Bubba Watson’s three stroke victory in the US Masters last night deprived Jordan Spieth, a 20 year old from Texas from becoming the youngest Golf Major winner in 92 years.
Throughout the four days though, one of the tournament sponsors was creating a breakthrough.
IBM tore up the traditional sponsorship / advertising model by airing no less than 50 unique one-time mini stories about how its technology is being used around the world.
The campaign cost what is estimated to be more than €20 million and involved 17 camera crews travelling around the world.
Each of the stories highlights an area of life that IBM’s technology is being used to enhance. This ranges from fan experience in stadia to rugby injury prevention (both ads on video below) all the way through to the treatment of brain cancer and how to select wine with your dinner.
Sport delivers for broadcasters and advertisers because of the importance of the ‘live’ element to a major sporting broadcast.
Even in the biggest drama or news broadcast, the likelihood is greater that viewers will be time shifting and fast forwarding through ad breaks.
Live sport creates conversations in social media and the Masters pulls in the high end audience that IBM craves not as consumers but as key decision makers in business.
The fact that it can spend so much in such a compressed time frame and still walk away a winner says much for the innovation that can be applied successfully to the platform that sport provides.
IBM provides a very wide range of services that many of us use but few of us recognise as being theirs. By breaking their story down into bite size chunks the company has delivered the best menu of services it possibly could, to an audience that contains the people who will spend millions on technology in the coming years, during an event where they are relaxed and willing to absorb a commercial message.
That’s the magic that sport can bring to marketing.
