caytoo’s analyst team picks 12 deals that stood out from our annual review of nearly 3,390 sponsorship deals signed around the world in 2023
Not necessarily the biggest or most high-profile but our analyst team has picked out one deal from around the world each month in 2023 that caught their eye for a particular reason.
We’ve aimed to provide a good spread across countries and rights holder fields. Deals are listed by month signed.
January: Geekvape x Paris St Germain
Whilst tobacco sponsorship used to be a very big thing – particularly in motorsport and snooker – this hasn’t been replicated by its apparent successor, vaping, due to the potential outcry rights holders feel they would face. So, one of the world’s biggest soccer clubs bucking this trend, particularly as it’s a renewal, is a big deal and it will be interesting to see if any follow suit in 2024. They didn’t in 2023.
February: EasyPost x LIV Golf
LIV was probably one of the biggest sporting controversies of 2023 and the Saudi Arabian-backed golf tour secured its first global sponsorship deal, Utah-based shipping company, EasyPost. However, beyond this, the tour struggled to gain western brand sponsors due to brands not wanting to associate with the Saudi regime. So, the deal reinforced how important a great brand fit is in doing deals, as EasyPost declared: “We share the same mission, to modernize and innovate in our respective fields.”
March: Sulwhasoo x Metropolitan Museum of Art
A Korean cosmetics brand and one of the US’ most renowned art institutions don’t seem like natural bedfellows but there’s a decent link around the value of heritage and contemporary reinterpretation. More importantly, it’s a reminder for rights holders to look well beyond their own shores for viable sponsorship targets, particularly those looking to expand in your market.
April: Starling Bank x the National Trust
Promoting sustainability credentials is an increasingly big theme within sponsorship – albeit a lot seem more like virtue signalling than actually making any practical difference. However, one key element of the challenger bank’s deal with the National Trust stood out – helping restore the UK’s peatlands, one of earth’s most important carbon stores. It’s a strong financial ‘activation’ that fits alongside Starling’s standard sustainability actions.
May: Marmite x The Barmy Army
Simply a perfect match between two ‘brands’ built on an irreverent sense of humour – the breakfast spread and arguably, the world’s most famous supporters’ group. Exemplified by one of the funniest activations we saw this year, in which Marmite worked with The Barmy Army on composing a song for legendary England cricket fast bowler Stuart Broad.
June: Hepsiburada x Turkish Basketball Federation
Large retail brands are relatively conspicuous by their absence – the retail sector accounted for just 4.7% of all deals. So, this one involving one of Turkey’s largest ecommerce brands (and one of the largest in the EEMEA region) and their national basketball federation is a reminder that retail should really be doing a lot more sponsorship deals. Why isn’t it?
July: Prada x Chinese Women’s Football Team
One brand that did ‘walk the talk’ around committing spend to women’s sports was Prada. This deal was particularly interesting as Prada chose a ‘mass market’ sport that doesn’t fit with their affluent target audience. It shows how important that sponsorship, particularly sport, is in helping brands penetrate harder-to-reach markets.
August: Lidl x Vilar de Mouros
For such a huge brand on most rights holder’s hit lists, Lidl has done relatively little sponsorship (until this year at least) so the fact that Portugal’s oldest rock music festival succeeded where most have failed caught the eye. Central to this deal is a reminder that the end goal of sponsorship is usually to sell more product, so this deal included two pop up shops – in the campsite and festival grounds – containing around 250 items most likely to be purchased by festival goers from food to blankets.
September: Kubota Tractor x Trackhouse Racing
“Official Tractor Company” doesn’t sound like a category deal relevant to the highly fast world of US NASCAR but there’s a really nice link with Kubota’s target audience (farmers) and one of the team’s drivers (Ross (Chastain) who is an eighth-generation watermelon farmer. This angle adds a natural degree of authenticity to the deal, particularly as his quote sounds genuine rather than something canned out of HQ’s corporate comms team.
October: Birmingham Airport x World Trampoline Championships
Warrants inclusion solely down to the best brand fit rationale stated by any party involved in a deal. Nick Barton, chief executive of Birmingham Airport, stated: “At Birmingham Airport we’re in the business of take-offs and landings, so the FIG World Trampoline Championships is a remarkably good fit for us.”
November: Sega x London Falcons
A hugely iconic brand undertaking a very rare sponsorship these days and choosing a LGBT grassroots soccer team to do so. This type of deal shows how even smaller rights holders can aim high if they have the right sponsorship proposition in terms of how it can help specific brand objectives.
December: Huel x Spartan
caytoo identified this brand for a client as one to watch and approach due to a £20 million funding round. Over 2.5 years later, Huel undertook its first notable sponsorship deal, choosing worldwide obstacle course brand, Spartan. It reinforces how important it is for rights holders to play the long game – an area they need to improve on in 2024 and beyond.
These picks are included in the “2023 sponsorship deals – a year in review” report. The report summary is here but the full version, which contains the following data and insights, is in the Monthly Deals Analysis section of the My caytoo portal:
- Rights holder parameters – geography, properties, deal values
- Which sectors did the most deals – master and sub sectors?
- Which brands did the most deals?
- Why did they do the deals – inc most over-indexing sectors?
- Which type of rights did they choose – inc most over-indexing sectors?
- caytoo’s 12 picks of the year
Want to get the full report?
The report is only available to caytoo clients. However, non-clients can download an edited version via the button below.
