Jack 39 Scoop: Takeaways from the Brand Innovation Summit

Last week, Sports Business Journal hosted its annual Brand Innovation Summit in Chicago. And our team from Jack39 was on site, alongside leading sports marketers, to learn how brands are disrupting the status quo and changing the game.

Our leaders weighed in on three big themes and what to expect from brands:

1. Purpose over profit. Many brand partners emphasized the importance of aligning missions and values, particularly in light of the recent Liv/PGA news, which sparked considerable discussion. Intriguingly, current data shows that non-sports fans are increasingly engaging with women’s sports and developing fandom solely based on the missions behind these endeavors, indicating a significant opportunity for growth. Furthermore, several companies, from Ally, CME Group to Diageo, highlighted the motivation of doing things simply because they are the right thing to do. Some brands even mentioned a willingness to give up categories within their exclusivity for the greater good of the partner’s ability to drive revenue. This trend could impact real change in the industry.
2. Specialty rules. Several brand presenters, including Bojangles and Zip Carwash, expressed an intention to bring social and creative functions in-house. However, a common thread was recognizing the value of agency support, particularly regarding sponsorship consulting encompassing negotiation, activation, and evaluation. This level of agency support enables clients to think on a larger scale and operate more efficiently.
3. Actioning data. Data remains a hot topic as brands look at best practices to optimize sponsorship investments and measure the return on investment. The app development and data collection theme emerged, highlighting challenges with gathering and analyzing results. A significant obstacle that persists is determining the most effective way to utilize that data and transform it into actionable insights that demonstrate alignment between brand and partner