René de Man: ‘Building a relationship with our clients energises me’

What did you do before joining Blauw Sponsorship Impact?

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I studied sports marketing in the Sport, Economics and Communication (SPECO) programme at the Fontys University of Applied Sciences and then immediately started my own company with a number of fellow students. Together we developed the National Sport Voucher, which you could use for purchases in sport shops or to work out in gyms. When the National Sport Voucher came to an end after two years, I joined Blauw, where I began in the team that conducts research into branding and communication. Almost immediately I started doing research into sponsorship. I had a fantastic start because together with former managing partner, Bram Jonkheer, I was responsible for the clients that were involved with the Champions League!

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So you have been part of Blauw Sponsorship Impact’s success from the beginning.

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Absolutely! In 2006 we were already working for many large Dutch sports sponsors, and numerous new clients joined us in the following years, including ABN Amro, Eneco and Grolsch. Heineken had been a client since 2001, for example, and we were already doing research for the Holland Heineken House and the Amstel Gold Race. From 2014, I started focusing mainly on a number of our major international clients, such as Nissan.

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You said earlier that you followed the SPECO sports marketing programme. That is a course that you only follow if you are totally crazy about sport. Where does that passion for sport come from?

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I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t doing sport. I was already playing football before I was six and could join a football club. I loved everything to do with sport! Even at school, I was happiest in gym class! After school, we would immediately find a space to go and kick a ball around. I don’t play so much football anymore, but the group I have been playing with since I was six are still my best friends.

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What was your link with sponsorship before you joined Blauw?

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During my studies I did an internship at a golf centre in Rotterdam. It was there that I discovered how important it is to have sponsors that can help you get ahead. The owner wanted to know what the 1,500 members liked about the golf club and how the course could be improved. Just one year later they had 900 new members. Six months after my internship ended I visited the golf course and they said: “We are so pleased with what you did for us that we are giving you a lifetime membership!” It was a great example of how research can help a company. And I thought to myself: this is something I can help other companies with!

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Your current position at Blauw Sponsorship Impact is Senior Research Consultant. What precisely does that role involve?

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I help clients to design their sponsorship portfolio and ensure that it makes an optimal contribution to the brand’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and objectives. In broader terms, my role is to manage research projects, communicate with clients and further develop our research methods. Working for accounts is always enjoyable, because it allows you to build up a relationship. From 2000 to 2012, for example, I handled a lot of projects for Heineken, from football to rugby and from James Bond to festivals. Because you have such close contact with the client over such a long period you build up a relationship which gives both of you the drive to help one another to achieve success. Building a relationship like that with clients energises me.

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How do you make the difference for a client?

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The main factor now is experience. Even with a new project where we can’t provide a ready-made solution, I often have the feeling that we have done something similar for another client in the past and can find a solution just by adapting that approach in an innovative manner. Blauw represents a great many different clients, products and services. I have probably worked for about fifty brands. You don’t learn very much from working for a single brand. It is the diversity in the range of clients that helps to accumulate expertise.

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Why is researching sponsorships so important?

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Because sponsorship can contribute more to your brand than traditional campaigns. The reason I am an advocate of sponsorship is that it does more for your brand, but also more for society.

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Why does sponsorship work better than traditional campaigns?

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Traditional campaigns have less to do with perception and emotion. Sponsorship is closer to the interests of the consumers themselves. A brand that sponsors hobbies or sports resonates with the consumers who are interested in them and makes a greater impression on them. But sponsorship also has an important social role, because without sponsorship people may not be able to practice their sport or attend an event, for example. Corona has very clearly brought that reality home to us: without sponsors, some events cannot go ahead. You see that especially in the cultural sector. Research has to be done to show that sponsorship works.

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You have been working in the profession for twenty years and are therefore ideally placed to answer this question: How has the world of sponsorship changed over the years?

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Enormously! Twenty years ago we were only just starting to carry out online research. The communication tools available to sponsors have also changed greatly. They used to depend entirely on hospitality, print, commercials on television, etc. Nowadays, it is far easier to reach the most relevant target groups with digital campaigns and social media.

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You can also adopt a different strategy with the content. Sponsorship used to be all about sending a message. Today, we see that as self-congratulation. Nowadays, people have to communicate about you for it to sound credible. You can see a similar transition occurring in every facet of sponsorship. Have these new developments completely changed sponsorship research? No, but certain questions have to be phrased differently in a questionnaire, for example. However, the general vision of the value of sponsorship and how you determine it is still all about isolating the effects of sponsorship.

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A nice question to conclude with: which sponsor really impressed you in the past?

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Heineken is a sponsor that has always appealed to me. Heineken was already a client of Blauw when I started working here and it was that which ultimately persuaded me to join the firm. Anyone with a passion for sports sponsorship wants to work with a client like Heineken.