Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Marketing and Advertising Lessons From 2020 That Could Make a Difference in 2021

29/12/2020

Marketing and Advertising Lessons From 2020 That Could Make a Difference in 2021 By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director

Monday, December 28, 2020 - 12:47 pm

Print This Story | Subscribe

Story Highlights

If 2020 taught us anything, it was that the world of sports found a way to get through the pandemic with creativity, innovation and sheer force of will. It also doesn't hurt that the advertising dollars that fuel professional sports were that giant incentive to keep leagues, owners and fans aligned and the athletes on the field. Here too, we saw major innovations and creativity in sports marketing and advertising as brands found new ways to reach sports-hungry consumers. But how does the unique experience of 2020 shape the path forward into 2021? And how will next year be different - and perhaps represent a new normal - for sports marketers?

Matt Voda, OptaMine Software, CEO

Like almost every industry on the planet, much of what the 2021 sports marketing model will look like is predicated on how well the pandemic is controlled. Whether it be a vaccine, therapeutics or a combination of both, sports marketers will chiefly be concerned with whether or not teams are able to fill stadiums. That is a determinant as to whether marketers can rely on in-stadium advertising like scoreboard-related sponsorship or event activation.

But that's not the only consideration. Even after the pandemic is controlled, those looking to identify potential in-stadium activations will need to weigh whether the economic impact of the pandemic will cause a dip in demand for tickets in 2021.

For this reason, brands will also shy away from on-premise sponsorships. A brand's logo on the scoreboard doesn't matter if nobody sees it. Leagues, teams and broadcast networks will need to continue innovations in virtual and augmented realities, digital signage and second-screen in-game experiences to offset uncertain on-premise investments. Will 2021 be the year that brands' logos start to appear on all players' jerseys across all of the major American sports leagues? The Magic 8 ball says signs point to yes. And leagues trying new, innovative advertising mechanisms will look to the NBA for guidance on effectiveness as they lack their own ability to prove to brands that these innovations actually work. In this way, it will be a year of transition where the technology innovation outpaces the brands' ability to measure effectiveness. Expect 2022 to reconcile this disconnect, and continue the reshaping that began in 2020.

Unquestionably, though, the smart brands that shape their advertising plans with a foundation of flexibility will see success. Flexibility in 2021 means shifting more spend to digital, which can be turned off and on more precisely depending on the circumstances inside the stadiums. Flexibility also means that contracts and agreements allow brands to alter, adjust and opt-out of commitments if the market finds itself in wildly swinging and highly uncertain recovery mode. Lead times will be highly compressed, and advanced buys will disappear.

Ultimately behavior of audiences - in this case sports fans - will be that guiding North Star for marketers. What 2020 proved was that fans were starved for sports content, literally, of any kind. Adding to that phenomenon is the legalization of sports gambling. Several states have already legalized it with more state-specific legislation expected in 2021.

Regardless of how the in-stadium experience is impacted, the legalization of sports gambling increases engagement in second-screen experiences and overall across sports. That could present opportunities regardless of how the in-stadium experience is affected by the pandemic.

Audience engagement - and where they are engaged be it at the stadium or on their couch - is the critical piece to this puzzle.

Fans are the glue that make this whole market work and all participants need to do the right things for the audience. What 2020 proved is that when leagues did right by fans, they showed up - well, virtually anyway. And what that tells us all is that even when things are terrible, and in 2021 they could still be very bad, the fans make it all work, and make it all worthwhile.

Matt Voda is CEO at OptiMine Software, a leader in Cloud-based cross-channel marketing analytics and optimization. He's helped sports properties like the NBA measure the national TV ad impact on national broadcast TuneIn ratings. He joined the company from United Health Group, where he led consumer marketing and analytics within the $40B Optum division, developing and deploying sophisticated analytics-driven approaches to yield significant gains in consumer engagement and ROI. Matt also spent 11 years at Digital River as VP of Product Management, helping develop the world's first cloud-based e-commerce platform.
LINK: https://www.sportsvideo.org/2020/12/28/marketing-and-advertising-lesso...
See more stories from svg

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

06/09/2026

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

04/08/2026

Dalet Announces Commercial Availability of Dalia, Bringing Media-Aware Agentic AI to Enterprise Productions

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

04/07/2026

Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in Dolby Cinemas Across Japan, Presented in Dolby Atmos and Dolby ...

April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...

23/06/2026

PBS Selects LTN to Power Nationwide IP Video Network

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/06/2026

PBS selects LTN for nationwide IP video network

LTN, a global leader in IP-based video transport and network services, today announced that PBS has selected LTN as its IP video partner to modernize and future...

23/06/2026

The LiveU Q Era Arrives in ANZ with the LU900Q at ABE2026

LiveU will introduce its Q Era to Australia and New Zealand for the first time at ABE2026 on Stand No. 25, (July 30 31). Leading the showcase is the LU900Q, a n...

23/06/2026

Miri Technologies Ships V410 Live 4K Video Encoder-Decode...

Miri Technologies Inc. has begun shipping its highly anticipated V410 live 4K video encoder/decoder for streaming, IP-based production workflows and AV-over-IP ...

23/06/2026

DHD SX2 and TX2 Consoles Go On-Air at Radio Tzafon

DHD audio reports the completion of an upgrade to the audio production facilities at the Galilee headquarters of Radio Tzafon. The station broadcasts two progra...

23/06/2026

Nagravision Launches Nagra Venturi Security Offering

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/06/2026

ITN Expands Programmatic Local TV Platform

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/06/2026

Warner Bros. Discovery Taps AWS for New AI-Powered Ad Tech

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/06/2026

Study: Younger Viewers More Distracted But More Receptive to Ads

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/06/2026

Chilevisin, ClaroVTR Tap Pixop for 4K FIFA World Cup Feed

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/06/2026

Imagine Communications Names Greg Garmon as Senior Vice P...

Multifaceted Growth Executive Brings 20+ Years of Experience Leading Organizations Across Tech and M&E Imagine Communications today announced the appointment ...

23/06/2026

Australians in Film and Screen Australia's talent development initiative UNTAPPED returns for 2026

Australians in Film and Screen Australia's talent development initiative UNT...

23/06/2026

Visual Productions Unveils RdmRelay2 Four-channel Relay Control at InfoComm 2026

Visual Productions Unveils RdmRelay2 Four-channel Relay Control at InfoComm 2026 Brie Clayton June 22, 2026 0 Comments New Relay Solution Combines DMX, ...

23/06/2026

SMPTE Makes Its Standards Freely Accessible, Opening Standards Library to the Global Media Technology Community

SMPTE Makes Its Standards Freely Accessible, Opening Standards Library to the Gl...

23/06/2026

RT AND COMMUNITY FOUNDATION IRELAND ANNOUNCE RT TOY SHOW APPEAL GRANT AWARDS 2026

The RT Toy Show Appeal has raised over 31 million since its inception in 2020 ...

23/06/2026

NVIDIA Powers Over 400 of the World's 500 Fastest Supercomputers

News Highlights: NVIDIA technology runs 81% of the TOP500 and 90% of the systems new to the list. 26 systems on the TOP500 adopted the NVIDIA Grace CPU, up ei...

23/06/2026

How Businesses Are Building Specialized AI They Can Trust

Companies are asking how to build specialized AI that fits with the way their workflows actually run. The first wave of enterprise AI was about access. Compan...

23/06/2026

June 22, 2026

Newly identified molecule strengthens the eye's response to damage in retinal disease Scripps Research discovery finds that restoring the naturally occurrin...

22/06/2026

Behind the Mic: SportsCenters Lisa Cohn to Retire This June From ESPN as Longest-Tenured Anchor

Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, includ...

22/06/2026

Cosm Appoints David Ho as Chief Legal Officer

Cosm has announced the appointment of David Ho as Chief Legal Officer, a newly created executive role reporting to President and CEO Jeb Terry. Ho will oversee ...

22/06/2026

Warner Bros. Discovery and AWS Announce AI-Powered Advertising Technology Platform

Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have announced the developm...

22/06/2026

Daktronics Completes Audio Control System Upgrade at Petco Park for San Diego Padres

Daktronics has completed an audio control system upgrade at Petco Park in San Di...

22/06/2026

Accelerate Media Names John Willi President, Launches Accelerate Sports Network

Accelerate Media has named John Willi as President and announced the launch of the Accelerate Sports Network (ASN), a prep sports media and streaming platform c...

22/06/2026

AWSN to Air 3XBA Womens Basketball Tournament Live June 26-27

All Women's Sports Network (AWSN) and 3XBA (3 3 Basketball Association) have announced live television coverage of the annual 3XBA tournament on Friday, Jun...

22/06/2026

OWL AI Appoints Jay Prasad as Chief Executive Officer

OWL AI has announced the appointment of Jay Prasad as Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors. Prasad succeeds Josh Gwyther, who has served...

22/06/2026

CP Communications Provides RF Support for Inside the NBA at 2026 NBA Finals

CP Communications delivered RF video and audio support for TNT's Inside the NBA at the 2026 NBA Finals, providing main show coverage in San Antonio and ea...

22/06/2026

Polymarket and GRID Partner to Integrate Esports Data and Streaming into Trading Platform

Polymarket has announced a partnership with GRID, an official esports data platf...

22/06/2026

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Metinteractive's Rachel Mele, Ken Cyr on Building Technology Backbones for Sports Venues

As sports venues continue to evolve into more video-centric, fan-engagement-driv...

22/06/2026

SVG All-Stars: Corbin Perkins, Chief Engineer, Victory+

As the regional sports production scene shifts toward streaming, this Texan helps lead the engineering behind Victory+'s growing live platform...

22/06/2026

Meet the 2026 Sundance Institute Documentary Edit Intensive Fellows

By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs the memories of your elders [are] a scaffolding for you to build your identity on - and t...

22/06/2026

Blade joins CEDAR Audio Icons line-up

New hyper-resolution analyser EQ revealed CEDAR Audio's all-new Icons plug-in series has just gained its newest member, Blade. Described by the compan...

22/06/2026

Sampleson release Aeronaut

Turn any live input into a cinematic soundscape Designed for use in the studio and on stage, Sampleson's latest creation is capable of taking any audio ...

22/06/2026

ADDAC System's new Four Strings Series

Adds guitar strings to Eurorack rigs ADDAC System are renowned for their weird and wonderful synth designs, and their line-up includes plenty of gear that&#...

22/06/2026

FIFA World Cup 2026 fever grows, as more than one third of Australians tune in to SBS coverage

FIFA World Cup 2026 fever grows, as more than one third of Australians tune in ...

22/06/2026

NAGRA Venturi - Turning Piracy Intelligence into Measurable Business Impact

In our latest blog, Tim Pearson explores NAGRA Venturi, the new streaming security solution for the AI era from NAGRAVISION. Designed to aggregate and analyze ...

22/06/2026

Xumo Expands Contextual Targeting Capabilities Through Gracenote and IRIS.TV Integrations

Expanded integrations give advertisers access to distinct contextual signals acr...

22/06/2026

Greg Garmon Joins Imagine as Senior VP, Americas Video Sales

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

22/06/2026

Kaleidescape Breaks the 8K and 4:4:4 Barriers

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

22/06/2026

Xilica introduces Dynamic Voice Lift in new Designer

Xilica today announced the release of Dynamic Voice Lift, a new feature in Xilica Designer v4.12 that brings adaptive speech reinforcement to large meeting spac...

22/06/2026

NVIDIA Brings Trusted, 24/7 AI Agents to Telecom Operations

Telecom operators have seen remarkable returns from using generative AI to automate network management, customer care and back-office operations. Most of that i...

22/06/2026

Official trailer released for Katie Price: Nothing to Hide, coming to Sky and NOW on 8 July

Monday 22 June 2026 Official trailer released for Katie Price: Nothing to Hide,...

22/06/2026

Eco Wave Power Turns Waves Into Watts With NVIDIA AI Infrastructure and Digital Twins

The next era of AI will not be defined by compute alone. Its growth will be dete...

22/06/2026

NVIDIA Vera CPU Opens the Way for Agentic Scientific AI at Los Alamos National Laboratory

Mission, Vision and Veritas - new Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) supercom...

22/06/2026

From Materials Simulation to Experimental Astronomy, New NVIDIA AI Software Unlocks Scientific Discoveries

At the ISC conference running in Hamburg this week, NVIDIA is introducing new so...

22/06/2026

NAIRR Science Program Reshapes Scientific Research, Powered by NVIDIA AI Infrastructure

For the past two years, the U.S. National Science Foundation's National Arti...

22/06/2026

At ISC, JUPITER Shows What Exascale Science Looks Like

JUPITER, Europe's first exascale supercomputer at Germany's Forschungszentrum J lich, runs on NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchips and NVIDIA Quantum-X800 Inf...