Brand Activation 2021-22: It's going to be a renaissance.

Our CEO shared HER POV on the comeback of live sports + brand activation post-pandemic with ESPN Radio Charlotte.

“Social awareness has always been a priority for brands — supporting social mission and using sports to convey that. I think you see a renaissance of that in the next year and a half as we all get back to normal and all the different sectors that were severely impacted recover.”

Listen to the full interview or scroll down to read the full transcript.

Please note that this is an edited interview transcript, so excuse any grammatical errors!

ESPN: There's been a lot of good news lately in regards to the pandemic and COVID-19, and the latest piece being this week that we believe we'll have enough vaccines for all adults by the end of May. That has led to college football teams saying they anticipate having full stadiums in the fall. And we always talk about getting back to this new normal. Or I should say, getting back to the old normal, we're talking about a new normal and trying to get back to what was once normal.

But as we start to get back to sporting events, will it be what we were used to? Will it be that old normal? What will life be like from a sporting world after this pandemic, once we eventually get past the majority of COVID-19?

Joining us now is the President and CEO of POV Sports Marketing. Molly Arbogast, who also has worked with the Eagles, Learfield Sports and the WNBA. She's worked in sports a long time. She's with us now, Molly, good afternoon.

MA: How are you? Good afternoon. Great to be with you.

ESPN: Yeah, appreciate the time. You know, the the big news, especially in this part here down in the south, where college football is huge. We're hearing a lot about teams, schools, their college football programs, anticipating having full stadiums by this upcoming football season in the fall. For you, with your experiences, those of you have talked to and just what you expect, do you believe that we are going to get to that point that quickly? That in the next couple of months, we'll be talking about full stadiums in the sporting world once again?

MA: Absolutely. If you'd asked me this two months ago, I probably would have said, we need to wait and see. Because obviously, the distribution and acceptance of the vaccine is paramount to Chancellor's and Presidents of universities and colleges across the south and the rest of the country for that matter, as well as league leadership and owners of teams making the decision to welcome fans back. And we're on track.

I almost jumped out of my seat when I saw the alert come through that Alabama was going to be having full stadiums at Bryant-Denny. And, you know, listen, I'm a sports fan. And everyone in the sports business is a sports fan. And we want to see fans back in stands cheering on their favorite hometown team, whether that be professional sports, or college sports, or quite frankly, high school sports in certain parts of the country. I've heard this idea.

ESPN: And I don't know if it's any more than just an idea for months about moving forward. If you want to go to a concert, if you want to go to a show, if you want to go to a sporting event, you're going to need to prove you got the vaccine and maybe to the point where we may get to a point where you know, it's on your license, or you have a document or something mobile that you can show.

Do you think that that'll be the case with sports where if I wanted to go buy a ticket to a game coming up, say this fall? Do I have to prove I was, you know, vaccinated to be able to go to a game?

MA: You know, I think the jury's still out on that I think you look at there's been obviously a lot of discussion nationally about almost a health passport. But obviously, it gets into a lot of privacy issues with people disclosing whether they've taken a vaccine or not. And obviously, it's a it's a very personal decision. And for teams to require people to take a vaccine to come to a game, I think it's, it's legally a little bit of a slippery slope.

And so I think we have to kind of wait and see on that. I also believe that I mean, you know, if it applies to a sporting event, well then does it apply to an aircraft, I mean, it cruise ship all these other places where you bring together a good number of people in a confined space. So I don't think we'll go get there. I don't think we'll go there. But it's, it still remains to be seen. So I think in about three months, we'll know more. But again, it will really I think it's about hitting, and I'm not a doctor, but it's about hitting herd immunity between folks that have contracted the virus naturally, and been able to not be hospitalized and have potentially had mild cases. And then those high risk individuals who have had vaccine and their family members and whatnot, the fact that we will have access to vaccine as a mass of as the general population in May, at the end of May. It's just a massive game changer. And you hear a lot of the public health officials and Dean's of medical schools and you see them get excited, the sports industry gets excited very quickly, because, you know, we want to be able to bring people back together.

ESPN: So again with Molly Arbogast, who is the president and CEO of POV Sports Marketing. We always talk about trying to get back to normal, I can't wait till things are back to normal. I will find out that normal is but my question for you in the sports world. Do you believe that in the near future, we'll get back to how it used to be going to sporting events? Or will it be there will there be some changes such as, you know, no more cash at stadiums? Or maybe not using every seat or any other changes that I haven't thought of? Do you think we'll get back to what it was like going to a game in say 2019? Or will we have a new normal with some changes to the sports viewing experience?

MA: You know, I think when we talk about the new normal, everyone gets afraid that that's not going to be a good thing. I think the new normal is going to be great.

And I think I'm hoping fans will embrace the concept of being able to come to the stadium and scan a mobile ticket and then be able to have a faster experience that comes with concessions because they go cashless, and stadiums and arenas are going to be cleaned differently going forward. And I think that that's a good thing.

You know, I remember kind of laughing with with some friends about the fact that, you know, we've been telling everyone to wash their hands for the past year, what were we doing before, I mean, it's a good thing for us to all know that you have a renewed commitment from professional and collegiate sports properties to provide a wonderful guest experience. And I think the cashless experience and all the technology that's going to be introduced in, quite frankly, a lot of venues and leagues took advantage during the 2020 pandemic, to say, let's get our cashless house in order, let's expedite the speed of service, you know, big companies like Aramark and you know, Sabre, which is part of ASM global and all these different venue, concession companies have really said, we're going to need to do business differently.

And I think when we say new normal, we think it's scary, it's not. It's going to be great. We just are going to have to potentially kick up our individual technology awareness of it. You know, I joke about the fact that my 78 year old mother knows what a QR code is now, because she needs it to go have lunch with friends in a socially distance manner and look at a menu. And so now I just think that ability for people to come into a building scan a QR code, or or you know, have a cashless experience. It's not going to be something just for young people, it's going to be something that older fans can come in and enjoy and not be intimidated anymore by that technology that's in the palm of their hands.

ESPN: Do you imagine that will be the biggest change just that increase in technology in that experience, and not so much the the hand to hand contact with how we either order food or the ticket processes, you said? Do you think that will be the biggest change?

MA: I think that's going to be the biggest change. I think when you get into things like premium spaces in you know, 70,000 seats, sports venues, where you have things like buffets, you're probably not reaching for the spoon to scoop the lobster macaroni and cheese anymore, you're probably being served that from behind a plexiglass. I mean, I think it's kind of what's been done in a lot of different restaurant restaurant environments around the country, that's probably going to become a bit of a new norm. And I don't think that that's again, necessarily a bad, bad thing. I think the cashless experience is going to get fans back in their seats watching the action faster. And that's good for everybody.

ESPN: This is probably an impossible question, because it's been such an unpredictable last 12 months. But as you look at the pandemic, and what has happened in the sports world since the start of COVID-19. And now moving forward, has there been a biggest surprise for you in all this? Or maybe has it all been a surprise for you trying to navigate this pandemic over the last 12 months now moving forward?

MA: It's an amazing question. And it could probably take another couple hours to walk through and unpack. But I think what what's interesting is, you know, my agency as an example, we work with brands to actually invest in sports partnership deals in the college and pro space. And I think the hardest thing was not being able to have that hand to hand combat with the fan in the stands and add to their experience, everything went digital.

And while it challenged everyone to kind of sharpen that knife, if you will, to do better — nothing replaced that in venue experience of being able to have an activation out in front of a Clemson game or a set it out game or whatever, you know, those were all gone. And I think we all missed that tremendously.

Wawa is a brand that we do work with, and the ability to just give someone a coupon and not have it be just digital — actually have it be a piece of paper that they can then come in and interact with the brand on their own time and enjoy some food at Wawa — we lost that experience. And so we're really looking forward to getting back to that. I also feel like it was a righting of the ship in many ways for leagues and teams to appreciate that while they've improved the broadcast quality of games over the last decade, nothing beats having fans in stands.

And you know, I think we can all harken back to when the one of the first NASCAR races ran — I think it was last July around July 4. And just watching that race and saying, yes, it's a race and I'm excited to see these elite world class drivers, you know, doing their thing, but without fans in the stands, it lost something. And I think that that's, that to me was I don't think that might have been the biggest surprise was how much we really missed that fan. And this fans and so I anticipate that every league and every university will be welcoming their fans. And in many cases, the alumni of the University is back to campus to support, you know, support their sports teams because that 12th man effect of having fans cheering in the stands is clearly irreplaceable. And the brands want to see it. The players desperately want to have their hometown, home court advantage again, home field advantage. And the the owners and the league's want to be able to embrace the fans that, quite frankly, justify why they exist. Otherwise, it's just a game.

ESPN: Absolutely. That's a very interesting point. And to follow up on that, because for example, here, South Carolina for their season tickets, they've reduced the price to what it was, you know, a decade ago for the upcoming season for the upcoming football season. Do you think that along those lines, were fans therefore, before this pandemic taken for granted at all by the teams, and this was a bit of a wake up? Or was this just simply served as a reminder, they always knew how important the fans were. And this was just another reminder of that throughout this pandemic.

MA: I think it was a reminder to not just the schools, but their fans. I mean, I'm confident that fans at the Gamecocks, you know, whatever games being played at University of South Carolina, you know, it's not just your tickets, it's the people you've sat next to for 15 to 20 years, or it's family tickets that have been passed down, you know, all those sections in the stadiums kind of become arenas kind of become a neighborhood.

And so you see people that are like, Hey, how you been? But that was taken away from us. So I think we all were reminded of the importance of the fans in the stands, whether you're listening at home, watching on broadcast, enjoying it from your seats in the building, I think we were all just reminded, I don't think universities and and pro sports properties take their fans for granted. They understand. But I think this was just a reminder, that we are all in it together to make these events just epic and memorable.

ESPN: So again with Molly Arbogast from POV Sports Marketing, President and CEO, before I let you go, Molly, I do want to ask you, because you are involved in the sports marketing world, you know, for fans, maybe we don't notice it. But was there a way that that sponsors in the sports world were able to take this negative of this pandemic and actually turn it into something positive either over the last 12 months or something new, that will be part of the sports world that has turned into a positive moving forward from a sponsorship side of things?

MA: You know, virtual events really weren’t necessarily in the consideration set before the pandemic. And then we were forced to quickly learn what zoom was, and WebEx and all these other platforms. And we worked with a company called Fangage to do some virtual autograph sessions where players could actually sign a tablet, and it was the picture was sent to the fan. And it was a picture of the fan it uploaded, those types of things we didn't need before. And I think moving forward, there's a place for them.

So I think we end up seeing a little bit more hybrid of in person events will come back with a fury. And in person experiences where you have meet and greets or chance to, you know, sit on the 50 yard line and have lunch with a player or whatever that might be, those will come back hard. But I think that there's still a place now for the virtual event for displaced fans, especially in college athletics, where you have alumni that have moved away, but they're still so passionate about their alma mater, or they're, they're a parent of a child at school, and they want to have that connection to the university and everything it has to offer.

I think that's something that stays, and you know, it'll have a place. I also feel like you saw a lot during the Super Bowl where you saw big brand, not spending $5.7 million on a 30 second commercial. And instead converting that money into more actionable dollars more socially driven dollars, to help things like restaurants that had been closed. We know the restaurant industry has really taken a hit. And we all need to kind of do our part to say I can go cook dinner or maybe order from that mom and pop restaurant or cafe or whatnot down the street once a week just to make sure that they're still here after we all surface from the pandemic.

But I like to see what a lot of big brands did to come together to support industries that have really had a tough time and that are going to need our help, not just for the next four months, but the next four years recovering from what they all just went through. So I think social awareness has always been a priority for brands supporting social mission and using sports to convey that. I think you see a renaissance of that in the next year and a half as we all get back to normal and all the different sectors that were severely impacted recover.

ESPN: She's Molly Arbogast, President and CEO of POV Sports Marketing. check out POVsportsmarketing.com. Molly, great stuff you mentioned. Wow. I used to live in Florida. One of my brothers in Philadelphia for a long time. You have to help me get some Wawa here in South Carolina because I miss them.

MA: You know what anytime I talk to folks in the Carolinas it comes up, because they kind of skipped over went to the south but who knows, you know, a lot of lot of positive things on the horizon for our little country. And my hope is that we end up with Wawas in the Carolinas down the road. Nothing beats the Wawa.

ESPN: No, you're not kidding. I love it. Molly Arbogast, POV Sports Marketing. Molly, appreciate all the time and the insight and looking forward to trying to get back to normal here in the sports world.

MA: You bet. Stay healthy and look forward to having everyone back in venue and back at those terrific epic tailgates and collegiate sports.

ESPN: Yes, absolutely. You and me both appreciate it.