It’s October, which means we’re now fully entrenched in football season.  Which is great.  So, I figured I’d offer some gridiron-inspired food for thought before your next gameday grocery run.

During my sports agency days, we often used case studies to show brand clients how effective sponsorships could be strategized, negotiated, and executed.  In 2016, my team was asked by a leading B2C brand in its field for examples of companies that “owned” certain sports verticals.  Allstate immediately came to mind.

Allstate’s Good Hands field goal nets in college football are a textbook example of a nonendemic brand making itself endemic to a sport (i.e., part of the on-field competition just like Nike apparel or Gatorade coolers).  It brought to life one of sports sponsorship’s biggest clichés by literally weaving itself into the fabric of the game.  It then supplemented this platform with additional college football partnerships to take “ownership” of the space not just within the insurance category, but arguably among nearly all other nonendemic sponsors.

We showcased this story to our client with several other brand examples, which I discuss further in another post.  I’ve since turned our one-slide Allstate summary into a longform version for a different client.  Like the original, this isn’t a traditional case study intended for sales of a proprietary product.  Rather, its purpose is to validate the merits of a proposed marketing platform.

Think of it as the Harvard Business School case study approach to proof of concept.  This one is built around sports marketing partnerships, but it applies to just about any industry.  It’s a tactic that’s just as valuable to outside consultants like me as it is to internal marketing reps trying to sell in big ideas to their own businesses.

Naturally, various data points from reputable industry outlets form the foundation.  An excellent article, “Allstate’s Net Gain,” by journalists Terry Lefton and Michael Smith served as the primary source material here.  The goal was to reconstruct the SportsBusiness Journal’s 2014 piece into a usable case study, adding content as necessary to shape a compelling story.

So, with all that in mind and without further ado, I invite you to click on through.

Marketing Case Study – Allstate & College Football

If you’d like to talk more about Allstate’s nets, college football, or hey, even businessy stuff like case studies, reach out here.