11 June 2020 – We need to accept the “the new norm”. For many of us who had at first refused to make peace with this dreadful statement, the past two months have been somewhat of an uphill battle of denial.
Wake up, scroll through your timeline, drag yourself out of bed to make a cup of coffee before binge watching whatever it is that you had banked for that one weekend where you wouldn’t have plans.
This was pretty much a newly adopted routine that substituted the morning rush for that 09h00 meeting that’s preceded by navigating your way through traffic, placing your complete trust in Waze because you struggled waking up on time from sleeping after midnight due to those final touches on that pitch for your next gig.
No doubt, Covid-19 has turned our lives upside down and my heart bleeds for those families who have been hit the hardest by this. I for one have not been spared the inconvenience, with a number of projects and personal goals all falling away due to loss of income from what was meant to just last for 21 days, now extending to 74 and counting.
However, being indoors for some of us who work around the clock all year is a bit of a luxury.
Spending Sundays either on the notorious Moloto road on my way back from KwaNdebele or weaving through the traffic of the concrete jungle to make it on time at OR Tambo, while trying to calm my nerves from the prospect of possibly forgetting my driver’s license for boarding are some of the things I don’t miss…yet!
But barely a week into the initial 21 Days of lockdown, one had seen enough videos of being taught how to wash my hands, let alone the Tik Tok & home exercise challenges that flooded my timeline.
Confession – I myself was guilty of one of those. I mean you can only do so much reading, research and binge watching in a day. Besides, a bit of social engagement while cooped up in your house is needed every now and then.
Podcasts and shows like The Shop did keep me going for a while. I think this is one area that needs to be explored in some way here at home with all the content that we have.
Anyway, back to the point. At first, I could not fathom how this can be accepted as “normal”. I mean how do we make a living in the arts, events and entertainment space with no audience?
Why don’t you take it online, they keep asking? Everything is moving to the digital space. These are some of the phrases that are easily and carelessly thrown around without the understanding that for some of us, the digital space only complements what we do and can never really be a replacement.
As a matter of fact, way before Covid-19, most of our content has been alive across different platforms and complemented with a wide variety of support material to sustain the conversation even further. Whether it’s live twitter commentary, half-time highlights packages, graphics or exclusive behind the scenes content, SA sport has caught up to the rest of the world when it comes to the digitalization of our product.
Could we be doing it better? Of course we could. And so could the rest of the world.
One thing that I have always argued is that we have some of the brightest and most creative minds in the industry and sooner rather than later, we will have such talent occupying those treasured positions that continue to be passed on to the next person within the same circles.
There is certainly still a lot of investment that clubs, leagues and federations need to do in reinventing their digital divisions, but given the high costs of data, one has to admit that marketers and certain clubs have done fairly well in packaging content for online consumption.
One can perhaps argue how the exclusive broadcast rights have hindered the live consumption of sport on digital platforms, but these rights aren’t exactly the cheapest and anyone willing to pay hundreds of millions of Rands in my opinion is rightfully in a position to call the shots. Anyway, that is an entirely different topic for us to visit one day.
But trust me when I say, we have known way before Covid-19 that we need to increase our digital efforts but on that same token, I still maintain that we are not too far off. I guess this situation has challenged our thinking and to a certain extent fast forwarded the implementation of certain strategies that will be coming into play in the next few weeks.
However with that said, let us not for one second be naïve and believe that everything can successfully migrate to online consumption.
For sport in particular, the product thrives on the physical presence of fans chanting in their club regalia and I challenge anyone to convince me otherwise. The situation has definitely taken us out of our comfort zone and a lot of innovation is on the cards. We have also had to think outside the box and be creative in some of our recent work.
However, it certainly won’t be in our lifetime that sport sustains itself successfully without fan attendance, well at least in my humble opinion.
I was one of the many football fans that were excited about the return of live sport last month when the Bundesliga announced its resumption. I had seen a handful of matches being played behind closed doors before lockdown and it really wasn’t a pretty site but with more than two months of no live sport, I was willing to take anything that came my way.
Needless to say, I was bored within minutes of watching 22 players playing in an empty 65-thousand-seater arena. Even the goals and celebrations could not keep me glued onto this sport that I had missed so much.
As a marketer myself, I have come to terms with the fact that it may take a while for fans to return to the stadium and this challenges us to rethink the way we give value to our sponsors and partners.
Gone are the days of recycling tried and tested marketing and PR tactics. The onus is upon us to first educate ourselves and then lead the way in guiding our sponsors, clubs and rights holders to fully leverage the potential that exists in the digital world.
Before Covid-19, we had the challenge of getting bums on seats. We now face the tough task of competing for attention in the already flooded digital world.
I don’t have all the answers and I don’t think anyone does at the moment. I am however excited to see how we as marketers, working closely with all our stakeholders will come up with innovative and cost effective means of consuming sport and delivering memorable and compelling campaigns.
Until then, let us use this time wisely and immerse ourselves in gaining new knowledge and skills for this so called “new normal”
By Thabang Mazibuko
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