In November 2019, we had the pleasure of hosting Vanessa Åsell Tsuruga, Senior Manager – Global Sports Digital Strategy, Global Marketing Supervisory Department at Rakuten, at our meetup entitled: Football Innovation with Rakuten in our offices in Barcelona. Read on this interview with Vanessa Asell to find out more about Rakuten’s strategy to expand its brand globally.
1. FC Barcelona, Vissel Kobe, Golden State Warriors, The Davis Cup, Rakuten Open tennis championships, Spartan races, and a baseball team… Why has Rakuten focused its strategy on the sports industry?
In Japan, Rakuten is very well known and has high brand awareness, but it had the challenge of reaching other countries. Right before 2016, the company made a strategic decision to use sports as a platform to start building the brand out internationally. By using sports as a platform, we thought we could massively and rapidly increase brand awareness, and the result turned out to be very positive
Now, in 2019, We have reached a good level of brand awareness globally, but what we are still trying to get better at is to really explain what Rakuten is and what we do as a brand.
2. What is Rakuten’s strategy when it comes to finding new partnerships?
In 2016, Rakuten decided to become the Main Global Partner and the first-ever Global Innovation and Entertainment Partner of FC Barcelona. Underpinning this decision was a solid 3-point strategy when partnering with organizations, Rakuten prioritized opportunities that helped, a) develop its ecosystem, b) increase brand awareness, c) develop business opportunities.
3. With the industry rapidly changing, and to be able to stay ahead of the game, a company has to innovate, has to find new ways to engage with the fans. What is Rakuten’s strategy when it comes to sponsorship activation?
Once a partnership is in place, Rakuten invests a lot of its time thinking about digital activation and fan engagement at a global level. This directly impacts its ability to achieve the 3 previous objectives since developing digital activations for fans helps it a) work with new suppliers, vendors and other business partners, b) provide a direct link in consumers’ minds about the Rakuten brand being digital, c) develop new products & solutions to bring to market, or to bring existing solutions to new markets.
4. A recent example of a sponsorship activation was the Rakuten’s FAN-TASTIC Cup, a digital, fan-centric sponsorship activation, and a lifetime experience for the fans to play in Camp Nou, can you tell us a little bit more about this sponsorship activation?
As a fan you should go through a 1) cognitive, 2) affective, and 3) physical experience. If we take the Rakuten’s FAN-TASTIC Cup activation as an example, the fan experiences the cognitive aspect while they are in the locker room with the coach giving instructions; the affective aspect when they win/lose a game, the smell of the grass at Camp Nou, or the spot where Messi scored a goal; and the physical aspect by playing a football game in a great field such as Camp Nou. If you can bring those three things into a brand activation, I think you can really hit it hard.