This text is an element one in every of a three-part deeper dive into my earlier article on the advertising and marketing winners of the 2024 Paris Olympic Video games. We’re revisiting our Bronze medal marketing campaign winner, 5-hour ENERGY and Taste Flav, whose partnership energized the Video games to deliver a lot wanted consideration to the U.S. Ladies’s Water Polo group.
Stirring Up The Hype Present For Water Polo
In Could 2024, captain of the U.S. Ladies’s Water Polo Group Maggie Steffens posted on Instagram a heartfelt name for sponsors, the place she revealed the monetary challenges top-tier athletes face in much less seen sports activities like water polo. Regardless of being three-time Olympic gold medalists, Steffens and her teammates juggled a number of jobs to assist their coaching and journey prices. Most athletes depend on sponsors for primary dwelling bills and lodging, however solely athletes competing in additional distinguished sports activities, equivalent to basketball, gymnastics and swimming, entice sponsorship {dollars}.
Enter Taste Flav, legendary hype man for the long-lasting hip-hop revolutionary group Public Enemy. “As a lady dad and supporter of all girls’s sports activities,” he responded to Steffen’s submit, “I’mma personally sponsor you, my woman, no matter you want. And I’mma sponsor the entire group. My supervisor is in contact together with your agent and imma use all my relationships and assets to assist all y’all much more. That’s a FLAVOR FLAV promise.”
And assist he did, with a five-year sponsorship deal going past simply splashing the U.S. Ladies’s Water Polo Group with money. Being the primary movie star to tackle such a direct position in supporting an Olympic group, Taste Flav’s dedication as their official “hype man” meant attending occasions, together with coaching periods the place he had no qualms about leaping into the pool with them. He was usually seen in a Group USA jersey along with his signature outsized clock medallion round his neck, now upgraded to a USA Water Polo group branded custom-made waterproof clock.
“It got here to me by my supervisor. I seemed on the submit and I used to be like, ‘Hey, know what, this wouldn’t be a foul concept to provide these ladies a bit of carry up,'” he advised Males’s Journal. “So now I’m gonna go dwell it out to the max. And never solely am I their sponsor till 2029, however I’m the one one which’s sponsoring an Olympic group, interval.”
“Possibly this can open up the doorways of different celebrities like myself to only step in and assist sponsor a few of these Olympic groups. Not simply water polo, however monitor and discipline, gymnastics, the entire package and kaboodle. Hopefully there will likely be different celebs that can step as much as the plate and do like me.”
The Hype Man and the Model: A Excellent Match
Taste Flav’s larger-than-life persona injected recent power into the group, each poolside and on social media, boosting participant morale whereas bringing American consideration to a sport largely favored by Italians, Croatians, Hungarians and Serbians. His electrifying enthusiasm may make even essentially the most awarded aggressive cheerleading squad search him out for teaching ideas. As an alternative, that electrical energy switched on the proverbial lightbulb for 5-hour ENERGY executives.
Taste Flav and 5-hour ENERGY formally launched their partnership at a high-profile dinner in Los Angeles, held in honor of the U.S. Ladies’s Water Polo Group as they ready to depart for the 2024 Paris Olympics. There, Taste Flav debuted his new 5-hour ENERGY {custom} cufflinks. Crafted by the jewellery design and rental firm Verstolo High quality Jewellery, the cufflinks have been made in 14K gold-plated sterling silver, black enamel, and chrome steel with each fashion and performance in thoughts. Every cufflink held half a 5-hour ENERGY shot, and when worn collectively, served as stylish wearable dispensers for the standard dose.
Now The Numbers: How Did 5-hour ENERGY Carry out?
5-hour ENERGY’s marketing campaign had clear aims: increase consciousness of the 5-hour ENERGY model with a tie to the summer time Paris Olympic Video games, elevate the profile of the U.S. Ladies’s Water Polo group, and interact shoppers in a enjoyable and interactive means. And by all measures, it succeeded.
160 million media impressions: The partnership with Taste Flav generated over 160 million buzzy media impressions, bringing each the product and the group entrance and middle throughout the Olympic Video games.
#SummerOfNoFOMO sweepstakes: The marketing campaign additionally included a sweepstakes permitting followers to win a summer time’s provide of 5-hour ENERGY merchandise. It drew over 3,200 entries.
5-hour ENERGY Cufflinks: The limited-edition cufflinks, priced at $1,000, are utterly offered out.
An excellent larger measure of success, nevertheless, is the publicity increase the U.S. Ladies’s Water Polo group acquired for a sport that doesn’t get a lot mainstream consideration. Taste Flav launched an American viewers to a sport lengthy appreciated by Japanese Europeans, even because the U.S. Ladies’s Water Polo group is dominating the game. They claimed their fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal throughout the 2024 Paris Olympic Video games.
As Michaela Spector, director of selling for USA Water Polo, presaged with Taste Flav’s sponsorship’s announcement, “Taste Flav’s star energy and keenness for supporting athletes will deliver a brand new stage of pleasure and visibility to water polo.”
Taste Flav’s hype man position for the U.S. Ladies’s Water Polo group was really the center and soul of the marketing campaign, which is strictly why it caught my eye. I’m without end telling luxurious manufacturers it’s essential to search an emotional connection together with your clients, as a result of, in spite of everything, the pursuit of luxurious is a passionate factor. Aligning with a philanthropic function is at all times a good suggestion, significantly when the trigger is one thing close to and pricey to the center of your goal clients.
Trying Forward: The Energy of Celeb in Olympic Advertising and marketing
The 5-hour ENERGY marketing campaign is a good case research for a way manufacturers ought to leverage movie star energy to find somebody who’s the dwelling embodiment of their model message. 5-hour ENERGY’s marketing campaign was solely amplified by the synergy between the person and the model. Taste Flav is the power, enthusiasm and enjoyable 5-hour ENERGY desires its viewers to really feel once they do a shot. Pairing the partnership announcement with Taste Flav’s sponsorship of the U.S. Ladies’s Water Polo group added a layer of coronary heart to a marketing campaign that would have in any other case been purely in regards to the product.
The ultimate verdict? A worthy marketing campaign contender in our 2024 Paris Olympics advertising and marketing race. Keep tuned for the subsequent deep dive, the place we’ll discover FIGS’ marketing campaign, which honored an alternate group of unsung heroes in one other first for any Olympic Video games.
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