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Lessons from Google Canada’s Demo Day.

Last week, I was in awe at Google Canada’s Demo Day, surrounded by some of the country’s most innovative startups. Fourteen companies took the stage, ten leveraging AI and machine learning to make you wonder if we’re already living in the future. But beneath the cutting-edge tech and polished pitches, what struck me most were the timeless lessons every business leader needs to hear—whether you’re running a startup or a legacy brand.

Here’s what stayed with me:

1. Be Customer-Obsessed.

Too many businesses focus on their tech, people, or processes. But here’s the thing: your customers don’t care about that. They care about their own needs, their problems, and their wins. The most impressive startups weren’t bragging about their tech; they were showcasing how their solutions directly change their customers’ lives. Think about that the next time you’re obsessing over internal metrics that no one outside your building will ever see.

2. Don’t Be Afraid to Be Boring.

Yes, boring. What problem do you solve every day that nobody notices? That little thing you’re so good at that has become invisible? That’s your gold. One founder shared how their business thrives because they solve a fundamental, repetitive problem better than anyone else. We’re all chasing shiny objects when sometimes success is about perfecting the unsexy basics.

3. As a Leader, the World Wants the Best of You—Not What’s Left of You.

Leadership is hard. The grind is real. But Demo Day reminded me that running on empty doesn’t serve your team, business, or customers. When you’re depleted, you don’t make good decisions, inspire, or innovate. The WorldWorld doesn’t need your burnout—it needs your best.

Some standout companies blew me away: Aya Care is transforming employee benefits; Deeplite is making AI more efficient; and BioTwin is creating digital twins to predict health outcomes. But what united all these companies was their clarity of purpose. They weren’t just showing off technology—they were delivering outcomes.

Google’s Demo Day wasn’t just a showcase of cool tech but a masterclass in focus. The startups that stood out didn’t complicate things. They were clear, customer-focused, and purposeful. If you’re running a business, the question differs from what shiny new thing you can build. It’s this: What problem are you solving, and are you solving it better than anyone else?

Startups at Google Canada’s Demo Day

1. Aya Care (Toronto, ON) – Payment solutions for employee benefits.
2. Deeplite (Montréal, QC) – AI model optimization software.
3. PulseMedica (Edmonton, AB) – Non-invasive diagnostic tools for retinal diseases.
4. Defang (Vancouver, BC) – Cloud application development tools.
5. BioTwin (Québec City, QC) – AI-driven predictive health diagnostics.
6. Envision.ai (Montréal, QC) – Visual content analysis powered by AI.
7. EZee Assist (Toronto, ON) – AI-powered customer support solutions.
8. Handy.ai (Toronto, ON) – Personal assistant technology using AI.
9. OkRx (Mississauga, ON) – Prescription management and cost optimization.
10. OPTT Health (Toronto and Kingston, ON) – Digital mental health therapy solutions.
11. runQL (Waterloo, ON) – Database performance optimization tools.
12. Streamline (Kitchener, ON) – Project management software.
13. Transitional Forms (Toronto, ON) – AI-driven creative content production.
14. Vaultie (Toronto, ON) – Secure digital identity verification.

When did you last have a “what was I thinking moment?” Or better yet, what was I not thinking?

That was my last Friday night when a friendly Air Canada agent told me I was NOT getting on my plane to France. Not until I had a new passport that expired at least three months from my day of departure. 

Stunned like a wounded boxer in the ring, I stammered, “Why not?” Quickly, I learned that valid travel documents to Europe meant a passport that did not expire for ninety days. Mine was coming due September 9. Do the math. 

The gate agent empathetically told me that this happens every day to her. People like me (aka know-it-alls) don’t understand the details of their travel documents to know that every country you traverse has different rules. The French government, nary the EU, care two craps about what my Canadian passport reads. They are not letting you in. 

My panicked mind raced. Today was August 2; I was to land on August 3. My conference starts on August 7. I must be there on August 6, or my colleague Matt must slide down the fire pole responding to the 911 call and grab the mic as our new emcee. He would have done a great job, but needless to say, the personal credibility loss and the lifetime of self-loathing I would endure was not landing well with me. 

The options raced through my mind. Ontario’s Civic Holiday could cost me a day. How does one get a passport if the government is not open? I searched online for emergency passport offices, but they are there to help people who land in Canada. My wife found a number with Global Affairs to call. I got through on the first ring, and they kindly walked me through the process and sent a follow-up email with action steps.

That night, I got photos at 10:30 PM, and until midnight, I was in my office typing out a new passport application form. Of course, this would happen the week of our office move, so a printer still needs to be installed. I will solve that later. I collected names and numbers of people who could be my references all this time. Thankfully, I didn’t need them to sign anything.

I woke up angry on Saturday but restrained as I knew my family wanted the dog to be alive when they returned. More calls and emails. The passport emergency duty officer first, followed by neighbours to print forms and friends to ensure my references were ready. I kept the house/cat/dog sitter on standby. Several flights were under consideration, based on many contingencies, including the date of a new passport issue (wishfully thinking), departure city, and my budget tolerance to spend my way out of this mess. Legally. 

9:16 AM. The emergency passport duty officer calls. They were unbelievably helpful. Next thing I know, I am heading to Mississauga for a noon appointment. The interview went fine. Then, I went off to sit in the mall and fidget while the government called my references and checked my file for speeding infractions and unpaid bills. A couple I met at the passport office with their travel issues wandered over for a chat. 

12:45 The passport officer comes out and calls both our names. The couple go first. They have relieved smiles. Then I am up. I can barely walk, let alone breathe. 

With a new passport in hand, I gleefully requested a ride to the airport and just fifteen hours later, I cleared customs in France. 

The SPX Show will go on!

by Mark Harrison

I seek outside inspiration whenever I get stuck working on a presentation or my radio column.

Today, it was Resonate by Nancy Duarte. The other week, it was Story by Robert McKee. I do use ChatGBT, but I am finding it repetitive. Sometimes, I will pull a not-so-recent Harvard Business Review off the shelf or the current edition for a serving of enlightenment. A podcast by Reid Hoffman or anything Monocle produces usually gets me cooking. Oddly enough, the last page of The Economist is the one I read first and almost always inspires some reflection. If you are an Economist reader, you will know what I mean. If not, I suggest grabbing an issue before I go further. 

Today, I am working on a keynote entitled We Are The Champions. It’s about Brand Champions – both consumer advocates and master marketers. That may change. 

My first step in drafting a keynote is to determine what my first and last slides will be. They are the most essential parts of a keynote presentation, as are the cookies of an Oreo. The filling is critical to any presentation, but the opener sets the stage and creates the most impact. The closer ensures your credibility and, hopefully, an audience outpouring of appreciation. 

Today, I am reading Duate’s Chapter ” There’s Always Room to Improve,” and closing is where I always need the most improvement.

Not so humbly; I have been nailing my openings for a while. The secret is giving the audience something related to your session description or title but from a source or platform that surprises people. I don’t wing it. I research, test, and research all my presentation openings. If I don’t feel 1000% about my opening slide, I am dead. Someone should have told President Biden that.

Funny. The Thursday night debate was not my motivation for writing this, but it suddenly seemed appropriate midway through. My original motivation was to get my creative juices flowing as I worked on my morning keynote. 

For my Brand Champions keynote, I have been casting some questions into the university to see what sticks:

1. Who are the Brand Champions in your life?
2. What is your Brand? Do you know? Do you have?
3. If you were a Brand, what Brand would you be? 
4. What is your Brand today, and what is its promise?
5. Who will be the Brand Champions of Tomorrow?

The middle part of a keynote is where you have fun. I am a massive believer in writing the title for each slide (the newspaper headline) regardless of whether it will be text, video, or an image. Those headlines become the basis of my script. Over the past year, I have felt better about my middle, mainly because I have started doing a radio column, which has been an unexpected training ground for my public speaking. 

The column is a seven-minute Q&A that tests the ability to convey the message. Without the crutch of slides, I have been working on my words to determine if I can paint a vivid picture without Keynote (the software). The game I play with myself is to imagine my words as a movie script describing the scene, the setting, and the characters. 

It works for me. 

Like a gymnast or an Oreo lover dunking their cookie in milk, the most challenging part for me right now (help me, Nancy D!) is sticking the finish, nailing the landing with my arms raised and my body still in such a way that compels the audience to leap to their feet and give me some love. I can only begin stuffing the middle with this closing slide, which is a final hurdle.

Beginning with the end in mind is great advice from Steve Covey for any project, presentation, or brainstorming. It is also the hardest. 

I made an essential personal discovery in the middle of a farm field in Singhamption last weekend.  

The occasion was the fifteenth annual Farm for Change fundraiser at The New Farm. The revealing discovery was that I realized what I lost by not attending the first fourteen. 

I hope I haven’t lost you already. 

Now imagine yourself on the grounds of the innovative The New Farm, a certified organic family farm run by two self-described former “well-established City Folk” located just west of the village of Creemore. You are surrounded by fields of vegetables grown with love, a vast array of restaurant chefs in tents, portable bars, a barn set for a concert, and picnic gear everywhere. Now, you are a member of a unique community that understands the need to collaborate to help build a just, equitable, and inclusive food system in southern Ontario. This is the Farms for Change fundraiser.

Author’s note: You can read about The New Farm’s backstory in a book by Farm co-founder Brent Preston, The New Farm: Our Ten Years on the Front Lines of the Good Food Revolution. 

The New Farm is self-proclaimed not just to be a farm, and Farms for Change is not just an event. To borrow the organizer’s words, Farms for Change is an innovative partnership between The New Farm and Community Food Centres Canada (CFCC), a collaboration that has made a real difference for the past fourteen years. They directly support local communities by raising funds to provide local, organic produce to The Stop and more than 30 other Community Food Centres and good food organizations throughout Southern Ontario. 

This event is run by an army of volunteers, including a fantastic community of chefs, friends, and neighbours. Dozens of restaurants, such as Avling, Burdock, The Drake, and The Rabbit Hole, donate their team’s time and talents to serve unique creations featuring local ingredients. The libations are as good as the eating, adding to the overall excitement of the event. 

So, how did I lose by not attending in the past? 

Was it missing out on great acts such as The Strumbellas, Dwayne Gretzky, and even The Tragically Hip, which played at the current and previous events?

Was it the opportunity to support our food insecurity crisis, which is getting more urgent daily?

Was it FOMO since I have so many friends who have attended many times and raved about it being one of their favourite events of the year?

None of the above. My loss was having the opportunity to witness one of the best-run fundraising events I have ever been to. This event could teach the savviest of experiential marketers a thing or three. 

The participant journey felt seamless, as demonstrated by the messaging on the event tickets, featuring a comprehensive and wise listing of almost every detail you, a practitioner of the 5Ws, would love. You couldn’t bring your pet, although forks and knives were required kit. Cash was also necessary because there was no tap, QR code, or another 2024-ish payment opportunity. 

Upon arrival, the volunteers made the experience even smoother. A cohort of well-trained and well-intentioned volunteers enthusiastically staffed the massive field utilized as a parking lot, ensuring that cars and people alike were unscathed. The volunteer enthusiasm and efficiency continued throughout the event, from the ticket takers to porta potties helpers (yes, indeed) and garbage sorters. 

Now, at the risk of sounding like a high-strung event organizer, I was thrilled with the grounds’ layout, the event’s flow, and the alignment of the consistently branded tents. I may need to socialize more, but gazing around the setup was an event highlight. I brought up my enthusiasm with some of the people I attended with, but they needed to share my enthusiasm for the organizational details. Yes, I need to socialize more and work less. 

So, I am glad you have taken the time to listen to me as I wax on about the magic of creating a seamless experience for nine hundred attendees, many of whom are used to high-level service in hospitality. The Farms for Change event is an unintended tutorial for event professionals. 

Like everyone else, I left this event feeling inspired by how many people showed up to contribute to a critical mission and hopeful that at least one other person was impressed by the minds behind the evening’s planning.  

Since 1928, Coca-Cola has sponsored the Olympic movement, making it the longest-standing partner of the Games. 

Those 1928 Games, which included 46 nations, marked the beginning of Coca-Cola’s involvement, which has evolved endlessly through integrated sponsorship marketing and global partnership programs. However, in the summer of 1928, the same freighter that carried the U.S. Olympic team to Amsterdam also had one thousand cases of Coca-Cola on its manifest. Vendors put those bottles on sale in kiosks around the Olympic Stadium and the rowing venue at an event that was not surprisingly light on promotional signage or advertising. The only branding was a bulletin designed by an American art student at each stadium entrance. 

Global partnerships have come a long way. 

As Coca-Cola heads towards marking a century of collaboration with the Olympics, they are putting a spotlight on the celebration for this year in a festive campaign with fans of the Olympic movement and enhancing the games through activations, music, experiences, food, and athletes. They recently unveiled “Celebrate Everyday Greatness” as its theme for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Celebrate Everyday Greatness campaign is a multi-brand platform that champions life’s everyday moments. The core message from Coca-Cola is that any moment, big or small, can turn into something extraordinary. From the brand that brought us “Open Happiness,” you can taste the consistency of their strategic thinking. 

In a company release, Brad Ross, Coca-Cola’s Vice President of Global Arts & Entertainment Marketing and Partnerships, said, “The Olympic and Paralympic Games are a prime opportunity for The Coca-Cola Company and our extensive portfolio of products to connect with fans. We will use this global stage to showcase how greatness in everyday moments can create real magic.” (SponsorshipX Paris, August 7th to 9th, is excited to have Brad Ross of Coca-Cola share more about this magic at our Future of Global Partnerships Forum.)

In addition to Coca-Cola brand activations, the company will lean into the Games with its Powerade brand. 

This year’s campaign is an update on their Pause is Power platform inspired by Simone Biles’ break from competing and focus on her mental health. The new campaign naturally stars Biles. 

In an interview with Marketing Brew, Matrona Filippou, president of the global hydration, sports, coffee, and tea category at Powerade’s parent company, Coca-Cola, stated, “The platform was focused on continuing to challenge the win-at-all-costs mentality associated with modern sports culture. It’s not always pushing yourself to the limits that makes you stronger. Sometimes just taking a pause, taking a breath, can actually help you come back stronger and better.”

The lead creation of this year’s iteration is a short film entitled The Vault, which showcases Biles and her journey as she talks about why the pause was necessary for her. The film gave me goosebumps as Biles tumbles through the air in slow motion, reliving her decision, the pressure of being a world-class athlete, and the benefit of recharging to power herself through. 

Costa Coffee is another brand in the Coca-Cola family, taking advantage of the Games by opening popup sites and pod stores. They will run at the Athlete Village, PlaPlace de la Concorde, the Eiffel Tower and Versailles.  

The Coca-Cola-owned coffee chain will open temporary ‘pods’ across some of the event’s key venues, including the Athletes’ Village, Place de la Concorde, the Eiffel Tower, Roland-Garros, Versailles and Le Golf National. 

“We are extremely proud to be the Official Worldwide Coffee Partner for the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games this Summer, bringing the Costa Coffee experience to the Games for athletes and fans gathering from all over the world. The Olympics and Paralympics represent significant opportunities for our brand to connect with spectators, and we look forward to showcasing our beloved range of beverages at such a high-profile event,” said Sam O’Brien, Managing Director EMENA, Costa Coffee. While the chain operates over three thousand stores across Europe, ironically, it exited France in 2023. However, as an official coffee partner of the Games worldwide, I believe this is too good an opportunity to pass by. 

Coca-Cola’s pillar of involvement is its sponsorship of the Torch Relay, which it has been doing since 1992. To me, the start of the torch relay is when the Olympics kick off. The community event and nation-builder often rallies a country and its citizens. It is the first time people see up close the impact of the Games and experience it firsthand—especially those who know someone who is a torch bearer. 

The Torch Relay in France is an unsurprisingly ambitious effort featuring a collaborator by Paris 2024, the territories involved, and its official partners (Coca-Cola, Banques Populaires, and Caisses d’Épargne). Running from May 8th until the games start July 26th, the Relay will tell many stories in its travels. It will highlight eras of French history, famous individuals, and the values and spirit of the country. 

The Olympic Torch Relay route will be an epic journey across France. From May 8th, 2024, the Relay will showcase France’s beauty and diversity, history and exceptional landscapes, knowledge, traditions, and talents. Music, of course, is a big part of the Relay. Coca-Cola is sponsoring eight concerts along the torch route, featuring the likes of Soprano, Alonzo, Lujipeka, Chilla, Santa, and Bianca Costa. 

When the Relay ends, and the competitions begin, Coca-Cola will have various activations around the host communities. Their involvement will also extend to the Olympic and Paralympic competitive arenas. As a critical part of Celebrating Every Day Greatness, Coca-Cola has also inked deals with many athletes for Team Coca-Cola. Their roster includes many athletes, such as the host country Mathilde Gros, an up-and-coming cyclist, and Olympic champions such as Athing Mu (USA, athletics) and Emma Twigg (New Zealand, rowing). These athletes are integral to the campaign as they celebrate the little things happening daily in their journey to the biggest stage of their careers. 

Coca-Cola is just four years away from a milestone of 100 years of partnership with the Olympics. Now you have to imagine that will be something to savour.

•  

I want permission to add my voice to the chorus of people who greatly admired Jaye Robinson, the Toronto City Councillor who succumbed to cancer recently at the far-too-early age of 61.

Last week, at Jaye’s celebration of life, everyone, from her sons who were left without a mother to her friends who were denied a confidant to her colleagues now absent a mentor, remembered her in powerful stories that wove an incredible tapestry together of a person who deserved every word of it.

Who was Jaye Robinson, whom so many spoke so powerfully about?

This person that even if you knew her from a distance, you felt you knew her well.

It sometimes seems a cliche when we say someone is larger than life.

But what happens when it is true?

Some people in the world just are larger than life.

Whether their outsized presence fills gaps and voids in the soundtrack of life, or perhaps their energy makes the experience of the moment feel more meta than it ordinarily should, those we describe as larger than life just are. When listening to those who knew Jaye so well, you know she was naturally that person.

Rarely have I been at a celebration of life where the laughter, emphatic head nodding, and the speakers’ desire to do the deceased proud outshone the tears. There were justifiably many moments of pain and sorrow. Beautifully, the tears that flowed were chased away by a rainbow, silencing the rain and emerging from unwanted clouds to remind us that although we are no longer close to the splendour, we can admire it from afar.

One story at the celebration bears retelling, and I hope Jaye’s family is okay with my attempt to paraphrase and share it. It is too beautiful not to.

It started seemingly as a retelling of an ordinary memory by her husband Billy about how he and Jaye randomly stopped for a riverside picnic on a trip one day many years ago. I could imagine the two so young, energetic, and beaming, with matching, nonstop smiles adorning their faces. While eating, Billy spotted a muddy bottle stuck ways down in the river shore, which provided a second discovery of a mysterious note inside. Upon freeing the bottle and the note, perhaps in anticipation of a historical clue to the region’s past, he read its contents.

It was a marriage proposal note from Jaye, who decided that after seven lucky years together, she and Billy’s destiny was to be together forever.

A message in a bottle setting your course for life. It does not get much larger than that, primarily when written by a woman who lived every day as a gleeful hunt to find the golden treasure in the ordinary, to substitute tradition for orbiting, to eschew convention for invention. A message in a bottle from your future life partner. A partner who could create the illusion of a historical discovery while transforming the script that became the telling of their future.

My interaction with Jaye started when we were student politicians at the University of Guelph, campaigning for new athletic facilities. Later, our professional paths crossed as she worked for the city in events, and I ran my marketing agency. In our last installment, after more campaigning by Jaye, she was our city councillor for many years, and like many of my neighbours, I was a satisfied electoral supporter. Remarkably, although not to those who knew her, each professional change brought the same Jaye to your door. Her mandate may have changed, but her fantastic persona never wavered.

Jaye’s celebration of life event seemed filled with as many people like me- former colleagues, constituents, and collaborators as there were friends and family. I suspect the first group, let’s call us her fans, wants to let the second group, her kin, know how much we appreciate their sharing Jaye with us.

All of our lives are larger for it.

If you told me in 1994 that today, my self-driving car would safely take me home to my house in thirty minutes of Toronto traffic away from my squash club, I would have laughed at you.

If you told me in 1994 that a start-up named Cadabra would become a $1.8 trillion business, I would have asked who would name their company after a dead body.

If you had told me in 1994 that the new trade agreement, NAFTA, the best Canada had ever reached, would one day be threatened by the former owner of the New Jersey Generals, I would have been lost in the details.

If you had told me in 1994 that this was the year the Allied occupation of Berlin would end, I would have been shocked to learn that Germany was still under international rule.

If you had told me that the Major League Baseball player’s strike, beginning the most prolonged work stoppage in the sport’s history, would be the beginning of the end for the Montreal Expos. I would have cared more.

If you had told me that Colombian footballer Andrés Escobar, 27, would be shot dead in Medellín as retaliation for the goal Escobar scored in the 1994 FIFA World Cup against the United States soccer team, I would question my love of sport.

If you had told me that The 66th Academy Awards, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, would see Steven Spielberg’s Holocaust drama Schindler’s List win seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director(Spielberg), I would have high-fived you.

If you had told me that Michael Jackson would marry Lisa Marie Presley in the Dominican Republic, I would have wished to have heard that MJ and Elvis would do a live duet just once.

If you had told me three-time Formula One world champion Ayrton Senna would die in an accident during the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy, I would have reminded myself that life is fragile.

If you had told me that on May 6, the Channel Tunnel, which took 15,000 workers more than seven years to complete, would officially open between England and France, I might have asked who had this genius idea.

If you had told me that the brutal murders of June 12 – Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman would birth the creation of 24-hour news channels, I would have said that OJ’s death in 2024 didn’t bring closure to that tragedy.

If you told me in 1994 that China would get its first, its first, connection to the internet, I would have asked, can I Google that?

If you had told me that Pulp Fiction, a movie by Quentin Tarantino, premieres would become the highest-grossing independent film ever, I would have said no kidding.

If you told me that Byron De La Beckwith would finally be convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, I would have asked what took so long.

If you told me in 1994 that a Black man named Nelson Mandela would be the first President in South Africa elected in a fully democratic process, I would have cried.

If you had told me in 1994 that thirty years was a long time, I would have said it felt like yesterday.

If I had told you in 1994, when I founded T1, that in thirty years, we would have survived the dot com crash, the 2008 recession, the COVID-19 pandemic, and more, I would have said “Thank you” to all who helped us do so.

So please let me tell you. THANK YOU to everyone who has been a part of our journey- internally, externally, peripherally, close up and afar.

By the way, the company once known as Cadabra is now called Amazon, and in 1994, I wish someone had told me to buy stock!

One of the most challenging aspects of business is that no matter how many people agree on a topic, only one person matters.

The decision maker.

The power of that individual is fully understood when you realize that it only takes one person at a company to decide not to support professional women’s sports despite the other seventeen million who say otherwise.

Oh, to have that power.

The power to ignore the obvious, the power to apply old rules to a new game, the power to be a marketer who markets to himself, and the power to say no.

NO is the most powerful word in business. It allows us to manage budgets. It supports our priority setting. It can clarify the organization of the lines of the box.

However, NO can also be a door opener for an organization. An organization filled with NO men will soon open plenty of doors for them to oblivion, obscurity, and obscurity.

So go ahead and say no to professional women’s sports. I dare you—all of women’s sports dare you.

However, if you want to say YES, the data you need is now available in the influential report It’s Time: Unlocking the Power of Pro Women’s Sports Fans, released by Canadian Women & Sport and research and consultancy partner IMI Consulting, sponsored by presenting partner Canadian Tire Corporation with support from Women and Gender Equality Canada. 

This first-of-its-kind report reveals that two in three Canadians aged 13-65 are fans of women’s sports—equivalent to more than 17 million Canadians!

So get ready to say YES to professional women’s sports by rethinking how you, as a brand, approach sponsorship marketing.

Say YES to revamping how you evaluate sports sponsorships. Do not apply a traditional league model that reeks of impressions and value banks. Apply a progressive model where you measure the equity of a marketing partnership (I am referring to value here, not DEI) based on how the consumer values it. That is where the gold is in women’s sports.

Say YES to true partnership instead of the lip service that often exists in our business today. Move yourself from being a patron to an investor looking to commit to your partner’s long-term growth and understand the actual returns come down the road, not in the first month of activating. Speaking of which, say YES to activating at a 10X-20X ratio with women’s sports to balance your total investment with your traditional portfolio and reap the rewards.

Say YES to fully integrating women’s sports into every aspect of your business: recruitment, Employee Engagement, Channel Marketing, Industry Stakeholders, and Government Relations. Women’s Sports is not CSR, ESG, or DEI. It’s ROI. A women’s sports partnership can be integrated into how you operate your company and be much more than a communications strategy or marketing tactic.

What I am saying here isn’t new. Ask any person in the women’s sports business. Almost a decade ago, I was fortunate enough to create a fantastic national women’s sports platform for our clients at Dairy Farmers of Canada – Fuelling Women’s Sports – https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/new-multi-year-women-in-sport-strategy-launched-today-517476471.html. We were alone in the wilderness at the Time. But now, with tTimeWHL, Project 8, the WNBA and our Olympic/Paralympic teams, we are finally seeing the dream becoming a conscious reality.

The actual votes are in; it’s all right in the report – https://womenandsport.ca/pro-sports-2023-2/. However, there will still be some people who want to disbelieve what is in front of them. Let them. Let’s not worry about the NAYsayers, the NOmen, who are about to be NObody’s.

Instead, let’s celebrate the leader wise enough to understand what their consumers of today, tomorrow, and quite frankly yesterday have been asking for all along.

Notice I didn’t say brave when I describe the leader who says YES. When you have seventeen million supporters, it isn’t about bravery but listening.

It’s Time for your brand to unlock the power of pro women’s sports fans.

MH3

Watch or listen to this blog on YouTube – https://youtu.be/1NQdhnTi_uQ

The other night at a party, one socializer asked another – What’s your favourite sport?”

The answer? “To play or to watch?” replied the respondent. 

The hot-off-the-press Jumpstart State of Play Report – https://jumpstart.canadiantire.ca/pages/the-state-of-sport-in-canada, asks thousands of Canadian youth the questions we have been guessing at for years: What do kids like to play? What do you want to play? Why do you play? Why don’t you play? What does sport mean to you?

I found this report fascinating and timely. It is a fantastic trove of input variables for everyone entrusted with changing sports participation outcomes. City planners, equipment manufacturers, kinesiology professors, policymakers, politicians, community sports organizers, and educators should all dive in with this information—deep, very deep. 

As a sponsorship marketer, I want to weigh in on a few perspectives that band leaders should chew on with the assistance of this report. I will not quote numbers or stats from the document because you need to read it to understand it. But I am going to editorialize. 

Here are three takeaways for you:

1. Does your sports marketing partnership portfolio align with the data?
2. How nuanced is your portfolio when understanding specific youth cohorts, especially regarding intersectionality?
3. When it comes to community support, are you solving problems or looking for the most significant media hit?

Number 1 – Portfolio Alignment

If I were selling sponsorships for an amateur sports association or a professional league, I would leverage these numbers to the maximum. We know that participation is the key to growing fandom, and some sports come out as clear winners in this report, and some have to be uncertain about their future. Regardless of what side of the ledger you fall on, the data provides an opportunity to act. If you are a brand owner, ask your sponsorship agency to do a simple mapping exercise to overlay your sports portfolio spending over the participation numbers shared in this report. Do they match, or are you investing in the wrong areas? Do a second mapping phase and look at the sports that youth want to try. Somewhere between the two, you have enough data points to help identify your short-, mid-, and long-term strategies. 

Number 2 – Nunaces and Intersectionality

The concept of intersectionality is a significant consideration in DEI today; this report is no exception. This report provides a fantastic slicing and dicing of age, gender, geography, race, place of play and ability along many dimensions. Who knew that Arab youth wanted to try football? I am not surprised that Black boys are highly confident in their skills but have never seen the data to validate it. I am concerned that Girls of Colour are more concerned about injuries than other cohorts. Amazing to me is the eagerness of almost every cohort to try martial arts and wonder if gaming, anime or some other external influence is contributing. The richness and robustness of this report should motivate every marketer to apply more differentiation and laser-like approaches to their sponsorships. The interests and motivations of all girls and all boys are different. If we believe our diversity as a nation is our superpower, put on your cape and jump into creating a blockbuster approach to youth sports founded on ensuring you include all groups in your cast.

 

Number 3 – Community Matters

I have often said that Black kids don’t need more basketball courts to progress in society. They need systemic fairness, equitable financial support, and opportunity. This report proves that. One of the biggest challenges for Black youth participating in sports is transportation. While other kids are getting rides to practices and games, Black youth are walking, taking public transit, and leveraging other unsupervised low-cost methods. What good does a refurbished court or a pitch do if someone cannot get there? Worse, when they do get there, can they afford to play? It is not surprising that participation in sports clubs that charge fees is much higher for White youth than non-white youth. If Black youth can get to the field and afford the payments, would it not be even greater if they had a coach that looked after them? Brands should stop trying to win awards by building courts in underestimated neighbourhoods or providing a special day at the pro area as their BIG community activation idea and start doing what matters. One-off activations do not build community or address the systemic issues that only worsen.

We should applaud Jumpstart for sharing the State of Play Report with all of us. They and their partners have done the foundational work by providing us with the facts and figures to justify our work.

Now, the hard part is over to you. We should keep this from becoming a report that sits idly on a shelf, which means we are ignoring Canada’s youth. The respondents in this survey represent our future players, fans, and consumers. We need to do more than listen to them. We need to act; if we do, we will all win. 

Did you know Mr. Bean appeared in Olympic history’s most-watched social media clip?

I didn’t, but according to Andy Miah, Chair in Science Comms & Future Media, University of Salford, Manchester, Rowan Atkinson’s appearance with the London Symphony Orchestra during the 2012 Olympic Games is the # 1 clip on the Olympic YouTube channel. (I haven’t checked, but I will take his word for it.)

What about the most-watched television event in the world?

At the time of its showing, the Beijing Olympics’ Opening Ceremony in 2008 from the Beijing National Stadium – better known as the Bird’s Nest – was the main stage for the program that garnered over two billion viewers for four hours of broadcasting of the 15,000 performers from all over the world. The ceremony, the most-watched television event in history, occurred on Friday the 8th, 2008, at 8 pm – the prominence of the number eight being its association with prosperity and confidence in Chinese.

The 2024 Olympic Opening Ceremonies are looking to set new records and already have the first-ever ceremonies occurring outside of a stadium. Last week at SportAccord in Birmingham, UK, Pierre Galy, Head of Sports, Agence France-Presse and Yannis Exarchos, Chief Executive Officer, OBS, and Executive Director, Olympic Channel, shared their plans to cover and broadcast this spectacular event.

The event is fitting for what promises to be the most immense Olympic Games ever.

Over 10,000 athletes will be ferried by 160 boats on a 6km route passing by famous landmarks, including the newly renovated Notre Dame Cathedral, and ending at the Eiffel Tower. The river parade will follow the course of the Seine, from east to west, departing from the Austerlitz bridge beside the Jardin des Plantes and passing around the two islands at the city’s centre (the Île Saint Louis and the Île de la Cité) before passing under several bridges and gateways. Athletes on board the parade boats will get glimpses of some of the official Games venues, including Parc Urbain La Concorde, the Esplanade des Invalides, the Grand Palais, and lastly, the Iéna Bridge, where the parade will come to a stop before the ceremony finale at the Trocadéros.

Several hundred thousand spectators will be watching from the shores as boats stream past (like my pun) and augmented by over eighty onshore screens. The original plans for two million live spectators are in flux due to logistical and security concerns.

Undeterred, the Olympic Broadcasting Service has elaborate plans to cover this unique event from land, sea, and air. The broadcast team will utilize three helicopters, eight drones, and four specially built stabilized boars, each fitted with seven cameras and three robotic arms. If you don’t believe your mobile phone is a movie camera, you should now, as the OBS will deploy more than two hundred mobile phones as what they call “POV cameras” in National Olympic Committee boats. Thank you, 5G!

Meanwhile, the AFP will deploy dozens of content gatherers and hundreds of camera positions along the route on every facet, team, and Opening Ceremonies presentation to outlets worldwide in six languages.

From a project planning standpoint, the OBS and AFP see the Paris Games as two events. Given its magnitude, impact, and planning requirements, the Opening Ceremony is a stand-alone event, while the Games are separate. In both cases, the broadcaster and media gatherer plan to go to great lengths to celebrate the city and country’s history. That starts with a nod to Paris being the birthplace of cinema.

In December 1895 in Paris, the first presentation of a projected moving picture to a paying audience was staged by the Lumière brothers. In tribute to this innovation in Paris and to capture the city’s beauty, the OBS will utilize cinematic lenses for the first time in Games history. These lenses bring more emotional storytelling in broadcasts for MLB and NFL, and I suspect they will do the same in Paris.

While the cinematic approach is a nod to history, the next wave of broadcasting is also receiving its nod as new sports to the Olympics, such as Breaking, Skateboarding, and 3v3 Basketball, are being shot and broadcast live in 8k, which will provide incredible detail and lifelike imagery. Now, if only I had an 8k TV!

A significant non-technical feature of the 2024 Games broadcasts is the ongoing effort to ensure gender balance. These Games are touted as the first gender-equal Olympics in history, which, due to the complexity of national athlete selection, may still need to be realized, but that is the plan. The OBS is putting thoughtful and inclusive planning in place to ensure equal representation behind the camera.

These plans include a 50% increase in hiring of female commentators in comparison to Tokyo 2020 and staffing two-thirds of broadcast venue management roles with women. A critical ongoing initiative is the IOC Portrayal Guideline, which ensures that all athletes are featured for their athleticism, not superficial reasons. Suffice it to say that the broadcast product should feel more inclusive to the viewer by being more diverse behind the camera and on the microphone.

In addition to pushing harder for gender equality, the OBS is also highly conscious of reducing its sustainable footprint. Despite the expansion of coverage, use of more innovative tech, and the complexity of the Opening Ceremonies, they claim to be using 29% less power for their efforts. It will be heralded as a creative and impactful approach if they succeed.

I doubt Mr. Bean will return to the Paris Opening Ceremonies, but I suspect the organizers will have some celebrity cameos for the fans. No doubt. However, we all know the athletes are true stars of the Olympics. Paris 2024 will be a thrilling opportunity to witness packed venues cheering on these competitors who have worked all their lives for their Olympic moment.

It will be the first time since 2018 that international fans from across the globe will experience the Games’ environment in real life.

Indeed, the pandemic convinced me that sports aren’t sports without the fans. You will agree. That impact applies to the in-person experience and the broadcast experience almost equally. Fans in the stands and throughout the city of Paris will make the athlete experience even more rewarding and bring an exciting atmosphere to you wherever you are watching. However, you are consuming, whether it be your mobile phone, your flatscreen at home or on a movie theatre screen near you.