interest in, and make people purchase or become aware of their brands. Endorsement of products, services, and brands, as well as partnerships, is popular in sporting events.
You must be envisioning the Visit Rwanda branded – Arsenal, FC Bayern Munich, and Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) jerseys at this point. You are absolutely right! Competitors, fans, investors, and businesses all come together in sporting events, making them one of the most desirable advertising avenues; as in the case of promoting a destination.
Promoters of a destination, by sponsoring a sporting event, group, or team, purchase two things:
- The potential exposure to the event’s audience.
- The image goodwill associated with the event, sport, or team’s brand – as generally perceived.
How Can ‘Visit Kenya’ Benefit from Sports Sponsorship?
The sponsorship of sporting events by destinations helps to:
- Raise awareness of tourism activities in the destination.
- Provide a positive image to guests and potential visitors in the targeted markets.
- Attract tourists, as well as encourage future domestic travel, along with other benefits.
Kenyan destination administrators can leverage major sporting events the way big corporations and other countries are using the events to advertise. The sports sector in particular, is receiving more media and broadcast attention, notably on television and social media platforms.
This significant attention and press coverage presents a compelling incentive to invest in branding and marketing of Kenya as a tourist and investment destination.
Sports Sponsorship Advertisement Strategies
There are four popular ways through which a destination could leverage sports sponsorship as an advertisement strategy.
These include:
- Partnering with general sports organizations, for example youth sports camps.
- Sponsoring a specific sport across numerous tournaments for example championships and leagues.
- Focusing on a sporting tournament such as the 2024 World Rally Championship – Kenya or World Cup competitions.
- Sponsoring a team or individual within a competition such as Rwanda and Arsenal, or Adidas and Eliud Kipchoge.
It is notably important for stakeholders to weigh the expected benefits of such sponsorship, against the capital investment and partnership requirements. The realized resources may subsequently be used to develop as well as promote sports and other recreational activities locally.
USA Sport Group is an example of a sports organization that offers a sponsorship program to interested advertisers. Each year, the organization collaborates with more than 300 recreational agencies and local organizations to deliver more than 6000 camps and programs, offering a diverse range of advertising and sponsorship possibilities.
Destination sponsors that wish to work with the group can take advantage of their digital promotion, sports gear branding, email campaigns, face-to-face advertising, and direct mail advertising opportunities provided.
Conclusion
It is important for Kenya to not only prepare for, but also start establishing and appropriately analyzing any sports sponsorship objectives it may pursue in the future.
Be it for Visit Kenya or Invest in Kenya, strategies should be established as early as now to capitalize on the marketing benefits of sponsoring sports.
Evaluation methodologies should also be created to assess such strategies and measure performance.
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