LAST WEEK TODAY: LOOK BACK & RECAP

Missing sponsorship news?

Check out the blog every Monday for a weekly roundup of the past week's most exciting and industry-altering news. These stories cover August 6-12, 2018.

Looking back, reviewing, and recapping are important parts of the sponsorship and experiential marketing processes. How can you improve your next campaign or activation without truly scrutinizing how your most recent ones did? It's one of the reasons we here at Tandem continue to look back at events like Coachella, the Olympics or World Cup once they're done: those recaps, especially those done a bit after the fact with some time to ruminate, can shape upcoming trends or offer dissuasion.

1. If you thought we were done talking about the World Cup, you're wrong. Statistics and summaries are starting to come out, and we're all over it.
   • FIFA sponsor Visa put together a Lounge at each match - all 64 - and hosted in-stadium experiences. Guess you can expect the VIP treatment from the credit card processor.
   • Social media numbers have been calculated, and the results are really not that surprising. The French team gained the most followers (1.7m - probably something you can expect from winning); though runner-up Croatia wasn't in the top 10 by number (and therefore less than .5m, but the article reports a 43% increase). French star Kylian Mbappe was the player with the largest game, though his total follower numbers are seriously behind stars like Neymar, Messi and even countrymen Griezmann and Pogba.
2. We loved this experiential marketing program from Knorr. Manhattanites had the opportunity to tweet #KnorrToMyDoor (with a carrot emoji) to Knorr, receiving in reply a link to sign up for free delivery. Knorr's mobile Farmers Market will be making deliveries in future. The brand also hosted a pop-up shop at The New York Botanical Gardens.
3. In addition to wings, you may also be able to order up your next bet at Buffalo Wild Wings. Already popular for its fantasy draft set ups, BWW may entrench itself further in the biz with a potential sports betting addition.
4. #SponsorSpotlight last week focused on footwear brand ASICS - and a few of these tweets garnered some attention:
   • First was the brand's 2013 deal with the French Athletics Federation. Though the original deal expired in 2016 (ensuring the deal would run through the Rio Olympics), the French team has continued its association.
   • Earlier this year, ASICS signed two major deals with two very different sectors:
     • In May, the brand announced it would be the official footwear sponsor of Live Nation. This deal applied to multiple Live Nation-owned venues and festivals.
     • Just last month, ASICS signed on with the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) on a deal that goes through the 2020 Tokyo Summer Paralympic Games as an Official Supplier.
5. The MLB Players Association launched a new worldwide cryto-collectible service in partnership with Player Tokens.
6. The NFL Preseason has officially started, so we'll just leave this right here:

Bud Light once again selling NFL team cans for the 28 teams they sponsor (They don't sponsor Vikings, Bears, Packers & Cowboys) pic.twitter.com/Bp0WlJeo67

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) August 9, 2018

Did we miss any? Tweet @be_tandem - we hate being behind the times just as much as you do.

Look out next Monday for this week's game-changers.