America's Cup Sponsorship - Backlash Anyone?

As you read this, another America's Cup summer will be looming, and as predictable as the Prada crew's huge coffee bills will be the detractors to the Cup, and high-level yacht racing in general. We've heard the complaints plenty of times before - that the America's Cup and its ilk are merely games for rich men, a festival for hedonistic boys and their toys, rich people’s games which smack of elitism, greedy lawyers and of a super-rich audience, arriving on mega-yachts or personal jets.  We poor New Zealanders are reduced to getting out the begging bowl to finance our entry, and a prime attraction of the America's Cup Village is to marvel at yachts seemingly bigger than Eden Park - fancy those ships coming to little old New Zealand?

Well, let it be said that neither I nor my colleagues agree with these sentiments. However, the simple fact remains that these arguments do indeed arise every time events such as the America's Cup and round-the-world yacht races fall under the spotlight.  And so as America's Cup time comes around again, the many positive aspects of the event may well be tempered by such ill-will.  This negativity will therefore be an inevitable consideration when a marketer judges whether to align a company, brand or promotion to the event. So at least one question facing marketers in this position will have to be what is the nature and size of any America' Cup backlash, and will it threaten the positive gain to be made for my business?

The answer can clearly be assessed via good quality market research, be it a narrowly focused project investigating the event’s heretics or a broader, ongoing brand health monitor.  Two projects I have been involved in over the years give a good indication of what the likely backlash would be - practically none.

Why is this? Do the nay-sayers really represent such a small proportion of the population? Are they really just getting more than their share of column inches? When considering this my mind is cast back to two market research projects I have managed over the years. The first was in 1994, conducted for a major New Zealand yachtie investigating a proposed fund-raising scheme. A key question concerned the impressions of such events as the Whitbread Round the World Race in eyes of rural communities - is high-level yachting such an elitist JAFA event as some would have us believe?

The surprising answer was NO - in fact, rural and provincial communities were more likely to enjoy and appreciate yachting than supposedly more sophisticated urban centres, because of the former's closer proximity to nature, including coastline and lakes. As such, the rural community was more familiar with day-to-day yachting and boating, and more appreciative of the requirements of the sport, and of those prepared to risk so much in pursuit of a yachting victory. In the years since that research I see no obvious reason why this sentiment should have changed - we've already proven that biggest yachting budgets don't necessary guarantee wins, after all - hopefully silencing those critiquing the money which is involved.

So in summary, yachting and boating could well be said to be approaching a prominence within New Zealand's culture nearly as high as rugby, netball and cricket - it just doesn't seem that way given the low level of regular televised coverage given yacht racing as a whole and the low profile of so much of the yacht racing which does occur.

The second research project, some years later, investigated the proposed brand values of the America's Cup Village. A range of Village "brand visions" were presented to a range of focus groups, with the key result centering on the fine line between elitist, rich, and (as it transpired), condescending "cosmopolitanism"; and prestigious (yet welcoming), high-class and multicultural "metropolitanism". In short, New Zealanders visiting the village did want big-city high class facilities and entertainment, and an international-cum-multicultural flavour befitting such an event, but not to such an extent that mum, dad and the kids would feel unwelcome. "Bollinger and beer" was the way one focus group participant so eloquently summarised it, and this aspect of yachting is what yacht-racing's detractors haven't understood.

These detractors haven't understood that most New Zealanders have come to accept the costs and commercialism of America's Cup competitions - the dollar factor may be enormous but it's not as if the winning crews' rewards are unjust. The headlines, protests and letters to editors bemoaning the America's Cup  therefore appear to me to be a classic example of an unrepresentative group gaining disproportionately high coverage.

And so it seems clear that using research to accurately assess the true marketplace impressions of such events as the America's Cup can certainly  prove extremely valuable in helping decide whether to get involved at all, and what angle should be taken in the promotion. In most cases, the cost of the "insurance" offered by good research will be easily outweighed by the size of the risks being assessed - as George Patton once said, "Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash".

Jonathan Dodd