Last week's announcement that professional baseball will return this year, at least in a limited format, was cause for celebration for fans who have been sports-starved since the rise of the coronavirus pandemic. Equally hopeful are automakers that have been missing out on one of their key marketing platforms — live sports.
But physical distancing regulations and ongoing worries about the spread of the virus mean questions remain regarding the near-term prospects of professional and college sporting events.
That's a problem for auto brands, including Nissan. Sports is the largest area of Nissan's annual media spend, the automaker said. Automakers spent nearly 80 percent of their sponsorship dollars on sports properties last year, according to consulting firm IEG.
Allyson Witherspoon, vice president, marketing communications and media for Nissan North America, said it is too early to predict when major sporting events will return as an important marketing platform. But Nissan will be waiting.
"Our commitment to sports will remain," she told Automotive News. "We are having active conversations every single week with our different properties. We want to position ourselves to be in a conversation when major sports return."
It is an inopportune time for Nissan to lose a key communications platform. The automaker is orchestrating a product offensive that involves updating about 70 percent of its portfolio by mid-2021.
Getting those market launches right is critical as Nissan struggles to turn its U.S. business around. Nissan North America's U.S. sales dropped 30 percent in the first quarter as consumer demand for cars and light trucks fell in the wake of the viral outbreak.
"We have this product offensive; we have all these opportunities," Witherspoon said. "It's really about how do we make sure that we get them out to consumers and do that in an engaging and impactful way."
The pandemic has already upset one major marketing initiative. In mid-March, Nissan was forced to interrupt a media campaign for the redesigned Sentra compact sedan after demand cratered as a result of shelter-in-place orders around the country. The campaign, which includes a TV commercial featuring actress Brie Larson, is now back on the air.
But Witherspoon is optimistic about the next major product launch. Nissan is planning a "huge marketing push" for the redesigned 2021 Rogue, which lands in the fall. The compact crossover, Nissan's volume leader, will be featured in the brand's football-themed "Heisman House" campaign this year.
The Rogue is "definitely the biggest launch that we've had in years and we are handling it that way," Witherspoon said. "We are going to have a lot of paid media, a lot of social media, a lot of online video content."
Given the impact of the pandemic, Nissan's 2020 marketing budget is "still under discussion," a company spokeswoman said.
Last year, the Nissan brand spent about $538 million on overall media advertising in the U.S., up from more than $510 million in 2018, according to data from Kantar Media.
Nissan ranked seventh among automakers in sports sponsorship spend, investing between $30 million and $35 million last year, according to IEG.
Nissan is a major backer of college athletics. It is a sponsor of the NCAA men's basketball tournament and has a 15-year partnership with the Heisman Trophy Trust.
Witherspoon is confident that sports programming will be back. "When it returns, we expect the viewership to be strong," she said.
But the nature of the fan experience at sporting events now is an unknown and poses the biggest challenge to marketers.
"The physical activation — that is probably what will change most," Witherspoon said, referring to live events where crowds can touch the products. "How do you create a physical experience that is low-touch, or contactless?"
The absence of fans in stadiums also takes away some of the premium assigned to sports sponsorship deals, said Peter Laatz, global managing director at IEG.
The deals are about selling access to fans, rather than just selling signs. Automakers rely on vehicle displays and brand ambassadors at the game to drive lead generation.
Brands seek to move the sports fans through the sales funnel and get them into a dealership, Laatz said. "It's harder to do that with an outfield board."
With the in-stadium fan experience off the table for the foreseeable future, auto industry marketers and sports properties are in a "reconciliation process" over the value of their sponsorship deals, Laatz said.
"Sports and sponsorships have a powerful way forward post-COVID," he said. "But it's going to require reinventing and reimagining how brands engage with fans virtually, or digitally."
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June 29, 2020 at 11:00AM
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Sports fans are at a loss, but so are auto marketers - Automotive News
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