SBJ Marketing: Wasserman seeks college growth with agency acquisition

“Playing ball, and in life, a person occasionally gets the opportunity to do something great. When that time comes, only two things matter: being prepared to seize the moment and having the courage to take your best swing.” -- Hank Aaron

At a time when some of the largest collegiate sports agencies have been struggling due to the impact of COVID on their businesses, Wasserman is making a move in the collegiate space with the acquisition of Riddle & Bloom, a Boston-based marketing firm that targets collegians, generally outside of athletic venues. “There’s not a singular way to reach this critical college demographic, yet every single brand we have is asking for more and better ways to do just that,’’ said Wasserman President of Brands & Properties Elizabeth Lindsey. “Sports can reach the alums, but marketing directly to students effectively, much less at scale, isn’t easy. Riddle & Bloom does that with excellence.”

Riddle & Bloom services around 400-500 campuses at any one time with a variety of marketing programs, including influencer campaigns, and a mix of experiential and digital/social efforts, ambassador programs, events and mobile marketing and fraternity/sorority activations for clients including Amazon Prime, HBO and Microsoft Teams. Riddle & Bloom also has exclusive relationships with the National Association for Campus Activities, the National Association of College Auxiliary Services and the National Intramural Recreational Sports Association.

The 15-year-old agency, which employs around 60 people, will become part of Wasserman’s collegiate offerings. Riddle & Bloom President Darren Ross will become a Wasserman Exec VP, reporting to Lindsey. “Culture and the people you’re going to be working with are the most important factors in anything like this, and we loved those,’’ said Ross. “We also wanted to scale our business and Wasserman’s connective tissue across the industry and with clients and consumers are right where we wanted to go.’’

Riddle & Bloom has been owned by Teall Capital since November 2017. Inner Circle Sports advised Teall on the sale to Wasserman.

Is the wider distribution of COVID-19 vaccines making you more hopeful about attending events? Momentum’s ongoing "Return to Live" research says that optimism is being fueled by Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna. According to the online survey of 300 respondents last month, 48% would return to live events within one month or sooner of getting vaccinated. There’s accompanying higher comfort levels overall regarding live events: 39% said they would be open to attending an event with more than 100 people, up significantly from 21% in December.

So, another important question now being asked: how can brands best leverage that renaissance of live events? “A lot of clients are asking how they can be part of that important experience," said Momentum Chief Strategy & Analytics Officer Elena Klau. "There’s consumer perception that brands can be a vital part of this, largely through making it safer and reducing points of friction. Anything that help restore the connections to friends and family that were lost during the pandemic will score highly with consumers."

As experiential marketing returns, determining the appropriate mix of digital to live will be one of the biggest quandaries across the marketing world. "It’s a new balance everyone’s trying to determine," said Klau. Momentum’s research showed that consumers planning to restrict themselves solely to online events decreased from 25% in December to 13% in the more recent research. More will look to start incorporating a hybrid approach as they get more comfortable with it (55% vs. 39% in Dec 2020).

Supporting our long-held contention that there’s no demand like pent-up demand (what championship-starved fan doesn’t know that?): 84% of consumers say they can’t wait to spend on fun things that will get them out of the house, while 79% say the pandemic has made them realize how much they miss live experiences and events.

• Octagon's John Shea will become CEO and assume day-to-day operating responsibilities for the agency. Rick Dudley, who has been Chair & CEO for the past 18 years, will remain as Chair. Octagon Founder & President Phil de Picciotto will co-manage the agency with Shea. SBJ's Abe Madkour wrote of the change: "Octagon is a disciplined company, so expect a seamless transition." I also noted in SBJ this week that while the pandemic eviscerated experiential marketing over the past year, Shea says Octagon is hiring again and will continue to do so.

• NASCAR is making several big exec changes, including Senior VP/Marketing Pete Jung moving into the CMO role, my colleague Adam Stern reports. The CMO role Jung is moving into was formerly held by Jill Gregory, who recently left to head up the Speedway Motorsports-owned Sonoma Raceway. Another important move is Daryl Wolfe moving to the CRO role and taking responsibility for all money making across sponsorship, licensing and ticket sales.

• The Earthquakes’ stadium will now be known as PayPal Park under a 10-year naming-rights agreement with the online payment company, SBJ's Bret McCormick reports. Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but the deal lands in the upper half of MLS stadium naming-rights deals, according to Earthquakes COO Jared Shawlee. This deal also will see PayPal’s Venmo brand become the touchless payment provider of the stadium, a first for the company, which had no explicit deals with sports venues.

• Sports betting has emerged as the leading ad category for every sports station that Audacy (formerly Entercom) operates in a legalized market, per my colleague Bill King. When Mike Dee took the job running sports at Entercom, he knew it was a directional shift from a career selling sponsorships and then running teams. But he had no idea the role that sports betting would play in it. “I knew it was coming not long after I got here, but I had no idea what it was going to be,” Dee said. “It has by 30,000 times exceeded my expectations of what it was going to mean to our business. I now spend the vast majority of my time on it.”

• IT services and consulting firm Cognizant has signed on as a sponsor of the SailGP global catamaran race, the eight-event series across three continents that begins April 24 in Bermuda and finishes in S.F. next March. It's the latest sponsorship in a spending spree by Cognizant this year, as it seeks additional tech demonstration platforms. Since January, the Fortune 200 company has unveiled a title sponsorship for the Aston Martin F1 Team, a sponsorship of golf's Presidents Cup and title sponsorship of the LPGA Tour Founders Cup.

The Patriots and Gillette began their shared journey in 2002 by agreeing to a 15-year naming rights deal (which was extended in 2010through the 2031 season). Gillette has also  added the Patriots’ practice jerseys to its sponsorship docket, as well as other integrations within the stadium, with Patriots’ players, and on social media, where a 2.21x brand affinity on Twitter is proof fans of the Patriots are twice as likely to follow Gillette when compared to other NFL fans. To celebrate the team’s most recent triumph in Super Bowl LIII, Gillette had then-QB Tom Brady visit their facility so they could shave his playoff beard on Twitter.

For more sponsorship research, competitive intelligence and insightful data, visit SBJ Atlas.

SBJ has a number of openings as the sports business is poised for an exciting and rapid return. We currently have open positions in marketing -- a Director of Marketing and Marketing Manager.