How Influencer Marketing is Transforming the Future of Sports Marketing

Brad Marchand x Sam Adam’s Marchand(y)

Influencer marketing, the practice of partnering with social media personalities to promote a brand’s products or services, is becoming increasingly popular in the digital age. For sports marketers, influencer marketing has become a powerful tool to reach and engage with audiences. While traditional advertising methods like TV commercials, billboards, and radio spots continue to play a role in marketing, influencer marketing focuses on connecting with audiences through social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube for a more targeted and engaging approach. Understanding an influencer’s following enables a brand to target audiences more selectively, making influencer marketing an incredibly valuable tool in the digital age.

How an Influencer Marketing Campaign Comes to Life

An influencer marketing campaign typically begins with a brand identifying talent whose audience aligns with its target market to promote their products or services. Other key considerations include a brand’s goals, budget, and the type of influencer they want their brand to be associated with.

 Once a brand selects an influencer, a content plan and expectations are then agreed upon. The type of content, posting frequency, platforms, and any compensation are determined in this stage. Influencers and brands can utilize an influencer’s platforms to create authentic marketing messages through organic content such as product reviews, behind-the-scenes content, tutorials, or even giveaways.

Influencers and their Marketing Benefits

One of the biggest advantages of influencer marketing is that influencers create organic and authentic content for their audience which helps the promotions feel more genuine. Influencers also allow brands to reach specific, niche audiences with interests that align with the brand’s target audience. When executed well, influencer marketing can be more cost-effective than traditional advertising methods and often yield higher engagement and conversion rates.

Types of Influencers

One of the most important steps of influencer marketing is selecting the right size influencer for their social media campaign:

·  Macro-influencers are celebrities or very popular individuals who boast millions of followers.

·  Micro-influencers are individuals with smaller, but highly engaged followings, typically in the thousands to hundreds of thousands.

·  Nano-influencers are everyday social media users who typically have the strongest connection to their followers and usually with fewer than 10,000 followers.

Popular Sports Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Brands collaborate with sports influencers through sponsorship and endorsements. Like typical influencer partnerships, these partnerships typically involve athletes promoting products, services, or brands through their social media platforms. These collaborations help brands reach highly engaged audiences and leverage the athlete's credibility and influence to build trust and drive consumer action.

 For instance, in a recent Samuel Adams campaign that featured former Boston Bruin’s Captain Brad Marchand. Marchand partnered with Samuel Adams to create his own beer – the ‘Marchand(y)’. Just before its release Marchand was traded to the Florida Panthers. Due to coinciding timing and the release of Marchand(y) the beer received a lot of publicity as fans now view the beer as a tribute to Marchand’s sixteen years as a Bruin. Another example of a sports influencer marketing campaign would be Jerod Mayo’s collaboration with Hellman’s Mayo with the theme of ‘tackling food waste’. Jerod’s last name of Mayo embodied this partnership to be a natural success, tying his football career and playing off the field for entertaining and effective marketing.

Jerod Mayo x Hellman’s Super Bowl Commercial

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