Promo 100 Profile: CSE
Sports marketing has come a long way from the days of being about who has the biggest sign. Today, sports marketing efforts created by CSE center around the consumer experience with the brand.
Take, for example, a program CSE implemented last year for one of its longest running clients, Aflac. The insurance firm tasked its agencies with finding ways to spotlight the fact that September was Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and to drive donations to the Aflac Cancer Center in Atlanta.
As the agency responsible for Aflac’s NASCAR Racing sponsorship, CSE combined the power of the two resources and asked patients at the Aflac Cancer Center to design the paint scheme for the car and firesuit of popular driver Carl Edwards. CSE chose the artwork of a 13-year-old girl named Jody and maximized exposure of Jody’s situation, her winning artwork and Aflac’s cause through a multi-platform program that included a mobile text-to-donate application, a Facebook page, appearances by Carl Edwards, press releases, a satellite media tour and commemorative merchandise.
By making the campaign personal, CSE was able to raise nearly $1.2 million and received status as the largest sponsored cause-related Facebook page, with 680,000 fans. Media impressions from ESPN, CNN and more equaled 2.7 million.
Lonnie Cooper, CEO of CSE, feels it’s all about maximizing the number of touchpoints. “Another term I’ve been using is influence,” he says. “We’re taking advantage of social media such as mom blogs and communities; we’re using them to get messages out there for our clients.”
Although revenue for the agency was down slightly in 2009, an impressive 93% of CSE’s business came from existing clients like Aflac, NASCAR and AT&T. The agency’s success formula: “We keep evolving to the next generation where we’re always trying to think of the next stage of what our clients are trying to accomplish,” Cooper says.
To keep ahead of the curve, CSE plans several acquisitions in the future to bolster its digital and analytics areas, among others.
“Clients are looking for agencies to be multidimensional today,” Cooper says. “They want you to have the PR, events, digital, analytics. But these acquisitions are not just about boosting revenue, they’re about the people — the talent that we can add to the company.”
PROMO 100 SPOTLIGHT: Sports
TOP 5
| Agency | 2009 revenue |
|---|---|
| 1. Octagon | $64,117,000* |
| 2. Velocity Sports & Entertainment | 26,100,000 |
| 3. CSE | 18,030,000 |
| 4. Revolution | $6,083,500* |
| 5. Fuse | 4,947,340 |
*Revenue estimated by Promo
