Something Quite New

Paul Davies is Consumer Marketing Director at tech giants Microsoft. A company he has been at for 13 years and counting. He is also a fellow podcaster with his Makers of the Universe show - a look at creativity and celebrating all of its forms. Guests so far have included CEO of The Dots, Pip Jamieson, Suede frontman Brett Anderson and the legendary advertising executive Sir John Hegarty.  He’s an award winning and highly respected marketer and was included in Campaign Magazine’s Power 100 in both 2017 and 2018, and last year was named in Marketing Week's Top 100 Marketers. He also holds a number of non-executive board roles  in the arts and culture sector including as board trustee at Punchdrunk and the BookTrust. In this chat you will find some great insights on the role of well… insights, another topic Paul is passionate about Storytelling and the strengths and weaknesses of sports sponsorship from an outsiders point of view. During our conversation Paul talks about the 'will a robot take your job?' test, you can find that here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34066941 We also talk about the Surface 3 campaign called 'Shadow Posters' which was developed by our mutual friend, Steven Woodgate https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/microsoft-shadow-posters-mccann-london/1496928 Produced by SQN, find out more about what we do at www.sqn.agency

Welcome to the Something Quite New podcast from SQN, the integrated marketing and communications agency for the technology, automotive and sport sectors. Looking through the weeks sports tech news and our look at esports. This week we’ll be bringing you part 2 from our December esports panel with ESL UK, Renault F1 and esports team Fnatic. If you haven’t listened to part 1 then I suggest you do, though maybe waiting until after this one before you do! This week's news has included; The 2020 car launches in Formula One Mobile World Congress cancelled due to Coronavirus And the non-news about Premflix In this week's panel we discuss the use of data by teams and events - who owns it (not the teams) and how it is being used. Plus how they could be doing a better job in terms of packaging it up in ways that brands can understand.  We also touch on how Renault has been taking their experience in motorsport into esports. With over 200 data points in F1 cars, they have been using their systems and experience to ensure their drivers maximise performance. We also talk about ESL and Intel (a $100m investment from the tech giant) and how they are taking broadcasts and creating better experiences for fans. This year sees the Intel World Pro take place in Japan which features Rocket League and Streetfighter ahead of the Tokyo Olympics and endorsed by the IOC.  Next week we get to hear from a hugely experienced marketer from one of the biggest technology companies in the world. Microsoft’s Consumer Marketing Director, and a fellow podcaster, Paul Davies will be sharing his views on the importance of insights, his passion for storytelling and how he sees sports sponsorship from the outside looking in. if you enjoy this podcast then do leave us a rating or review as it really helps other people find us. Until then have a great week and we look forward to bringing more news and thoughts from the world of sport and technology next week.  www.sqn.agency

Last week we finished up our dive into Digital Disruption in Sport and now we move onto the fascinating world of esports. On our panel we were lucky to have Heather Dower, from esports event organiser giants ESL, James Forster from successful UK team Fnatic and Guillaume Vergnas, who is not stranger to this podcast and runs the Renault F1 esports team as well as being involved in the main F1 team too. There have been a multitude of talks about esports at traditional sports conferences as the lines between the two continue to blur. But this whole debate over whether esports is a sport or not is one that keeps coming up, but does anyone within esports actually care and how are brands getting involved now it is becoming more mainstream? This is part 1 of a 2 part mini-series on esports, with part 2 coming out on Thursday 13th February. But to start we go into the sports tech news for the last week including Spotify's confirmed purchase of The Ringer, tech partnerships for Mercedes F1 and McLaren Racing, and the launch of a new OTT venture for 26 UK sports called GB Sports Media.  Find out more about us at www.sqn.agency or follow us on Twitter (@SQNagency) or LinkedIn. Or get in touch at hello@sqn.agency

Last week we published the first part of our panel session on Digital Disruption in Sport, with expert views from Grant Dall (ALE), Bijaya Basu (Tata Communications) and Sam Seddon (IBM). This week we take a look with them at some issues currently affecting sport including the roll-out of 5G and how that will affect the spectator experience, why OTT has experienced the teething problems it has and what is happening to change it – including Tata becoming a partner to Amazon Prime – and how tech companies are working to better market their solutions and use sponsorship to tell their stories. You will also hear the latest sports tech news which this week includes; Vine co-founder launches new 6-second video loop app, Byte. 5G is coming to Stamford Bridge with new shirt sponsorship deal with Three And Spotify eyes sports as the next big move in podcasting Subscribe to hear ‘Something Quite New’ each week as we explore how technology is impacting on sport and speak to those at the forefront of this movement. Next week we’ll be talking esports with Fnatic, ESL and Renault F1 – again from our December birthday event. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1CuvDQkHW5Ov7cDPrLFojB Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/something-quite-new/id1457259219?mt=2 Google: https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy85MTBmNmNjL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz

This week we're back with the first podcast of 2020! Last year was quite ad hoc in terms of regularity but from now on you can expect a new episode every week, with some great guests lined up. To kick things off we go back to our birthday event in December and the Digital Disruption panel, hosting by our CEO Claire Ritchie-Tomkins. A panel on which we were able to bring together some big technology brands who have been involved in sport for many years to provide some fascinating insights. They were Sam Seddon - Wimbledon and RFU Client & Programme Executive, IBM Bijaya Basu - Head of Sponsorships, Tata Communications Grant Dall - Global Alliance Manager for NTT, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise But before we got into the panel, Dan McLaren and Chris Hughes took some time to go through a few of the headlines that have attracted interest in the sports tech industry so far this year. Each week our aim is to offer some insight and discussion around these key topics, helping to provide you with an understanding and curate what you need to know. Whether it be Instagram hiding likes, Liverpool FC successfully launching memberships on YouTube or a new sports tech hub opening in London. It's all here. This week is part 1 of the panel with our guests talking about their involvement and experiences within sport. How the technologies they produce help solve problems, with the aim for teams and events to be more successful and fans to get the ultimate experiences. IBM started working with Wimbledon in 1990 and launched the first Wimbledon.org in 1995. Since then the partnership has become one that is closely intertwined, with new technologies tested to create better and deeper fan experiences every year. ALE worked with pro cycling outfit Team Dimension Data (now NTT Pro Cycling) to initially help them track everything that moved, whether it be water bottles or bike parts. Enabling the team to know where everything was at any time and making logistical decisions easier. And Tata Communications have been involved in sport for almost a decade through Formula One*, The European Tour and MotoGP. Bijaya explains how they work on getting live feeds from races all round the world to remote production teams with minimal delays. Saving time and money for the rights holders, and delivering other products on top of this technology to create the ultimate fan experiences. You can listen to the podcast on the player below or head to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or whatever platform you listen to on by searching for 'Something Quite New'.  Find out more - www.sqn.agency *Tata Communications was the Official Connectivity Provider of Formula 1® between 2012 and 2019. Tata Communications was also the Official Managed Connectivity Supplier to Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, and Official Digital Transformation Partner to ROKiT Williams Racing until the end of the 2019 season.

In December we held our first ever agency event to coincide with our 18th birthday. As part of that we invited some of the best in the industry to provide their insights across areas such as digital transformation, esports and this.... sponsorship. European Sponsorship Association chairman Andy Westlake is also a non-executive director at SQN and is one of the most influential voices on sponsorship in the industry. During his talk he went through some of the trends that have been picked out by ESA members to watch out for in 2020 including;  The power of community & grassroots Data and the ability to transform it into actionable insights Measurement Rights holders as media entities Integration within organisations The power of experiences Purpose Esports - one we'll be digging deeper through the panel we hosted at the same event And new sports and formats To begin with though our Head of Digital, Dan McLaren, and Client Services Director, Chris Hughes, took a look back to what stood out for them during 2019 and what areas they are interested in for the year ahead. Visit us at www.sqn.agency to find out more about what we do or if you'd like to talk to us about a project. 

This is part 2 from our recent trip to the Renault F1 factory in Enstone in Oxfordshire. A day that was very much about esports and their announcement about extending, and expanding, their partnership with Team Vitality In the previous podcast, we spoke to the team's Commercial Director, Antoine Magnan about sponsorship and what esports means to the Renault group as a whole. In this show we speak to Guillaume Vergnas, who covers both Formula One and esports for the team and has been an integral part in Renault’s partnership with Team Vitality. Helping to bring the gap between these two areas of the team. We talked about the partnership, what they have learned over the last two years and whether they can still take the title at the Grand Final of the Formula One Esports Pro Series. Find us on LinkedIn (SQN), Twitter (@SQNagency) and our website on www.sqn.agency 

We spoke to Antoine Magnan during the recent Renault F1 x Team Vitality esports day at the racing team's HQ just outside Oxford. We discussed what the extension of the partnership with Team Vitality means and he also expanded on a comment he made about sponsorship as a straight cash deal being 'dead' during the presentations and what that means for the F1 and esports teams commercially going forward.  To read more about the visit you can find our blog on www.sqn.agency Find us on LinkedIn and Twitter

Simulation racing is certainly an intriguing area in esports. Will we reach a time where the best Formula 1 esports driver can jump into a real car and compete on the circuit or, realistically, will that never happen? During this event our Head of Digital, Dan Mclaren, sat down with Jamie MacLaurin, Team Manager at Alfa Romeo Racing F1, Darren Cox, President and CEO at Millennial Esports, Guillaume Vergnas, Partnerships Development & Esports Manager at Renault F1 Team, Dom Duhan, Founder/CDO at Team Redline/Studio 397. During October we've been looking into the opportunities for brands to get involved in esports sponsorship. To download the report you can head to https://app.monstercampaigns.com/c/kar2qfb21ivbjyvs1khe/ In this podcast we also mentioned the press release for our sister company, Init Esports. Details for this can be found on https://sqn.agency/new-esports-powerhouse/ You can find out more Esports Insider, the host for the event where this audio is taken from and get all your latest esports news at https://www.esportsinsider.com Since the recording of this podcast the name of Millenial Esports has changed to Torque Esports and they continue to make acquisitions and grow not only in sim racing but esports generally.  Other relevant links for the panel guests and the topics discussed are below; Veloce Esports F1 Esports Team Redline Studio 397 Renault F1 If you'd like to talk to us about esports, sponsorship or marketing then do get in touch at hello@sqn.agency or leave us a voice message here on Anchor. Next month we'll be talking about digital transformation with help from IBM and mycujoo.  Team SQN

Over the last three weeks we've been running a series of mini-articles on The Power of Sponsorship. To accompany this, and each of our upcoming topics, we'll be using interviews from some of the best minds in the industry to find out their views and gain some invaluable insights along the way. To start with we took some of the best bits from our interview with European Sponsorship Association Chairman, Andy Westlake. In it you will discover more about how far sponsorship has come in recent years and how it can affect so many different part of a business, from awareness and sales to staff retention and community engagement.  Download the report at https://sqn.agency/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/SQN-Power-of-Sponsorship.pdf and keep an eye out for the next series on sponsorship measurement. Always a hot topic for the industry.   Listen to the full interview with Andy at https://anchor.fm/something-quite-new/episodes/Andy-Westlake-Chairman--European-Sponsorship-Association-e3h2kr

In this episode we sat down with IBM's Sam Seddon to discuss the report he authored and has just been announced at the AI Summit, part of London Tech Week. We managed to speak to Sam a week prior to the announcement to dig a bit deeper into report and what insights it brought out that might be of interest to brands and rights holders alike.  We touch on subjects including; the importance of people and not just technology in the future, how sports will be competing with sectors such as banking for key staff in the future, how their partnership with Wimbledon has evolved over the last 29 years, before finishing off with what the future looks like with technologies such as AI and Virtual Reality on the horizon. To find out more about what Wimbledon, IBM and other sporting organisations believe to be the five strategic tenets for success in the sports industry visit https://www.ibm.com/blogs/think/2019/06/the-next-competitive-edge-in-sport/  If you want to find out more about SQN or would like to talk about how esports could fit into your plans, then visit us at www.sqn.agency or drop Chris a line on chris.hughes@sqn.agency  We'll be back next time talking about football and the hottest topic in sports at the moment, within technology anyway, in OTT.

In this episode of Something Quite New, brought to you by SQN, we sat down with Head of Esports at McLaren to talk about the continuing rise of esports. Also the close links it shares with motor racing, and Formula 1 in particular, and the launch of this years McLaren Shadow Project Season 2 2019 - details of which you can find at https://www.mclaren.com/racing/2019/mclaren-shadow-project/welcome-season-2/ If you want to find out more about SQN or would like to talk about how esports could fit into your plans, then visit us at www.sqn.agency or drop Chris a line on chris.hughes@sqn.agency  We'll be back next time talking about the future of technology and sport, a chat that ties in with a brand report about to be launched by one of the world's biggest tech companies. More soon!

The 'Something Quite New' podcast is brought to you by leading sponsorship and communications agency Sine Qua Non.  In each episode we will deep diving to bring you insight and intelligence from leading lights across the industry. Taking a close look at the challenges and opportunities that are presenting themselves.  In this episode we talk to Joe Edwards, Head of Digital Marketing at FIBA Media. FIBA is basketball's governing body and brings together 213 National Basketball Federations from across the world. Uniting the wider basketball community, which counts more than 450 million players and fans. We covered a number of areas including his role, and how FIBA Media sits alongside other departments within the organisation. How he works within his goals of both maximising viewership of their events whilst also trying to develop revenue streams from them, objectives that can sometimes clash.  You can't talk basketball without mentioning the NBA , which to many is seen as being basketball itself. But it is but one league, though a dominant one, and FIBA work closely with it especially around key events like the FIBA World Cup which takes place in China this year. But the NBA does operate on a different level, as Joe points out when describing how they spent $50m on upgrading the referee play room to help them make better decisions and give all the camera angles. You can find Joe on LinkedIn and Twitter, and also make sure you catch our appearance on his podcast, The Real Marketing Rap where the interview tables are turned.   

Welcome to the Something Quite New podcast, brought to you by leading sponsorship and communications agency Sine Qua Non.  In each episode we will deep diving to bring you insight and intelligence from leading lights across the industry. Taking a close look at the challenges and opportunities that are presenting themselves.   Our first guest is European Sponsorship Association chairman Andy Westlake.  We sat down for a lengthy chat just after the ESA awards, so there were plenty of best practice examples for us to discuss. We covered a wealth of content, including some of the hurdles facing the industry currently – and its extremely positive outlook.

'Something Quite New' is a new podcast from Henley-based sponsorship & communications agency, Sine Qua Non International. Hosts Dan McLaren and Chris Hughes will be taking the opportunity to learn more about the ever-changing sports business landscape and keeping tabs on the newest and latest developments.  Joining us, we’ll be bringing in experts from across the breadth of the industry to help us look at what the future holds - and hopefully to learn something quite new along the way.