One of the best places for sponcon inspiration is on TV.

Segment names during live sports broadcasts and even during studio shows are where I’ve found some of my favorite options.

There was Prop of the Order on MLB Network, Winning Ingredients during the NHL Playoffs, and now the latest entry, Eye Candy on ESPN’s Get Up.

I 100% will be filing this name away for a candy brand pairing it with player arrivals or great-looking highlights as it was used in the Premier Lacrosse League segment linked above.

In Today’s Edition:

• Dude Perfect, Callaway Golf Partnership Insights 🏌️ 

• Sauna Suits + Beer = Content Gold 🍻 

• A Baby Boom Turned Sponcon In Wrexham 👶 

🏊️ DEEP DIVE
Partnerships Lessons From Dude Perfect's CBO

For over a decade, Chad Coleman has been using great content to fuel successful brand partnerships.

As the first in-house social media manager at Callaway Golf, Coleman was pivotal in shifting the brand's focus towards influencer and creator collaborations, transforming Callaway into a storyteller beloved by golf enthusiasts for its innovative content and strategic alliances.

In 2019, Coleman moved from the brand side to the creator side by joining Dude Perfect, a group he had previously collaborated with at Callaway. Now as their Chief Brand Officer, he's instrumental in diversifying the sports and comedy group's revenue beyond YouTube, while also deepening brand connections with Dude Perfect's devoted, family-friendly audience.

Our conversation was packed with valuable insights, including:

• The role of sponsored content in bridging the marketing funnel from awareness to conversion.

• The critical importance of aligning partner values and setting clear expectations from the outset.

• A must-try technique for integrating sponsors into content seamlessly and meaningfully.

• Dude Perfect's ambition to adopt a team/league approach to brand partnerships.

Whether you’re a marketing professional, content creator, or a fan of innovative storytelling, this interview sheds light on the dynamics between successful brand partnerships and social media strategy.

Note: Questions and answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

ALEX: What spurred the change for Callaway’s to put more emphasis on partnerships? 

CHAD: Back in 2014, 2015, when you look at the space of golf equipment companies, it was a sea of sameness. Everyone launches new clubs every year. We took a totally different strategy and instead of being a product company where we just post content about our clubs and why you need to buy them, we wanted to act as connectors to cool stories in golf.

A lot of the time, none of it was even directly tied to golf clubs. It was more that we wanted to be that connection point for golf fans, and our brand was in the background.

I started a program called Callaway Create where we contracted a bunch of really cool creators that we found on Instagram who inspire us and create unique and cool content around our brand.

That became a really successful program for us because we were able to launch unique pieces of content that told our story in a way that was completely different from what anyone else was doing at the time. That was the tip of the iceberg when you realized, ‘Hey, there's ways to do these strategic partnerships to tell stories in golf and to differentiate Callaway from what anyone else was doing.’

ALEX: How did you build upon that success?

CHAD: Callaway Create started to have a steady pipeline of new and unique content around our products and our story. Then we partnered with Vice Sports. They were a platform that told cool stories in a unique way.

We did a partnership with them to do a mini documentary-type series highlighting unique voices in golf. One of them was with Scarface, the rapper who's obsessed with golf. He said that golf saved his life, but you would never know that.

Then the other side of it was partnerships that are more in line with the Steph Curry deal. We did another partnership with Bryan Bros Golf, who were trick-shot artists back in the day. Wesley and George ended up making it on the PGA tour and won a PGA tour event, but, we identified them in the early days because they were fun guys and did a great job at creating engaging content.

We identified those unique stories in golf and created original content around these stories with hardly any of it pushing our products. It was more of the brand association so that was super successful.

ALEX: For those who question the value of sponsored content, how did that approach lead to sales? 

CHAD: The most important piece is we knew we had the product to back up anything that we were saying.

We had the best R&D team in golf. We truly believed that our products outperformed anything else on the market. When someone walked into any golf equipment store, we wanted to be in that consideration set.

We wanted people to think, Oh, I'm going to try the new Callaway driver because I've seen a bunch of their stuff on social and I think that's a cool brand.

Nine times out of 10 we were confident that our product would be superior to anything else they tried. That is an important piece of the puzzle because we didn't feel the need to talk about the product and the performance every single time.

ALEX: Was the role with Dude Perfect new? What was the strategy you started to build when you arrived?

CHAD: When Dude Perfect first started each of the five dudes took ownership of a different part of the business.

They needed to be freed up from those responsibilities so that they could just focus on filming. Part of it was, offloading all of the social responsibilities off of Cody's plate. I was the first outside hire to come in and put a strategy around it.

I came in and level set what are we doing on each channel. What should we be doing? What should our strategy be?

Another piece of that was we had never monetized our social channels in any way. We had these massive followings on all our social platforms, but they were just kind of an afterthought.

Coming from my background, I knew there was a big opportunity to monetize those channels. Let's have a clear vision for what we want to accomplish, get a tone and a voice for the brand, and then introduce more brand partnerships and branded content on those channels.

ALEX: How has that evolved since you started? What is Dude Perfect’s approach to brand partnerships now?

CHAD: We have a lot of levers to pull when you think about brand partnerships.

I think the biggest thing for us was we've gained the trust of families over 15 years. The number one thing that parents say to us when we see them is thank you for making content that I know my kids enjoy and I know that I can trust that I can turn it on and I can leave the room if I want.

I think that's helpful because when I start a conversation with the brand, I've gotta make sure that it makes sense for us, that the Dudes are fans of the brand, or that brand makes sense to be in our ecosystem and is kid-friendly.

Then it’s what is the brand trying to achieve. What is the message that they want to get out? And then from there, it's, here's some different options based on whatever budget the brand has.

YouTube is top of the chain in terms of sponsorship dollars. If a brand doesn't have that kind of a budget, we have our social channels that are a little less than that, or a sponsorship on our app where we can get creative and find a way, etc.

It helps in those discussions because depending on the budget that the brand has, we can come up with creative solutions in one of our various platforms to solve for that.

ALEX: Are there any partnerships that you've done with Dude Perfect that stand out whether they're your favorite, they performed well, or you loved working on?

CHAD: We want to make sure that it really makes sense for us and our audience, and that the brand is on board to work in messaging in a very natural way. The last thing we want is to make it feel like a straight-up ad in one of our videos.

We want that trust to where we can create content and concepts for them that we know are going to succeed because we've been doing this for 15 years and then finding ways to work in the brands within those concepts versus the other way around of the brand dictating what the creative is because that's just not good for anyone.

We take pride in coming up with really integrated ways to work in our brands into content that we are already excited about and we know is going to perform.

In our stereotypes videos, everyone looks forward to Ty going into being the Rage Monster. BetterHelp reached out and they're like, ‘Hey, we wanna partner with you guys, what do you think? What can we do?’ My immediate thought was we should have a Better Help intervention with the Rage Monster. We did a BetterHelp integration to help the Rage monster control that kind of thing.

ALEX: Any advice for sports organizations in the brand partnership space, especially regarding content?

CHAD: The number one thing is having that understanding with the brand from the get-go of what we're trying to accomplish and how we are trying to integrate the brand. The last thing I want to do is get into a scenario where we sign up a brand deal and when it's time to do the integration, we have to read a bunch of tech jargon and it feels like a script from an ad.

When I have a first call with a brand we set that expectation up front. It's ‘Hey, here's how we've done it in the past. Here are a couple of examples of ways that we've integrated sponsorship into a video just so you have a reference for how we do it.’

There are a lot of techniques that we use to keep people's attention.

For example, a lot of times when we do ad reads or talk about brand messaging in a video, we will have action going on in the background and we'll have one or two of the dudes do a couple of the lines while something is happening on screen and then we may cut back to the action full screen for a little bit, then come back and do a couple more lines.

That way people feel like they can't skip forward because they're going to miss something in the video.

When we switched to that model, we saw zero dip in retention during that segment. It’s much easier for viewers to consume. It doesn't feel so in your face and doesn't feel like such an ad and you're being entertained at the same time.

So that's a win across the board. It's a win for us. It's a win for the viewer and it's a win for the brand because if they're listening to everything, they're not just skipping forward 30 seconds.

ALEX: Where do you want to see brand partnerships go?

CHAD: We're trying to shift towards having five or six tent pole, long-term partners that we can lean in on versus a lot of one-offs.

BODYARMOR is a good example because it's a multi-year deal. There are YouTube sponsorship components, there's an integration into our tour, and there's also an integration into our new office space. They're going to have BODYARMOR logos on the basketball court in our office.

That branding will be visible and a lot of the videos we do whether they're BODYARMOR branded or not.

That way through all these different touch points versus the one-offs, it's better for the audience if it's more consistent messaging throughout a longer period of time.

💼 CASE STUDY
Sponsored Content of the Week

What better feeling than an ice-cold beer while wearing a sauna suit? You need to see this episode of Trending Wild presented by Michelob Golden Light.

The concepts this team comes up with put the Wild in Minnesota Wild.

In this edition, Jake Middleton interviews defenseman linemate Brock Faber while wearing sauna suits that get increasingly Hotter as the conversation progresses. It’s giving Hot Ones 2.0.

Middleton dubbed it “Turning Up The Heat”. TBD if there will be more episodes of this series under the Trending Wild umbrella. So much went right it’s worth running back.

• It’s so strange it’s good: I had no idea sauna suits existed. It immediately got to stop my scroll.

• It was highly entertaining: Watching the players dripping in sweat and struggling to hold it together was hilarious.

• It had perfect partner placement: Michelob Golden Light was right in the center of the action. Lots of time on screen with great clarity of the product.

• It had player buy-in: Not every team or player would be game for this concept. The players were good sports about it and had a ton of fun with the experience.

The Wild posted the video across all channels with Instagram and X leading the way in terms of reach and engagement.

In total, the piece generated 566.7K views and 26.6K engagements with an average engagement rate per post of 5.9%.

The Takeaway
Don’t be afraid to try a wacky idea. When it goes right it can provide an outstanding sponcon opportunity for the team, the partner, the players, and the fans.

🔍 SPONCONSPIRATION
Steal These Ideas

McLaren generated excitement around F1 preseason testing using Hilton’s Resorts World Las Vegas property.

It was a surprise and delight gone right for Arsenal, who captured a great moment on the Google Pixel 8.

Love this Mountain Dew integration on the Pat Bev Pod. It doesn’t block the action, but it’s big enough that you can read the animation through the caption and icons.

Wrexham AFC struck again with another hilarious video in partnership with Vistaprint. They recruited former goalie, YouTuber, and Podcaster Ben Foster to share some gift ideas after the town’s recent baby boom.

Check out Luton Town’s Boot Pong Challenge. The challenge is inspired by their partner, Utilita’s, Football Rebooted campaign which is helping the nation to recycle and rehome quality boots.

🚨 ICYMI
What To Watch For

Must Read: You need to check out The State of Football Social Media 2024 put together by Scott Goodacre of The Online Rule. He shared the results from his annual survey which features contributions from social media managers around the world.

What’s Up with WhatsApp: Included in the Mercedes F1 partnership with WhatsApp, the radio button on the steering wheels will be replaced by a WhatsApp logo.

A Very Good Listen: Pittsburgh Pirates Director of Social Media and Content Strategy Zach Galia spoke with Atlanta Falcons VP of Digital and Production Scott Kegley about leading one of the most creative, trend-setting teams in pro sports - including the story behind the roof cam and how to drop a mascot (& Ludacris) from the roof.

On The Rise: Rising Ballers and adidas are continuing to roll out their video series, #thecomeup, highlighting inspirational stories from the next generation of football stars [h/t Chaj Arunasalam].

Por La Cultura: LAFC showcased their new kit partner, BMO Harris Bank, in their jersey reveal video featuring Will Ferrell. My favorite takeaway from the launch was the team’s use of English and Spanish subtitles in their new club anthem release video.