Except for the spirit of competition and the thrill of it all, why do you think people love sports? To market your sports brand, you must first understand that people love sports because of stories. They identify with their favorite athletes who give them inspiration, hope, and pride.
Sports have long held the power to captivate, engage, inspire, and evoke the most primal and profound instincts of human emotion. After all, sports are largely a metaphor for life. From the earliest inception of the Olympic Games, created literally to peacefully solve conflicts between nations, to the more recent franchise extensions, created to rouse cities, sports have been something positive to rally around, emotionally invest in, and most importantly, believe in, amid a modern-day life posing few opportunities to do so without the heavy and complicated consequence of reality.
No longer simply a genre of interest, but a dominant force in culture and ingredient of society, sports are as much a part of global life like education, politics, and even religion—to some sports fans, you might say it even is a religion.
It’s only logical that the explosion of sports as a global lifestyle and marketing strategy would bring with it a corresponding explosion of reach that fully encompasses the ecosystem of this thing sports marketing advertising agency experts broadly call the game.
How far is sports’ reach?
The genre is so big and robust, it’s only fair to consider it in two distinct ways. One is the actual pure physical sport or event across the wide and eclectic range of sport types both traditional and digital marketing. The second being the massively complex global lifestyle and culture born from its ethers. From national leagues, the World Cup, and the Olympics, sports reach even the most remote area of the globe.
It’s quite interesting, then, to consider that, while sport, and the angles from which one may look at it, is an ancient pastime, the art of storytelling in sports content marketing has only just begun its modern renaissance.
Yes, worldwide sports marketing and advertising have been telling sports stories since sports were born, but in many ways, those stories have been relegated to the facts, the fans, and the circumference that sport contained as a physical activity between two opponents. It’s only in the last century that those stories have begun to evolve, and truly in the last decade those stories have massively multiplied in style, tone, social channels, and genre.
Sports marketing and storytelling
The inherent attraction by many companies to sports stories that tap the same alchemy of emotional value of rawness for entertainment’s sake is natural. Sports brands have come to the same realization that the way to finally catch a man’s heart is not through his head or his stomach but his love of the sport.
So given the growing equality of women’s ambitions not only to step on a level playing field but to kick ass, dominate, outshine, outplay and outwork the best of their male counterparts, no matter the game or the field at play. The sports marketing campaigns to both men and women of all backgrounds are even richer territory for us all to embrace.
Much like the original reason, the Olympic Games were born, the modern purpose of sports marketing is to level a global playing field of the farthest reaches of diverse thought, belief, and behavior so that we may somehow come to a unified understanding of humanity. It truly makes for a game that is safe, powerful, and radically effective for a wide range of global players, with an equally robust list of products, services, and offerings.
Sports is more than just a game
To tell a story of two opposing sports teams from the furthest reaches of opposition, laying down their differences to simply play a game; if only for a moment in time, is as profound a purpose as any. The result is one where that moment is a glorious occasion and that game is one everyone wants a piece of.
As we all dig deeper into the life of sport, we start to see that there are so many untapped narratives, so many angles not yet explored and so much unrealized potential in the story of the sport. This new dawn of sports marketing is as rich, plentiful, and exciting as any genre of marketing or storytelling there has ever been, and this is the very golden age we are living in.
Whether you’re an athlete, brand, service, team, league, or an organization that caters to any or all of the above, there is a story to tell and an audience dying to hear it.
Importance of storytelling in your sports marketing
Storytelling has been helping brands around the globe connect with their customers and increase brand loyalty. An essential part of sports content marketing, storytelling is a useful technique that helps sports businesses craft their message to their clients in the most engaging way to capture their attention and increase revenue.
Storytelling is a strategy that brands utilize to help their target audience not only learn about their products and services. However, form an emotional connection that will lead them to remain loyal to the company for years to come.
While traditional brand awareness simply spews out ads about new offerings, sales, and other company news, storytelling helps the business owners or marketing team to focus on one overarching theme and craft all of the messaging (even email marketing) around that topic.
Final words
If you are looking for an industry expert advertising agency to better tell stories for your sports marketing advertising, Creatitive understands that an effective sports marketing strategy is to tell stories from the heart. Stories with soul and competitive spirit are the most powerful ones that sports brands have to offer. Visit our website to get a quotation today.
