Brand Purpose Critical As World Exits Covid, Brands eMasterclass Finds

iSportConnect Brands eMasterclass today found that brand purpose and clear alignment with organisations who hold similar beliefs and vision is by far the most prominent theme for brands as the world moves past the Covid-19 pandemic.

We had a terrific start to the eMasterclass looking at ‘The Power Of Purpose: Being Instrumental Not Ornamental In Achieving Your Goals’, through a presentation by Phil Coverdale, Managing Director of Cravens.

Phil provided a terrific session for our audience with his presentation on purpose within brands and sport, showcasing contrasting examples of some of the best and worst examples of purpose-led organisations and the importance of having true buy-in from those within the organisation.

This was a session that was very relevant for brands in a world where CSR and having those positive impacts societally and environmentally, with a younger generation who see a company’s values as a large factor when buying their products.

For our first panel we had a discussion surrounding ‘Measuring Sponsorship Activation In A Post Pandemic World’, which was led by an expert in this space, Scott Tilton, CEO of Hookit.

The panel, containing Kaitlin Sullivan of New Balance, Brad Ross from the Coca-Cola Company and Absa Bank’s Peter Waweru, looked at sponsorship measurement and ROI and how these have been adapting over the last year.

There were also some great thoughts expressed by the panel when discussing whether social and digital has taken a greater aspect moving forwards even now stadiums are filling up once again, how leveraging data through social metrics is impacting this and particularly the personalisation aspect that comes with digital.

After our networking break, our second and final panel of the day ‘The Right Fit: Aligning Brands & Sport’, moderated by Sarah Dawson of CSM and featuring HSBC’s Luke Harper, Michael Robichaud of Mastercard, Unilever’s Willem Dinger and Zaheeda Suleman from Safaricom.

This session looked at how some of these major brands are looking to constantly find the best fit for the audiences they are trying to reach, but also those that are already involved with these brands.

Our panel looked at the importance of looked at how existing partnerships had been changing over the past 12 months, looking at ensuring the alignment of values between brands and partners and how risk management of sponsorship is changing.

We would like to thank everyone who attended today, there were certainly lots of great advice and learning to take away from leaders at some of the world’s biggest brands.