The Padded Seat Partnered With Hertha BSC & Bayer Leverkusen 04 To Promote Innovative ‘VIP Hospitality’ Via Emotional Experience Focused Content Marketing

Objective

UK hospitality marketing platform and content creator The Padded Seat

up with sports marketing agency SPORTFIVE to leverage its partnerships with Bundesliga clubs Hertha BSC and Bayer Leverkusen 04 during the 2022/23 Bundesliga season in order to market and sell the clubs’ VIP hospitality offers through a fresh and inventive content-led approach to sports hospitality marketing.

The underlying challenge is that many clubs and sports associations often find it difficult to make their own VIP experience accessible to new target groups rather than to established and existing wealthy business customers.

The aim was to revolutionise hospitality promotion and sales with a focus on conveying the authentic emotional experience through content to drive home a message that investing in sport hospitality is still value for money.

As well as marketing to both fan and business customers, geographically the initiative ‘targeted Germany, the UK and beyond’.

Activation

The partner team built the campaign for the 2022/23 Bundesliga season around the idea that the shared, emotional experience of a sporting event provides rare opportunities to build new business relationships, maintain existing customer contacts and promote the brand image.

The strategy was to document VIP experiences in the stadiums and share these with the target communities – with a focus on authenticity.

The activation was spearheaded by a pair of social media focused hospitality experience videos for Hertha BSC and Bayer Leverkusen 04. The films show the VIP areas and experiences as they actually are – not artificially staged or inauthentic. Instead, the approach was authentic, approachable and informative conveying the atmosphere, excitement and offering range.

The Padded Seat visited two Bundesliga games – Hertha BSC against Werder Bremen and Bayer 04 Leverkusen against RB Leipzig on 22 and 23 April – to experience and create shareable content focusing on the ‘Atrium’ in Hertha’s  Olympic Stadium and the ‘19NULLVIER Lounge’ in Bayer Leverkusen’s BayArena.

In addition to various announcement stories published via The Padded Seat’s Instagram account during the matchday week and on the matchdays themselves, the content package for both clubs included the following elements:

> A 60-second matchday hospitality teaser played across platforms including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

> A 4 minute matchday documentary available to watch on YouTube.

> A Dedicated Link (OVIP) used to post on The Padded Seat landing page.

Compared to the 60-second videos on TikTok and Instagram, the 4-minute documentary videos show a more comprehensive insight into the hospitality experience with all its details and facets. The longer videos go into more detail about the different and individual components (such as VIP areas, catering and offers etc.) of the hospitality areas of the Olympic Stadium and the BayArena. Viewers of the videos receive a detailed insight into the extensive range and unique aspects of the hospitality experiences.

@thepaddedseat Checking out Hertha BSC hospitality inside the Atrium?⚽️ #football #herthabsc #germany #bundesliga #berlin #review Music: Harmony Musician: @Ikson® ♬ original sound – The Padded Seat

@thepaddedseat Checking out Bayer 04 Leverkusen hospitality inside 19zerofour?⚽️ #football #bayerleverkusen #bayarena #germany #bundesliga #review ♬ original sound – The Padded Seat

The spots rolled out across club platforms and engaged The Padded Seat’s own social audience of more than 925,000: including its 540,000 TikTok followers, 228,000 Instagram followers and 39,000 YouTube followers.

The Instagram videos were shared by The Padded Seat and SPORTFIVE as a collab post, which were able to address a wide range of different target groups.

These two German clubs joined The Padded Seat’s existing rights holder portfolio which also includes top clubs such as Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal FC, Chelsea FC, New York Yankees, New York Red Bulls and FC Barcelona.

Outcome

Through the collaboration with The Padded Seat, a broad target group was able to immerse themselves in the hospitality experiences of Hertha BSC and Bayer 04 Leverkusen via social media. In addition, international attention, especially in the UK, increased for both clubs.

In total more than 1.4mn people were reached.

After just two weeks, the video broadcasts about the hospitality experience at Hertha BSC and Bayer 04 Leverkusen on TikTok and Instagram reached over 1.4m views (with 90,000 likes and 1,050 comments) and 14,000 YouTube views.

Numbers / Statistics

• +1.4m TikTok & Instagram views after two weeks
• 90K views
• 1,050 Likes

“The Padded Seat solves this problem by reducing the staged hospitality experiences to the essential and relevant facets in 60 seconds, building emotions, reaching millions of people and thus offering clubs and rights holders the opportunity to do more than just hospitality to sell, but also to finally market it.”

The Padded Seat Founder Kyle Mattison