Seeing Is Believing
Seeing Is Believing
New Social Platform BeReal. Women's Euros Breaks Records. Oscar Piastri Makes Alpine Look Twice.
On Today’s Agenda:
How Athletes Can Leverage The BeReal Platform
Women’s Soccer Leads The Charge Following The Euros
Drama in F1 Heading into the Summer Break
BeReal in the Sports Marketing Landscape
Utilizing The Newest Social Platform To Your Advantage
By Marcus MacDonald
Similar to the English Premier League top 4 race, the social media landscape are established competitors, some competitors that need to be revamped, and then every year or two there is a new team that comes out of nowhere fighting for one of those spots. Now there is a new platform called BeReal that is looking to be promoted into the mainstream.
As an emerging platform, BeReal faces the challenge of differentiating itself in such a copycat industry. Positioned as the “Anti-Instagram” app, BeReal aims to have users share authentic photos of their everyday lives. With BeReal’s features and purpose being different from other social media, it has the potential to enhance the sports marketing landscape.
Brand partnerships with athletes will need to be built on greater trust and alignment. Social media managers for influencers become obsolete with BeReal’s dual camera feature. The front and rear camera capture allows users to see who is actually taking the photos. With less planned content, brands will have to trust athletes to be able to showcase their products or services effectively in an unfiltered way. The spontaneity of the notifications to post is a feature that makes brand alignment with athletes even more essential. With the platform’s ethos being authenticity, it would be a huge error for athletes to showcase competing brands. However, spontaneity also provides an opportunity for natural product placements.
For teams and leagues, BeReal is a new platform that compliments the marketing strategies they already have in place. Over the last few years, teams have been providing content to satisfy fans’ craving to know more about what is happening behind the scenes. Similar to Instagram takeovers, teams can have a different member of the organization snap the BeReal photo each day to give behind-the-scenes content without much hassle. The ease of doing so means busier executives like GMs or Presidents can participate as well. Teams and leagues also have the opportunity to form a partnership with BeReal to receive organic marketing from users by having push notifications at specific times. For example, a team could have BeReal send the push notification during games. The platform is naturally set up for users to share their environments, so fans can easily show their view of the game and who they’re with.
According to TechCrunch, in April 2022 BeReal had 2.93 million daily active users. That is a minuscule amount compared to an estimate from Statista of Instagram’s one billion daily active users. However, at the end of July, BeReal reached the top of app store charts showing that its popularity is rising. As of right now, there are no major sports athletes or teams using the platform. So it may be some time until we see the sports world adopt the platform. BeReal may even fizzle out before we see this happen. But every once in a while, like Leicester City in 2015/16, a small organization breaks through and finds success.
Open Your Eyes: Women’s Sports Isn’t Going Anywhere
Women’s Soccer Leads The Charge Following The Euros
By Christopher Nascimento
Maya Angelou has a great quote that I enjoy referring to, it goes like this: when people show you who they are, believe them. This quote is typically in reference to the action of others, however, I think the theme of this quote is shared across various circumstances. An example of this could be partnership spending habits. If major corporations are removing their dollars from traditional media and transitioning them to digital platforms, you better believe there’s something to it.
The UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 tournament came in hot, as they smashed viewership and attendance numbers. The final where England beat Germany became the most-watched women’s soccer match ever in the UK whilst also having the highest ever attendance at the Euros, for both men and women, with a total of 87K+ fans.
This is an incredible feat regardless of gender but as I referred to earlier with Maya Angelou’s theme, believe them - fans certainly care, and now we will see the results of this. Women’s soccer is a sport that fans align themselves with and support fully. With numbers like these, it is no surprise that in ten years’ time we can have women’s and men’s tournaments competing for fandom, or possibly advancing the position of clubs with two competitive squads.
I believe the possibilities are endless on all fronts for women’s sports. From my experiences, in sports marketing, it is evident that female athletes are far more marketable than their male counterparts, as they get it. They understand the importance of brand building and selling the game. I’m certain we will see major corporations partnering with clubs to align themselves with the women over the men sides in the near future, as they are the athletes that can provide them with the greater upside.
We look forward to seeing what comes next for women’s soccer but until then the white whale mktg team may need to tighten up their boots and find a female soccer player to add to the team.
Winning and Losing off the Track
Drama in F1 Heading into the Summer Break
By Hiral Patel
Coming out of the Hungarian Grand Prix at the end of July, the world of F1 was talking about the usual suspects – Verstappen, Hamilton, Red Bull, Mercedes, and even Ferrari. However, this past week has turned all the attention away from the current season and the leaderboard.
The domino effect began when one of F1’s finest announced his retirement. Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel stunned the racing world when he announced his retirement at the end of the current season. The youngest world champion in F1 history was quickly replaced with another world champion – Fernando Alonso, who currently races for Alpine.
Alpine’s reserve racer, Oscar Piastri, is coming off back-to-back wins in Formula 3 and Formula 2. So the hype for Piastri’s debut in F1 has been anticipated by many F1 fans. On the surface, this appears to be a perfect passing of the torch. The French company put out a press release and a tweet announcing Piastri’s promotion to replace Alonso.
To the surprise of both Alpine and the F1 world, Piastri’s comments on the matter came on Twitter and not in the press release.
While the drama between Alpine and Piastri continues to unfold, what we can say with certainty is that this is an example of what not to do during a press release. Alpine’s announcement was met with skepticism, given that it was released during the middle of the night in Australia – poor timing if you expect an announcement to excite your fanbase.
On the positive side, Williams Racing and Alex Albon took to Twitter during the drama and put their own comical spin on things: Williams announced Albon’s contract with the team, and Albon mimicked Piastri’s tweet to take a jab at Alpine’s embarrassing situation:
The tweet received a reply from Piastri as well, who commended Albon’s trolling skills. Albon’s tweet went just as viral as Piastri’s and is a great lesson for athlete branding. Fans love to see personality on social media, and timing is everything. When the entire sport’s eyes are on one story, all it can take to come out the winner is a well-timed witty tweet – and in Albon’s case, is just as big of a win as Verstappen’s Hungarian GP win.
Update: After this article was written, it was announced that Oscar Piastri will replace Daniel Ricciardo for McLaren, following the upcoming season.
