Award-winning sports and entertainment marketing consultancy Right Formula has won a competitive multi-agency pitch to support the Vodafone Business Partnership with Gallagher Premiership Rugby team Wasps Rugby, Wasps Women and Wasps Netball for the 2021/22 season.

Right Formula will help Vodafone harness the power of data, digital content and human experience across various platforms aimed at the business community that reflects Vodafone and Wasps’ shared commitment to promote the role that technology can play in sports and business.

In 2019 at the then called Ricoh Arena, Vodafone unveiled its Vodafone Business Lounge – an innovation space designed for businesses to experience the latest emerging technologies including 5G, the Internet of Things (IoT) and high-speed fibre. In 2020, Wasps installed a Vodafone Heat Detection camera at its training ground to help safeguard staff and players as they returned to training following the outbreak of COVID-19.

Right Formula CEO, Robin Fenwick, commented: “We’re truly delighted to be working with a world leading business such as Vodafone as we help them to attract and engage with important B2B and B2C audiences, as well as showcase what their technology can achieve when combined with human spirit.

“This was a huge team effort. The strategic and creative approach we are taking is allowing us to truly understand brands’ desired outcomes and provide services that deliver the required results, so we’re really looking forward to getting started.

“On a personal note, I’m thrilled to be working with Vodafone again. I began my career working with them on music events and Formula 1 back in 2001, so it’s particularly exciting to be able to continue the relationship twenty years on. I hope we’ll be working together for many years to come.”

Vodafone Business UK Head of Marketing and Communications, Dan Underwood, said: “We’re thrilled that Right Formula will be helping us to unveil new and exciting case studies, bringing 5G and IoT to life and demonstrating the key role these technologies will play in transforming the world of sport and business.

“Right Formula impressed us with their strategic and creative approach and we are looking forward to working together as we welcome businesses back to the Vodafone Business Lounge at the Coventry Building Society Arena.”

With COP26 underway, Right Formula’s Head of Sustainability, Dan Reading, explores the increasingly important relationship between sustainability and sport.

In 2015, governments across the world universally adopted the United Nation’s Agenda 2030. The agenda consists of 17 high-level targets known as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and contains a self-imposed deadline of 2030. 

To the uninitiated, the SDGs feature across society in several ways, with almost all corporate entities aligning their sustainability efforts with goals relevant to them. For example, software giant SAP one of Right Formula’s clients – commit to using the SDGs with a focus on eight specifically.

So where does sport fit into society’s contribution to a more sustainable future? The UN once cited that “sport is an important enabler of sustainable development”, and it’s true that sport naturally enables some SDGs more than others such as Good Health and Well-Being, but amid COP26, it’s Climate Action that’s at the forefront of everyone’s minds. In a society that is increasingly demanding climate action from the brands and entities that they interact with, this is an area sport needs to take more action in.

Reflecting on this ahead of COP25 in 2019, and in the middle of a media scrum ahead of her transatlantic sailing trip, I asked Greta Thunberg what she thought sport’s contribution to climate change could be. Up to then, 99% of the questions posed to her were worded to get a soundbite about her attitude towards Donald Trump, so the sport question was clearly not a topic she had fielded before. She responded by saying that sport “has the ability to engage with billions of people” and therefore “has a significant opportunity to educate people about climate change and what actions they can take to help address it”.

Right Formula Business Executive, Nick Palmer, explores private equity’s roadmap within the sports industry as companies look to re-assess their portfolios.

BETTING ON THE Market

Low risk and stable yield – the holy grail of investment strategy for private equity.

Since 2011 the sports industry has grown 6% year on year, but due to the pandemic this growth has been overturned by event cancellations, a ban of spectators from events, a reduction of grass root level sports, and the closure of retail stores. As a result, there is now a golden opportunity for private equity to invest in the industry.

The sports market has shrunk by a reported 15% since the pandemic began and yet, due to pre-existing strong structural foundations, this turbulence and volatility is only temporary. With an estimated 3% industry growth in 2021 and a further 8% in 2022, the light at the end of the tunnel is clearly visible within the market.

Right Formula Business Manager, James Cardona, explores how the lines between sport and entertainment have become blurred and how that can impact brand partnerships.

When the global pandemic forced sport off our screens and eventually kept fans away from stadia and events, as a society we lost our weekly right to experience the roar of a crowd or the purr of an engine. What we gained instead was an added appreciation of sport’s ability to deliver more than just sport.

Sports kit went from technical wear to leisurewear when working from home, local clubs became online communities, and athletes became activists, artists and influencers.

Now, sport has the ability to transcend its own definition and glide beyond the on-pitch physical entertainment and competition. It has spread its influence into music, fashion, art, social activism and everyday culture.

paris: a capital of culture

Paris Saint-Germain’s capture of Lionel Messi from Barcelona during the football summer transfer window understandably made the front and back pages, but their business away from the pitch has been equally impressive.

It was recently announced that French luxury fashion house, Dior, was to become the club’s official tailor. This heralds Dior’s first time working with a sports club and through the collaboration with PSG they have aligned with a global lifestyle brand that is modern and fast-growing.

The worlds of sport and fashion are now entwined; influences from one are seen in the other.

The partnership follows on from PSG’s first foray into lifestyle in 2018, when they entered into a sportswear supply deal with Nike Jordan – a brand more famed in the NBA – which had obvious benefits for the club in the US market.

The arrival of the world’s best player in Messi, alignment to French luxury in Dior, and street culture through Jordan, gives PSG the ultimate trifecta. They attack culture from all angles and we expect to see the PSG brand to continue its meteoric rise.

When I started Right Formula in 2009, I knew the business would have to continually evolve to keep up with client needs and market forces. But this year has necessitated change beyond what anyone could have predicted. 

Just over a decade ago, the premise for starting the business was to bring together some of the finest strategic and innovative people to deliver a high-quality service that meets our clients needs.  

To achieve this, we ensured that principles such as ongoing creativity, resilience, adaptability and perseverance were rooted in the way each and every team member went about their work. 

In turn this has allowed us to achieve success based on the strength of relationships we’ve nurtured in some cases over many years, built on the core principles we’ve instilled across our workforce. Having marked over a decade of operating and experienced what has been without doubt the most challenging year of the business – which has incidentally also been my 40th birthday year – I’ve probably been in a more reflective mood than usual!

Today, we have more than 50 staff working across numerous sports across the globe, consulting for many prestigious clients who operate in a range of business sectors. It is therefore critical to me, now more than ever, that each and every client sees us deliver a return on their investment. 

In 2020, the marketing rights we were tasked to activate at Right Formula simply couldn’t be delivered in the way they were articulated in contracts. As a business, we have had to work creatively with rights holders to ensure we adapted, and fast. We had to find solutions that were mutually agreeable but not without compromise from both sides.

 The character of those within the business, channelling the values we had when Right Formula began, has led us to be more creative than ever and truly deliver best-in-class solutions. 

For example, across the industry there had been question marks around how best to activate digital and virtual experiences. The COVID-19 pandemic required innovation, so at Right Formula we introduced a Virtual Official Match Ball Carrier for Kia at the UEFA Europa League Final, provided innovative digital solutions to leverage Genpact’s partnership with Envision Virgin Racing in Formula E, and delivered an entire Esports competition for Logitech.