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march 17-23, 2014 special advertising section ❘ street & smith’s sportsbusiness journal 1a

celebrat ing 30 years

Special Advertising SectionStreet & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal

March 17-23, 2014

1ATaylorStrategy.com

2a special advertising section ❘ street & smith’s sportsbusiness journal march 17-23, 2014


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© 2014 Allstate Insurance Co.

Allstate congratulates our partnerTaylor on 30 years of excellence.



Signore’s Vision for Taylor: “Irreplaceable Value”tony signore joined taylor in January

1989 and immediately became immersed in a host of international initiatives, specifi-cally the development and implementa-tion of sports public relations campaigns on behalf of brands such as Mastercard and gillette. in fact, over a 12-year period through the 2002 FiFa World cup in Japan and Korea — when taylor represented four of FiFa’s 12 official global sponsors — signore had taken taylor to worldwide rec-ognition through numerous award-winning programs he personally implemented on the ground in 57 countries spanning every continent.

“twenty-five years ago, the public rela-tions discipline was viewed quite differently outside of the U.s. region,” said signore, the native new yorker who in 2004 was named chief executive Officer and Managing Part-ner at taylor, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary. “in Western europe, for exam-ple, the use of our discipline to leverage regional and global sports properties was certainly more advanced than latin amer-ica and asia, but the U.s. market was more mature and receptive to fully-integrated campaigns. in those days, i spent most of my time in europe and i didn’t recognize a shift toward more innovative work until the mid-90’s. and in the Middle east and africa, from ’89 to ’96, i can guarantee you from first-hand experience on-site in saudi ara-bia, tunisia, egypt, Uae and south africa, that there were no other public relations agencies generating brand awareness through sports — we were the first.”

two decades ago, taylor had one spe-cific goal for its clients, many of which were brands like Mastercard, gillette, adidas, the U.s. Postal service, clairol and evian, who were playing in the domestic and global sports space: to achieve awareness by amplifying the presence of their brand through the available channels, namely newspapers, radio and television. in the ensuing decades, however, the winds of creative change began to blow with the emergence of social media and mobile technologies. Where creating brand aware-ness was once a top priority, the stakes and expectations were growing higher with each opportunity. From the moment he and his partners took over the day-to-day operation of taylor in 2004, signore began to re-tool the vision for the agency.

“in the early 2000’s, our agency was not prepared to measure the success of our Pr campaigns against the business building objectives of our client partners. the strat-egy and metrics were not in place,” signore said. “We realized that to better understand the brands and their respective target audi-ences, and in order to align more closely with our client partners business goals, we needed to infuse the intellectual capital from other marketing disciplines.

“but this was a very challenging transfor-mation process. to become a leader in the industry, we had to create a higher value proposition for our client partners well beyond just media relations and sports expertise — because if that’s all you’re bringing to the party, then you’re not deliv-ering ‘irreplaceable value.’ ”

taylor, which had up to 77 clients in 2004, began to transition away from many (more than 50 over a five-year period) that did not meet the new vision that would shape its business for the next decade and beyond: to serve as a strategic brand counselor and public relations partner to a

select roster of just 15 category-leading consumer brands.

to achieve this ambitious goal, signore spent several years recruiting a host of spe-cialists from the leading advertising agen-cies, as well as global consulting firms like McKinsey and booz allen. today, taylor is a much more diversified group. the passion for sports is still ingrained in its Dna, but the experience and skill set of the agency’s pro-fessionals range from public relations account leads and consumer insight spe-cialists, to brand planners, business analysts and digital strategists, all combining to serve in the vital role of brand counselor to the company’s elite portfolio of client partners.

With its new game plan in motion, the once-modest taylor was now at the fore-front of a creative transformation that would lead the firm to partnerships with the world’s leading consumer brands, including current client partners Diageo, Procter & gamble, allstate, capital One, nascar, nestle, Kraft, 3M, starwood, general Mills, nike and taco bell. the company now has a staff of 110 and has grown its new york base with offices in charlotte, chicago and los ange-les.

“We have become strategic brand counselors positioned to utilize our very deep knowledge and understanding of the consumer mindset — whether they’re foot-ball, baseball, soccer or nascar fans — and apply that to our campaign develop-ment,” signore said. “today, our sports pub-lic relations campaigns ladder up to brand and business-building objectives because increased awareness levels for the brands we’re representing does not even begin to move the needle.”

signore added that “the depth of knowl-edge and relationships taylor maintains with properties like nascar, FiFa, nFl and Mlb is a key reason why taylor has been so suc-cessful in sports over the years.”

“We have been collaborating with all of the major sports properties for 30 years,” he continued. “think about that: 30 years col-laborating with a property like Major league baseball. that’s a long, winding road we’ve travelled together, complete with so many brand and consumer experi-ences around their jewel events. it has placed us in a strong position to leverage our client partners’ investments through the development of campaigns that truly reso-nate.”

indeed, taylor has helped to shape the sports public relations landscape the past 30 years. From its birth in 1984, the agency has been on the ground at every summer and Winter Olympics since the los angeles games, and has worked alongside the most innovative and influential brand mar-keters to create programs in support of two dozen super bowls, World series, Major league baseball all-star games, and U.s. Open tennis championships. the résumé also includes more than 15 Daytona 500’s and nba all-star games. additionally, there have been hundreds of other regional and global events, from the nHl to Pga tour to Major league soccer to pro beach volley-ball to cricket and Formula One.

and of course, there are those six con-secutive FiFa World cup championships and numerous UeFa, cOnMebOl and caF soccer championships which took signore and his colleagues around the globe, a time in his life which he cherishes, and which he credits as having lifted taylor into its current status as a preeminent brand counselor and public relations firm, in not just sports, but the entertainment and con-sumer lifestyle sectors as well.

“to have a ringside seat and watch all of this unfold before my eyes, and to see this global movement take place where other public relations agencies have also found their way over the last decade, well, i’d like to think that taylor was the pioneer on the sports landscape,” signore said. “We have paved the way for agencies to not only enter these challenging markets, but to do so in a most innovative and creative manner through Pr campaigns that holisti-cally engage sports fans throughout the U.s.

and around the world.” another key to taylor’s success, accord-

ing to signore, was the agency’s deep appreciation, understanding and respect for cultural diversity, which played a vital role from the very beginning of his work overseas, right through today with taylor’s global social influencer campaigns. “We recognize the importance of conducting in-depth consumer research to uncover all the cultural nuances of a specific demo-graphic. in the late 80’s, for example, most practitioners, including taylor, viewed the U.s. Hispanic market far too broadly and there’s no question our campaign results back then fell short of the mark. but we learned by having our people immersed in every major Hispanic market nationwide, and we quickly discerned the cultural differ-ences and actionable insights that should be factored into our thought process. in our own way, being on the ground in those early years was the very best primary research we could have ever done and we have drawn from that experience.

“i strongly believe this influenced taylor’s decision to make a steadfast commitment to brand planning, another area where tay-lor paved the way for the public relations discipline. When we began studying the impact of brand planning a decade ago and commenced with the infusion of con-sumer insight specialists and brand plan-ners into the public relations culture, most Pr firms were hesitant to make such a signif-icant investment.”

by the end of the decade, given the impact of its evolved strategic perfor-mance, taylor was named “consumer agency of the Decade” by the Holmes group, one of the most influential news organizations covering the public relations discipline.

“When Paul Holmes came to our office four years ago to announce this honor, i’ll never forget what he said to our team of 100 professionals who demonstrated a will-ingness and commitment to change,” signore recalled. “Holmes commented that ‘taylor looks a lot like the agency of the future, operating as a true partner to pro-vide strategic brand counsel to only a select group of clients.’

“i guess that best sums up who we are and what taylor delivers today, versus what we were able to accomplish 25-30 years ago.”

From Taylor’s NYC headquarters at the Empire State Building, Tony Signore reflects upon the global sports public relations landscape he has helped shape over the past quarter century.

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Following a successful campaign on behalf of MasterCard at the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy, Signore toured the Middle East and North Africa several times from 1990 to 1993 to share sponsorship best practices with the brand’s regional communication teams. In 1993, in Cairo, Signore was joined by the legendary Pele (center).

Signore presents the inaugural Smirnoff Cup to the 1991 Champions of the Gold Coast Hispanic Soccer League in Miami.

march 17-23, 2014 special advertising section ❘ street & smith’s sportsbusiness journal 5a4a special advertising section ❘ street & smith’s sportsbusiness journal march 17-23, 2014

A 30-YeAr JourneY Around the Globe19

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1984 — The agency is founded in New York City, and immediately ramps up for its first major sports campaign. That summer in Los Angeles, Taylor is on the ground at the Olym-pics supporting official sponsor, Xerox. Over the next 30 years, Taylor would be the only public relations agency to be on-site at every Summer and Winter Olympic Games.

1989 — "Greatest Moments in Baseball His-tory," the agency’s first major sports initiative with MasterCard; for more than two decades, the agency supported MasterCard’s diverse portfolio of sports assets, including MLB, FIFA, UEFA, NHL and PGA initia-tives.

1989 — The agency begins its longstanding support of the annual March of Dimes Sports Lun-cheon in New York. The event has raised more than $12 million over the years.

1990 — The first global sports initiative for the agency: MasterCard's sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup in Italy, the first of six consecutive World Cups that Taylor would support on behalf of Mas-terCard, Gillette and other corporate partners.

1992 — Olympic Games initiatives in Albert-ville and Barcelona for cor-porate partners Clairol, Nuprin, Evian, United States Postal Service, and Max-well House.

1992 — On-site in Sweden implementing Man-of-the-Match and All-Star Team programs during the UEFA European Soccer Champi-onships; for the next 12 years, Taylor would support official UEFA sponsors at four EURO’s and UEFA Champions League Finals.

1994 — Over a three-year period, in 22 markets worldwide, Taylor lever-aged MasterCard’s spon-sorship of FIFA World Cup USA with a fully integrated campaign that would earn the agency its first PRSA Silver Anvil Award, the PR industry’s highest honor.

1996 — Multiple cam-paigns culminated on-site in Atlanta at the Olympic Games in support of Gen-eral Mills, French’s Mustard, York International and the United States Postal Ser-vice.

1996 — On-site supporting MasterCard as South Africa hosted the CAF African Cup of Nations soccer championship, marking the nation’s first ever appearance after a decades long ban was lifted with the end of apart-heid.

1999 — The agency earns a Silver Anvil Award for launching the United States Postal Service’s Leg-endary Football Coaches Stamps.

1999 — Support of the MLB All-Century Team, which featured the 100 greatest players of the 20th century, on behalf of MasterCard; highlighted by major activations at the All Star Game in Boston and the World Series in Atlanta.

2000 — Down under at the Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia sup-porting adidas, AT&T, and Texaco.

2001 — With the launch of Microsoft Xbox gaming system, the agency is retained to support the introduction of sports-related titles. For nearly a decade, Taylor was behind some of the most innovative and successful product launches utilizing high-profile athletes across multiple sports.

2001— Support of adidas at the U.S. Open in New York, one of several brands (including JP Morgan Chase, IBM, and United Airlines) Taylor has supported at more than a dozen U.S. Opens.

2002 — Major Olympic initiatives in Salt Lake City for AT&T, General Mills, General Motors, MSNBC, and U.S Ski and Snow-board Association.

2006 — First assignment with longtime client part-ner, Allstate, supporting the brand’s NASCAR sponsor-ship. Today, Taylor lever-ages the brand’s partner-ships with the NCAA as well as the U.S. and Mexican national soccer teams.

2006 — In Torino, Italy, the agency provides on-site support for AT&T, DHL and Panasonic.

2006 — Introduced the first FIFA Best Young Player Award on behalf of Gillette at the World Cup in Ger-many. The agency was also on the ground repre-senting MasterCard and Xbox.

2007 — Taylor helps launch the Gillette Cham-pions program with a global media event in Dubai featuring three iconic brand spokesper-sons: Tiger Woods, Roger Federer and Thierry Henry.

2010 — Agency supports client partner P&G’s “Thank You Mom” campaign at Vancouver Olympic Games, earning a SABRE Award in the prestigious sponsorship support category.

2010 — Began partnering with two leading sports marketers: Taco Bell, sup-porting the brand’s BCS, NBA and MLB sponsorships, and Capital One, for the launch of the Capital One Cup NCAA initiative.

2011 — A Harvard Uni-versity Case Study, “Trans-formation at Taylor,” is pub-lished. The case closely analyzes the impact of the agency’s strategic and financial performance prior to and following the Taylor management team’s bold decision in 2004 to lead organiza-tional change.

2011 — Partnered with NASCAR on the Next Gen-eration Study, a landmark strategic initiative identify-ing opportunities for growth and diversification across the industry.

2002 — At the FIFA World Cup in Korea and Japan, Taylor represents a record four official spon-sors at a single FIFA World Cup: MasterCard, Gillette, adidas and Yahoo! First agency to launch live podcasting throughout a World Cup tournament with a variety of global football legends.

2004 — The agency’s new Managing Partner group, led by CEO Tony Signore, establishes a bold new vision and business model that would have Taylor aligned exclusively with category leading con-sumer brands.

2004 — On the ground activation at the Athens Olympic Games with sponsors Bank of America and adidas.

2005 — In a strategic move to best service its growing roster of clients in the NASCAR space, Taylor opens an office in Char-lotte, NC, its first full service operation outside of New York. Today, the office is home to more than 30 employees.

2008 — Taylor relo-cates its New York head-quarters to the Empire State Building, “The World’s Most Famous Office Building.”

2008 — At the Beijing Olympic Games, Taylor and USOC sponsor, Kleenex, premiere the documentary “Let it Out.” Produced by Taylor, the film would earn Silver Anvil and SABRE Awards for excellence in public rela-tions.

2009 — The agency launches its NASCAR Con-sumer Engagement Sur-vey, a proprietary annual study of fan insights around the sport.

2010 — Named "Con-sumer Agency of the Decade" by the Holmes Report, one of the PR industry’s most trusted media groups. Previously, the agency had been named “Strategic Agency of the Year” and “U.S. Agency of the Year” by the Holmes Report.

2012 — The 15th consec-utive Olympiad of on-site sponsor activation for Tay-lor as it supports P&G at its USA Family House at the London Games.

2012 — Retained by Nike’s Jordan Brand as PR Agency of Record. Taylor helped the brand drive awareness and sales around the launch of the commemorative, retro Air Jordan IX “Kilroy.”

2014 — From its home base, the agency supports activations around Super Bowl XLVIII in New York for P&G, Verizon, Diageo and Lenovo.

2014 — At the Sochi Olympic Games for Ralph Lauren. It marked the 16th consecutive Summer and Winter Games that Taylor was on-site activating for corporate sponsors.

1987 — The agency’s first project with Heublein (now Diageo, the world’s largest spirits and wines com-pany), to leverage a national skiing program on behalf of Smirnoff. Today, Taylor represents multiple brands for Diageo via sports, entertainment and lifestyle initiatives.

1988 — First project with longtime client partner MasterCard supporting their sponsorship of the Whitbread Around the World Yacht Race.

1988 — Supported Maxwell House’s Olympic Spirit Award at the Winter Games in Calgary and the Summer Games in Seoul.

1991 — In collabora-tion with Smirnoff, the agency developed its first multi-cultural marketing communications cam-paign. The Smirnoff Cup Soccer Championships supported semi-profes-sional Hispanic soccer leagues in Miami, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles for the next three years.

1991 — On behalf of Bristol-Myers Squibb, the agency developed and activated a public rela-tions strategy for one of the decade’s most mem-orable ad campaigns, Nuprin’s “Nupe It” cam-paign with tennis great Jimmy Connors.

1993 — Inaugural project with Gillette in support of the first ever “Million-Dollar Sports Challenge” at the NCAA Final Four in New Orleans. Over the next 20 years, Taylor would support more than 100 cam-paigns as Gillette’s sports agency of record.

1994 — At the Lillehammer Winter Games, the agency supports corporate sponsor York International.

1995 — The agency’s first new media initiative pro-moting a sports content site, starwave.com, which would later become ESPN.com. The site was intro-duced at the Final Four in Seattle and subsequently through a national media tour.

1996 — The first of 16 NYC Marathon activations. Beginning with Ronzoni, Taylor also supported the efforts of corporate part-ners JP Morgan Chase, Fila and title sponsor ING.

1997 — Following its suc-cessful imple mentation of pan-European programs on-site in England at the 1996 European Soccer Championship, Taylor is retained by the British Gov-ernment for three years to generate global aware-ness for England’s 2006 FIFA World Cup bid.

1998 — Implemented a multi-tiered campaign on five continents in sup-port of MasterCard and Gillette's sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup in France.

1998 — The agency part-ners with AT&T on the U.S. Olympic Family Program at the Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.

1999 — The Women's World Cup Organizing Committee retains the agency to gen-erate national media cov-erage during the build-up of what turned out to be a historic event in sports his-tory: the FIFA Women’s World Cup USA.

2000 — The start of a longtime partnership with NASCAR, providing strate-gic media relations and counsel during a period of enormous growth for the organization.

2000 — For longtime cli-ent partner General Mills, Taylor helped launch the first ever Wheaties box fea-turing Muhammad Ali. It was one of dozens of cereal box introductions supported by the agency.




The Strategic Transformation of Sports Public RelationsMuch has changed about the business of

sports, but there is one thing, on and off the field of play, that cannot be contested: sports remains, as always, one of our most powerful passion points, igniting the deepest human emotions in ways few other experiences can. this will ring true in 2014 on a scale that has rarely been witnessed. We’ve already experi-enced history with the first super bowl in the new york area and the recently completed sochi Olympic games, the first Winter Olym-piad held on russian soil. this summer, of course, billions of hearts will beat to the samba during the FiFa World cup, hosted for the first time in more than 60 years by brazil, where the passion for soccer is second to none.

the most successful sports properties have long recognized the potential to engage fans on this emotional level as have the more innovative brand marketers, who tap into the passion of sports fans to create this same emotional connection between their products and consumers through spon-sorship activations.

but the once predictable discipline of sports public relations is being revolutionized by new developments. some, such as the explosive growth of social media and its impact on fan engagement, are readily obvi-ous. Others, such as measuring the business impact and rOi of sponsorship activations, are most evident to professionals in the sports industry. taken together, these trends portend a dramatic transformation sweeping across the sports landscape. so how can sports prop-erties and brands that are deeply invested in sports assets position themselves to be ‘win-ners’ in this reconfigured landscape?

“We’ve challenged ourselves to answer this question as it relates to our core expertise in sports public relations and integrated mar-keting communications built over the past three decades,” said bryan Harris, cOO and Managing Partner of taylor. “Our conclusion? Most traditional public relations firms may not be best positioned to help their clients com-pete and win at this transformational moment for the business of sports.”

to create demonstrable business impact for client partners from sports-related market-ing activations, taylor radically transformed its offering, talent mix and delivery model. in

particular, taylor embraced the full integra-tion of three new core roles not traditionally a part of the remit for sports public relations: 1) strategic brand counselors; 2) consumer trendspotters; 3) Digital navigators.

Strategic Counselorssports properties and sponsor brands

should be turning to their public relations partners for strategic counsel across the full range of their business challenges. One example was taylor’s groundbreaking strate-gic initiative with nascar. spurred by declin-ing attendance at races during the eco-nomic downturn and intense media scrutiny about the future relevance of the sport to fans and sponsors, nascar commissioned taylor and its brand counsel group — a fully

integrated team of brand planners, business analysts, digital strategists, and creative directors — to conduct a strategic assess-ment of its entire industry. as nascar’s chief marketing officer remarked: “taylor helped nascar frame a vision for its future in a way that only a best-in-class management con-sulting firm could have matched.” it is quite remarkable that at a critical moment in its history, a major sports enterprise turned to its public relations firm for this level of strategic counsel rather than a global management consultancy.

Consumer Trendspottersconsumer engagement in today’s frag-

mented media landscape demands that public relations firms serve the role of

‘trendspotters,’ with a deep, current under-standing of societal trends impacting con-sumer behavior. to that end, taylor has built world-class consumer insight capabilities to provide client partners with bespoke con-sumer research and proprietary studies to support specific brand activations of leading sports properties. examples of the latter include taylor’s 2013 survey of sports market-ers that culled insights about brand activa-tion around super bowl Xlviii, and the agen-cy’s “consumer engagement survey: social Media and the Olympic games,” which, in the lead-up to the london 2012 Olympic games, uncovered key trends like the emer-gence of ‘social media butterflies’ (young, social-media savvy mothers).

Digital Navigatorssports media consumption patterns and

business models that had gone largely unchanged for decades have been swept away. social media, especially on mobile devices, provides sports fans with their own global network, and consumers have been using this power in unprecedented ways to express and share their passion for their favorite sports. Digital, social media and mobile technology are driving innovation in brand sponsorship activations around major sports properties, offering marketers an array of disruptive ways to engage with consum-ers. While this may be new territory for some, the true visionaries have been utilizing digital navigators as their strategic partners and guides in leveraging the vast opportunities across this growing landscape. More than five years ago, taylor discovered that this transformation required noteworthy invest-ments in new and diverse talent and tech-nology to be at the forefront of digital trends. More importantly, it drove a funda-mental shift in taylor’s culture and mindset, placing digital at the center of its thinking.

this is the most exciting time in history for sports public relations. the power of sports to entertain and inspire us will continue to make it the preferred vehicle for driving con-sumer engagement with brands while inno-vation in media and technology define a new strategic course for the global role of public relations.

To create demonstrable business impact for client partners from sports-related marketing activations,

Taylor radically transformed its offering, talent mix and delivery model.

Taylor’s unique capabilities in areas like strategic planning and digital consumer engagement helped its client partner NASCAR frame a vision for its future.

What industry thought leaders are saying about taylor’s bold transformation:

the public relations industry is undergoing an incredible transformation, playing a more central role in brand and business-building for its clients, and taylor is at the forefront of that revolution. taylor is building deeper, more meaningful relationships with the biggest, blue-chips brands in america. the big difference is that taylor has been transformed into what looks a lot like the agency of the future.”

Paul HolmeS publisher of The Holmes Report

how better to begin than by spotlighting a firm that over the past few years had done the seemingly impossible, re-inventing itself from a successful, albeit fairly unremarkable, tactical publicity shop specializing in sports to a rapidly growing, strategic marketing communications firm that has earned a seat at the table with leading consumer brands, including Diageo, allstate, capital one, and procter & Gamble.”

KaTHy CriPPS President, Council of Public Relations Firms, in “The Firm Voice,” the Council’s blog

the story begins with a transformation from the firm’s founders to a new generation of managers with a radically different view of the business. many companies do not survive such a transformation, but for taylor, the second generation was a group of long term staffers willing to rethink the business model and pursue a new vision. turning that into reality is a huge challenge for any management team, but taylor’s second generation made some critical moves that fueled its success.”

liSa roHrer Executive Director, Executive Education and Case Development, Harvard, and co-author of “Transformation at Taylor”



Connecting With Fan Passion Points is the Key to Digital and Social Sports Marketing

How did the twitter account of a lead-ing brand of laundry detergent get more mentions on the night of the 2013 nFl Draft than 20 nFl team accounts?

the answer is rooted in taylor ’s innova-tive approach to leveraging the digital, social media and mobile technologies that have revolutionized brand sponsor-ship activations around major sports prop-erties.

“in the past, you created a great tele-vision spot or a print campaign,” said Jackson Jeyanayagam, senior vice Presi-dent of Digital strategy for taylor. “today, the model has been turned on its head. now, brands have a multitude of direct-to-consumer channels to engage their audience and the key, especially in sports, is to have a deep understanding of fan insights. We are storytellers and our objective is to associate the brand with the object of the fan’s passion.”

Marketers target sports to appeal to the passions of a large audience but they often give cursory thought to what causes the audience to react. they look at the collection of sports fans as a means for reach, but don’t delve deep enough to discover what content moti-vates a fan base to share their brand on social media. this is a common misstep in sports marketing.

With social media platforms giving con-sumers a voice to create their own con-tent and engage in a two-way dialogue with the brand, it is imperative that brands identify advocates on their behalf. the tay-lor Digital team has tested and fine-tuned various strategies to create brand advo-cates for their client partners. these advo-cates — “social influencers” — have an inherent credibility and authenticity to them because of their affinity for certain categories/products; when they talk/tweet/post, their followers listen. in fact, they are often sought after for their opinion because of this credibility. being able to harness that on behalf of a brand has been a differentiator for taylor, placing it at the forefront of sports digital consultancies. the agency’s three decades of deep knowledge and insights around a fan’s mindset enables it to craft programs that maximize reach and affinity for brands such as Diageo, P&g and taco bell.

“We have experienced a combination of factors creating unique opportunities for our client partners,” Jeyanayagam said. “For us it ’s been very exciting as it ’s given us an opportunity to be more cre-ative and strategic with our campaigns. Over the past few years, we have been telling stories through social media influ-encers. as the first agency to do so in the sports space, we have amassed dozens of case studies on behalf of the world’s most influential and innovative marketers.”

a prime example is taylor ’s ambitious 2013 nFl Draft program for P&g’s tide brand. the campaign was driven by an actionable insight that fans want to wel-come their team’s new players to the fold.

the game-plan: as each draft pick was revealed, avid fans of each team immediately began to welcome their newest player on twitter. tide, playing the position of ‘Proud Keeper of your nFl

team’s colors,’ wanted to share in these “welcome” conversations and give fans a gift to celebrate their team’s latest selec-tion. taylor then created 32 real-time digi-tal-art posters of each team’s first draft selection in their new colors and distrib-uted them via each player ’s twitter han-dle as part of a welcome campaign on Draft night.

From its headquarters in the empire state building, taylor managed a social media “war room” so that the brand could actively engage with nFl fans and measure their response and behavior. the results from the 2013 Draft Weekend alone were off the charts: 67 million twit-ter impressions; 27,000 retweets, and 14,785 mentions of #aboutOurcolors. all told, the initiative generated an engage-ment rate nearly six times twitter ’s bench-mark!

the program extended into a season-long campaign, which utilized 32 ‘color captains’ — one player from each nFl team — creating and distributing unique and exclusive content that surrounds those colors on game-day.

another example of taylor ’s innovative approach in sports digital is its “Johnny Kilroy” campaign for nike’s Jordan brand.

in the fall of 1993, Michael Jordan shocked the world with the announce-ment that he was retiring from basketball to start a professional baseball career. leveraging the abrupt announcement, nike developed a marketing campaign to launch the new air Jordan iX with a spoof exposé investigation of Jordan’s “fake” retirement.

almost two decades later, Jordan brand, in partnership with taylor, lever-aged the anniversary of the “Johnny Kil-roy” marketing campaign, taking on the challenge of reviving the Kilroy alias and driving awareness to an upcoming 2012 commemoration launch of the air Jordan iX retro “Kilroy” series. the target, however, was a new, young breed of “sneaker-heads” — most of who were never exposed to Kilroy.

to engage with this savvy, sneaker afi-

cionado audience, Jordan brand created an integrated online/offline promotion that included social media and a real-time scavenger hunt in chicago. by bring-ing Johnny Kilroy back to life through social media, taylor gave him a unique online personality that engaged the con-sumer in an irreverent way and estab-lished a clear call-to-action for Jordan. the activation generated more than seven million media impressions, 5,100 followers of the newly created @there-alKilroy4 handle and 1,600 twitter men-tions during the three-week activation.

“it was successful because it incorpo-rated a passion point, a unique moment

in time and more importantly, it was sim-ple,” said Jeyanayagam of the program that earned taylor a 2013 Word-of-Mouth-Marketing association WOMMy award for best product introduction via social media. “social media and digital tech-nology are at the core of what we’ve been doing for years; we don’t approach any brief without understanding the con-sumption habits of the target consumer in terms of when/where they engage with social media. Once we understand that, we are then in a better position to develop a concept that will truly engage with the audience while driving business results. this is storytelling at its best.”

Almost two decades after Nike’s original “Johnny Kilroy” marketing campaign, Taylor helped Jordan Brand leverage the anniversary to engage target consumers and drive awareness and sales around the launch of the commemorative, retro Air Jordan IX “Kilroy.”

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“Now, brands have a multitude of direct-to-consumer channels to engage their audience and the key, especially in sports, is to have a deep understanding of fan insights.”

JACKSoN JEYANAYAGAMtaylOr seniOr vice PresiDent OF Digital strategy



From one innovator to another, congratulations Taylor on your 30th anniversary as a pacesetter in sports public relations.