It’s half-term, and Matthew is offline with family. So thanks to Rory Natkiel for writing our lead piece this week. Rory is an independent specialist in sponsorship strategy & effectiveness. Ex-Sid Lee and Iris, Rory also chairs the Sponsorship Effectiveness Forum.
For most of the past two decades, marketing conversations have been dominated by fragmentation.
Audiences have splintered across platforms, attention atomised into feeds, and media plans optimised impression by impression.
We talk about lots of littles, with reach becoming something you stitch together, not something we experience collectively.
And yet, one environment has resisted this change: live sport.
Whether it is a major tournament, a title fight, or a domestic league decider, live sport remains one of the last places where large numbers of people choose to watch the same thing at the same time. It creates cultural simultaneity in a way few other media channels can.
For the brands that appear within that environment, that shared attention has become more, not less, valuable as everything else has dispersed.
This is why the industry needs to reconsider the role of sport sponsorship in the modern brand-building toolkit.
A sponsorship deal is not simply a logo placement, contrary to how many view it. It is a commercial agreement that grants a brand access to intellectual property, talent, inventory across multiple media channels, and category exclusivity.
Crucially, it grants permission: to associate, to advertise using the property, to build promotions, to create experiences, to embed a brand within moments and conversations that people genuinely care about.
When paid reach is increasingly skippable and targeted media can feel invisible at scale, that permission to sit inside live, communal moments is strategically powerful.
The challenge is the sponsorship sector has not always matched that opportunity with equivalent rigour. Deals are often sold on exposure and reported on engagement, while the harder questions about brand, sales and business impact are left implicit.
What role do partnerships play within the growth model?
Do they drive mental availability, distribution leverage, short-term sales activation, or long-term brand equity?
Those questions sit at the heart of my work.
Through my consultancy, I work with sponsors and rights-holders to design sponsorships that are commercially coherent and measurable, applying the same strategic discipline we would expect in communications planning.
I founded the Sponsorship Effectiveness Forum to bring together case evidence and shared standards to raise the bar across the sponsorship sector.
The research I published last year, The Sponsorship Effect, showed that sponsorship can also play a role across the whole funnel, from top-of-mind awareness to bottom-line conversion, when it’s planned with intent. Live sport is not just one channel among many.
It is one of the last remaining arenas of shared attention.
If marketing is serious about growth in an era of fragmentation, then sponsorship deserves to move from the margins of the plan to the centre of the strategy.
Connect with Rory on LinkedIn. You learn more about the Sponsorship Effectiveness Forum here, along with last year’s research.
ps. We’d like to feature more of the things you’re creating. Hit me up and we’ll include what you’re doing in an upcoming newsletter.
Each week, we aim to profile a new member of the community, so you can get to learn a little more about your fellows. This week, we spoke to Rachel Campbell, a US based Brand Strategy Director.
When I’m not chasing after my three-year-old son, I spend my time tackling tough brand challenges, helping clients turn insight into momentum and ideas into growth.
With nearly 15 years of strategic leadership experience, I’ve built and evolved brands through research-driven positioning, messaging, and end-to-end brand transformation.
My experience spans global organizations including P&G, Mars, AB InBev, Constellation Brands, Samsung, Aon, ALDI, and TESCO, among others. Not afraid to make bold moves for the right opportunity, I’m drawn to collaborative, curious teams who value good, honest work, and enjoy the process along the way.
Currently, I partner with creative agencies as a freelance strategy lead focused on growth. I develop winning creative briefs, design research and insight frameworks that fuel smarter work, and lead strategic conversations across categories. At my best, I help agencies turn insight into action and relationships into lasting partnerships.
Most recently, I served as a freelance Strategy Director for independent agency 270B, leading strategy on a major brand campaign pitch and subsequent launch work. It was a scrappy, hands-on engagement where I was the sole strategist throughout the entire project. In my work, I helped the agency reposition itself from a digital shop to a big idea AOR worthy of the lead business. Partnering closely with agency leadership and creative, I shaped the brand strategy, built the insight foundation, and developed clear, motivating creative briefs that set the work up for success. This engagement was especially meaningful as it marked my first time leading strategy solo on a large-scale brand pitch—making the win all the more rewarding.
I think a lot about how strategy is too often treated as something precious. Something that is guarded, over-polished, and delivered from a distance, when it should be anything but.
The strongest strategies I’ve been part of were built in the mess: alongside creatives, accounts, and clients who weren’t afraid to challenge assumptions, push on ideas, or call before a meeting to say, “I don’t think this is quite right. Let’s talk through it.”
Those moments are where the real work happens. When clients feel safe enough to question strategy, and strategists are confident enough to invite it. This is when the thinking gets sharper and the work gets braver. Dare I say gutsy?
Strategy shouldn’t be a finished product, but a living conversation. That kind of collective ownership doesn’t just make better campaigns, it builds trust, creates brand momentum, and long-term partnerships.
Read: Butter - a novel by Asako Yuzuki
Watch: Hamnet - film (and all other Best Picture Nominees)
Eat: Lots of yogurt covered pretzels
» Connect with Rachel or via the community
If you’d like to share a piece of work you’re proud of, something interesting you’ve seen, or get featured in the newsletter, drop me a note, or post in our community slack.
» Strategy Lessons from Parenting - thanks Rob
» Emily Penny asks, what even is transformation?
» Nick Bain on not milk
» There’s “pricing masterclass” coming up on Feb 26
A digest of recent gigs found and shared via our community - plus things from our friends and partners. Want to reach 4k+ strategists for your next project? Drop me a note.
[UK] Freelance Media Strategist (head of level) EMEA role at IPG Media brands
https://bit.ly/4kOZX8q
[US] Freelance Media Strategist at Cortino
https://bit.ly/3OmcPGO
[UK] CX Senior Strategist at Havas Lynx
https://bit.ly/4cva4Nm
[UK] Creative Strategist at The Growth Foundation
https://bit.ly/4aoYlP9
[NZ] freelance brand strategist at Wave Agency
https://bit.ly/3Ou6fOr
[UK] strategy for culture, social and campaign at OK COOL
https://bit.ly/3MMXqPg
[UK] Strategy Director at branding & design agency at Dan Chopra
https://bit.ly/4ajI91v
Don’t forget, we share these in real time here:
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» Whatsapp
+ and of course, our slack channel if you’re a community member.
That’s all for this week.
mk✌️
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