How Brand Agencies Decide Which Racers Get the Money

A lot of sponsorship requests never reach the brand's marketing manager. They get forwarded to the brand's agency, and someone there decides whether the racer fits. If you understand how that person thinks, you stop sending pitches that get deleted and start showing up where the agency is already looking. At my Sponsorship Summits, the people who make those calls explained how they decide.

Strategy comes first. Racers get chosen to fit it.

Eric Morley founded Blue C, a brand development agency whose clients have included Wahoo's Fish Taco and Monster Energy. He gets a steady flow of athletes forwarded by his clients, and it can be overwhelming. He doesn't judge them one at a time. "The athlete ambassador program cannot be a tactic. It has to be focusing on a bigger picture of a strategy," Morley said on an agents and agencies panel. "Once we developed a strategy, then what we do is we look for the ambassadors or athletes to actually fit into the pockets of that strategy."

That's why sending your deck to the brand often goes nowhere. "If they go to the brand, they're going to get lost in the mix, unless there's someone in the brand that is really responsible for that," he said. ▶ Watch Eric Morley explain this

At a motocross summit, Morley described how his agency checks a program. He compares it to a four-legged table: "You got the athlete, you got the brand, you got the media and the activations, and then you have the target audience. One of those legs is gone, the table will fall over." ▶ See Morley's answer

You can read the strategy in public

Racers often assume a brand's plans are confidential. Morley says most of them are visible. "Nowadays everything's so transparent. Just look at their Instagram feed, look at their website, look where they're going," he said. "If they're going to Loretta Lynn's, they're not going there for the tasty food. They're going there for a strategic reason." The racer's job is to "position themselves to be a part of that world."

He gave an example from that week. He'd seen a LinkedIn video from someone in the off-road world launching a powersports battery and taking his truck to events up and down the coast. To Morley, that showed where the brand was headed: it wanted buzz, it wanted the product in front of lots of people, and it wanted like-minded partners. If you race in powersports, that's an obvious brand to approach. ▶ Watch the clip

A brand at the track is probably not buying awareness

On the same panel, a former BFGoodrich motorsports marketing director now working at the Jackson agency warned racers not to assume the obvious goal. "Just because somebody's at the racetrack, it may not be for awareness. In fact, it's probably not for awareness," he said. "They're probably doing something with dealers, they're probably doing something with influencers." He described a recent client whose "number one goal is downloads of an app," with awareness third or fourth on their list.

He also said good agencies don't improvise. "People fail, but processes don't," he said. Strategy comes first, and tactics follow from it. ▶ Watch the agency side

If you pitch exposure to a brand that's trying to win dealers or get app downloads, you're answering a question nobody asked.

Five things every ambassador has to do

Morley went on to list what Blue C expects from anyone it signs. "Every athlete or ambassador has to represent and educate. They have to use the product. They have to sell the product. It used to be just create brand awareness and we're happy. Those days are over." Ambassadors also "need to integrate into a community," one the brand has chosen on purpose, "and they also need to activate that relationship too." If you're part of the segment the brand is targeting, you're a strategic fit. If you're not, he said, you're a nice-to-have or a short-lived relationship. ▶ See the full list

Agencies watch you for months before they call

Don't expect an answer the week you introduce yourself. At the Motorsports Sponsorship Summit, Morley said the vetting is slow on purpose. "It's typically like six months, eight months where they're on our radar. We watch what they do, how they act, how they perform, how they present themselves, how they market themselves as well."

He told the story of meeting Cameron Steele when Steele was starting out in trophy trucks. Morley's client at the time, a wheel brand, had no off-road wheel, so there was nothing to sponsor. Months later, when off-road wheels were in development, Steele "was automatically a shoe-in because we had that relationship." ▶ Watch Morley tell the story

That's the reward for meeting agency people before they have a budget for you.

Do the marketer's job for them

Travis Clarke, executive vice president of action sports and Olympics at Wasserman, is on the selling side. His company's talent sales team, about 25 people across its sports, shares notes on brands in a CRM. When racers ask how to get a call back, his answer is to think like the person you're calling. "If you want that guy to call you back, you got to figure out and do his job for him and tell him how he's going to get some value out of this," Clarke said at the Off-Road Sponsorship Summit. ▶ Watch Travis Clarke on this

Work with the agency, not around it

Agencies also make mistakes, and agents see it from the other side. Bob Walker of Connexions Sports & Entertainment, agent to the Deegan family, has watched outside-industry brands come in for one season and leave. "It's a one and done because they have another agency managing them that doesn't understand our industry and they miss the mark," he said. Morley agreed. An agency running an athlete program has to work closely with the athlete's agent, because "the agent knows the athlete better than anyone else." ▶ Watch the panel

Walker also warned what happens if you go over an agency's head to the CEO. "You're going to get so many of these agencies and their egos get in the way of greatness, because if it's not their idea, they're not going to run with the flagpole," he said. If the CEO pushes it down to them, the agency may resist the deal just to make a point. ▶ Watch Bob Walker on this

The agency can be your best ally or your biggest obstacle. Treat it like a partner from the first conversation.

The takeaway

• Find the strategy before you pitch. Study the brand's social feeds, website and event schedule, and ask why it's at each event.
• Pitch the brand's real goal. Dealers, app downloads, retail sales or community, not just logo exposure.
• Show all five jobs. Represent and educate, use, sell, belong to the community, and activate.
• Get on the agency's radar early and stay professional for the six to eight months it may be watching.
• Respect the agency. Going over its head may win a meeting and lose you the deal.