Sports marketing agency Lagardere Sports grabbed headlines earlier this year when it entered the realm of esports by singing Unicorns of Love to a partnership. Shortly thereafter, the agency added to its roster of clients, by picking up the likes of Team ROCCATT and SK Gaming as well, with an eye to grow their brands via sponsor acquisitions, product development and expansion of digital channels and media rights. As the company continues to inflate its influence in the industry, Cynopsis asked Andre Flackel, Director eSports at Lagardere Sports about the company’s new forays and what the agency can do for the industry.
Flackel on Lagardere’s interest in esports: I could easily say that it is about the impressive numbers on viewership, social media reach etc. but it’s more than that. It’s about the young generation – the generation Z, Y, millennials, digital natives… whatever you want to call them. They or let’s better say we (because I’m part of it) consume media and interact with each other in different ways than generations before us and we have different interests than generations before. The world is constantly moving. Faster than ever: the internet changes everything. Still, a lot of people underestimate that. For me, esports is on top of that wave and shows from a sports prospective that the world is changing. Ten years ago who would have ever thought that gamers will be like popstars? We at Lagardere are only reaction to what is going on already. We know sports marketing quite well, we helped to build the football business 20 years ago. Now we want to help grow the esports business and become an important part of the eco-system.
On what Lagardere brings to the table: We are an established sports marketing agency with over 50 years of experience and offices all around the world. We have access to nearly every brand, broadcaster, sports organizations as well as mayor stadiums and arenas. We are the world-wide leader in marketing and distribution of sponsorships and media rights and we are offering a Full-Service portfolio for marketing and media: management/brand/digital consulting, sponsoring, hospitality, events, operations, etc.
To be more concrete, from an esports organization perspective (teams, leagues as well as publishers), we help to grow their business not only by bringing in money via sponsorships but also thinking, strategizing and executing long term. This is exactly what we are doing for traditional sports organizations like Borussia Dortmund, CAF (Confederation of African Football) or the NFL. From a brand perspective we offer access and proper marketing to approach a target group which becomes more relevant and that brands doesn’t reach via classical media or doesn’t even understand at all – yet.
On goals for its partners: We want to offer brands the best possible advertising platform to reach a new target group. Even more important is to help brands (together with the team) to get the context of the new advertising platforms (digital) and language to speak to their potential customers. At the moment we have signed three esports teams. Unicorns of Love, Team Roccat both League of Legends and SK Gaming with Counter-Strike as well as Vainglory and Hearthstone (both Mobile Games). Each team is very unique. Providing these teams the best partners to rely on, will put their organizations in a better position to succeed. Moreover this will have an impact to the whole eco system of esports and take it to the next level we believe.
On lessons learned: It takes much longer to convince brands to place advertising and sponsoring budget in esports than in traditional sports. The reason for that is that a lot of decision maker are not familiar with esports yet. Our job is to educate brands and help them find their way into this booming market. Having said that we see more and more brands want to enter the esports market. I believe the biggest brands in the world are about to get it. Still we are talking most of the time about test budget. If all of us advertisers in this industry deliver good sponsoring and advertising for these brands and show the value, than this test budgets will become bigger and more brands will follow.
