Sponsorship and Manchester United: conversations with Qualcomm CMO Don McGuire and Utd Chief Business Officer Marc Armstrong

0:03Hello and welcome to another new episode of the Leaders in sport from leaders in sport with leaders in sport etc. etc. My name is James Emmett. I'm the editorial director here at Leaders. And with me as ever is my great good colleague, David Cushon. David, how are you? Well, you say as ever, welcome back. Thanks. You've been away. Do you know what, David? Thanks for the welcome back. But also... You're welcome. Several people have come up to me at external industry events to say, oh, what's happened? And is there some sort of beef with you and David? Because he's gone in quite hard on your holiday, on quite how much holiday you're having in the various newsletters that he's doing.

0:46And I have to say, I followed it up and you have gone in quite hard. Yeah, I had two weeks holiday. I'd say I'll have to check that I'll have to, I don't know, not as far as I know. I thought David was a sweet, kind-hearted man. Let me check. That can't be right, but it turns out it is right. Yes, David, I took two weeks holiday. Listen, beef sells in the modern media industry. So, well, I apologise for pointing hard. Yeah, I was on holiday. You were on holiday, weren't you? I was, yeah. You taking any holiday? Yeah, I will be. Yeah, yeah. Okay, all right. Let's see who doesn't use letter then.

1:21Yeah, sure, sure. What's been going on, David, in the two years I've been off? No, don't be silly. We hardly noticed you'd gone. What's been going on? Well, Wimbledon's happening, of course. and very close to where we are broadcasting from at Leaders HQ. And Wimbledon, it's great, isn't it? You were there the other day and I assume had a lovely time. Yeah, Wimbledon's the absolute best, I think, in terms of sports competitions. In fact, we had just lately a contender for best weekend in sport. But, you know, there's that weekend in April, obviously, which has the Masters. We talked about that, didn't we?

2:04Yeah, but there's another one. There's another contender, which is a particular weekend in the summer. I think it's the first weekend in July. And there's always Wimbledon. It's the sort of middle weekend of Wimbledon. It's the start of the Tour de France. It's usually Silverstone Formula One Grand Prix. It's a crucial stage of whatever major football tournament is on at the time. It is a blinding weekend of sport. Yes, agreed. I wasn't at Wimbledon on that weekend, though. No, you weren't. You weren't. Club World Cup is still going on. It's still going. It's still going on. It's nearly there.

2:44Nearly there. Finishes on Sunday. We've got some finalists. Did you know, David, and this is being reported in places, that Gianni Infantino, FIFA president, and the figurehead for the Club World Cup. The front man. He's got his own sticker in the Panini World Cup. I've seen this. Have you? You've seen the actual sticker? Yeah. Is it a shiny? I think it does have a shine to it, yes. That's wonderful stuff. And, I mean, it's interesting to consider who might be next in terms of senior sports executive. Sports exec with sticker of themselves in sticker album. Well, I'll tell you what. Have you seen the new F1 movie?

3:30Not yet, no. It's worth a watch. And it's doing really well. It's going great guns at the box office. But there is a fantastic... They're going to do F1 too, aren't they? F2. Yeah, F2, yeah. There is a fantastic cameo from a lot of people, but Stefano Domenicali does a brilliant cameo at the end. No spoilers. But I think that one-ups a sticker, doesn't it? If you're in a film. Yeah, as a sports executive. I think you can get away with... Playing yourself. No, I think you can get away. It's a bit of fun to have a cameo in a film.

4:17to have a sticker produced of yourself, to be included in a sticker album of the players, the stars of the competition, presumably. You've either requested that or you've approved that. I think we know what's happened. It's been requested on your behalf, perhaps. But it's really interesting. Let's see. I can't see it happening in many other sports. I did see the sticker. what I didn't see was the sales figure on the number of Club World Cup sticker albums. Was it Club World Cup? I think so. Yeah, okay. I think so. I might be wrong about that. Okay. Anyway, it will conclude and I'm sure there will be a thorough debrief.

4:58Do you know what? The clubs are getting so much money. Chelsea, you're in the final. It's remarkable. From the club's point of view, this is manna from heaven, isn't it? And I'm not sure whether we've talked about it on the podcast because I've obviously been away for so long. But it's interesting to see that certainly the European clubs have used it a little bit as a sort of very extravagant corporate away day. There are plenty of people over in the US enjoying themselves from the various clubs involved. Plenty of people having a very nice time. Yes. I did go to Wimbledon. It wasn't on the weekend.

5:37It was earlier this week I went with our friends at IMG. Thank you very much for the invitation. I honestly think it is one of the, I think tennis in general, but Wimbledon particularly, probably the best environment for networking. And we've talked about it before. But if you get one ticket, one sort of hospitality ticket, you can kind of use that. And I shouldn't say this properly, but you can use that to lounge hop. and pretty much see whoever's in the building across the day that you're there. And there's always some fantastic people at Wimbledon. It's really, really nice. Lots of folks to see.

6:22Sanjog Gupta, the incoming ICC CEO. Yeah. Very much doing the rounds at Wimbledon. Very nice. Formerly of Geostar, of course, but now moving from media. Is he still at Geostar? Well, yeah, he's about to move into the top job. Sadly, he's getting no gardening leave. He's going straight into the cricketing job. Nicky Doucette doing the rounds. Zahra Al-Kudsi, the WSL gang. Loads of folks. Sean Doss. I saw you with Sean Doss. Sean Doss, yeah, the new top business guy for On Location. Osama Al-Kasab. Well, obviously not surprising that the Wimbledon crew were Wimbledon. The day that I went was Osama Al-Kasab's birthday.

7:09A very good podcast that you did with him. Thank you. David, well done. Thank you. And over the course of this afternoon, in one of the presumably many lounges that Osama was in, the chief marketing commercial officer at Wimbledon, I think he got about three different birthday cakes brought out to him. Candles et al. And didn't have a single slice of any of them. Wasn't even his birthday, had it? No, it was his birthday. It was his birthday. Yeah, it was his birthday. Also, Chris Guinness from IMG is his birthday as well. Who's providing those birthdays? Are they partners? Are they partners sort of presenting a gift?

7:43Are you seriously asking me who made the cake? Well, I'm just wondering, you know. I don't know. It's just hospitality day, but it's just nice. It's not really about what happens. It's about how it makes you feel. Colour from the ground. Yeah. Now, before you went to Wimbledon, you were on holiday, as discussed. But before that, you were in Cannes. Oh, yes. And over the course of this episode of the podcast, We're going to hear from a few of the people that I spoke to at Cannes, and this is a Manchester United flavoured episode. We're going to hear from two senior figures from either side of the rights holder sponsorship divide at Manchester United.

8:22We'll hear from Mark Armstrong, who's the relatively recently installed chief business officer at Manchester United. um mar is a um a figure of some repute uh from around the sports industry he's been around a fair while he was at the fa back in the day he's done a stint at the nba and most recently he was leading commercial uh operations at paris saint germain um and was headhunted from paris management for the new job at Manchester United, kind of collectivising all of the commercial activity. We'll also be hearing from Don McGuire, who is the CMO at Qualcomm, the major US software company that has within its portfolio of tech stuff, Snapdragon, the Snapdragon brand.

9:20And Snapdragon is chips that go into mobile phones and relatively recently sort of created brand that they intend to become a sort of consumer facing brand. And they are going hell for leather on sports sponsorships as a way of kind of foregrounding the Snapdragon brand in popular culture. spoke with these two folks on different days, I think, in Cannes. They weren't necessarily together. Obviously, Manchester United at the moment is a challenging place to be. There's some turbulence. There's a bit of turbulence. And that has been for some time. Yeah. Everybody will be aware of what's happening on the pitch and also everybody will be aware of what has been happening or a lot of what has been happening off the pitch.

10:16But in terms of the organization, under its new ownership structure, there's been a lot of restructuring happening and, you know, I think a couple of rounds of redundancies. At the same time, there is a new C-suite, largely speaking, being brought into the club under Sir Jim Ratcliffe. So Omar Barada and, as we will hear, Mark Armstrong joining in recent times, recent months and starting to get their feet under the table. And I guess a view, a proper inside view on the magnitude of the task ahead. There's the stadium project, and it was interesting, Seb Coe's been appointed now by Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham just in the last couple of days to a key role in the planning and regeneration aspect of the area around the ground as that planning process continues.

11:13Omar Barada has set in place this Project 150, which is 2028, 150th anniversary of the club, I think. And 2028 is when they would like to have both the men's and women's teams back in a league-challenging position. Long road to go before that. And I guess at the same time, Manchester United, despite everything that has happened over the last 10 years on the pitch, from a commercial point of view have continued to um uh you know be right at the top of the right at the top of the game right at the top of all the uh the rankings but with some uh significant headwinds that's right yeah and it's um for someone like mark armstrong coming in and the kind of new flank of executives it is a really challenging environment obviously they They wouldn't speak publicly about how hard they're finding it.

12:14But you can see it's a change environment being sort of conceived of and implemented from the top with this new ownership regime, this new ownership structure, which includes Jim Ratcliffe. There's some right sizing of the organization. there is real flux within the teams you know the business teams at manchester united not helped at all by the fact that on the pitch the bread and butter of the whole thing you know isn't isn't going great it's still not going great um and all of that magnified to some extent because everything that moves or speaks because it's manchester United Football Club is you know there's a there's a whole media factory around everything that happens in and around Old Trafford on or off the the pitch so but they haven't been doing so well on the pitch for some time now and actually you you mentioned it though it has been remarkable how they have managed to move the commercial story seamlessly away from success on the pitch which is what it was built on initially the manchester united that exploded as a global force in the 90s and early 2000s was built on the fact that it was a dominant performance outfit and they moved seamlessly to talking about brand and um a sort of followership brand and fandom heft uh it's the most followed football club in the world it's the club that means the most in the world not necessarily the one that wins the most.

14:00And they did that seamlessly with barely a dent in their commercial revenues. It was really skillfully done by former leadership and some of the execs that are still currently, at least, still there. And for someone like Mark Armstrong coming in, the challenge is huge. It's about sort of restructuring, being the new guy, the new new new bream coming in but maintaining and growing revenues that are already at a very strong level this deal that they have with qualcomm snapdragon for example uh which was signed uh a few years ago is five-year deal worth about 375 million dollars it's top of the market stuff that and for uh you know a team that is not going to win the league well there's a point at which the momentum of years of success, you know, will get you to, but that momentum can quite quickly become history.

14:58And it's actually, you know, getting on for a generation since Manchester United were dominating the Premier League, you know, when we were growing up, frankly, and that simply hasn't been the case for a while. So there is a, yeah, there is a, it's a, it's a daunting challenge um albeit from you know a very um uh you know a very enviable position of being a genuinely global brand that is still you know one of the two or three most recognizable football club brands in the world um and yeah mark armstrong i think he's around about sort of just over 100 days into the job isn't he so he has got a job on on top of that though it's not just these challenges of change uh organizational change uh coming up against um you know suboptimal performance on the pitch uh expectations uh press scrutiny uh it's the fact that manchester united are still a listed company uh and that brings an extra layer of uh scrutiny and caution when it comes to what you can say and what you can do because it moves you know you can move markets by and also transparency in that people can see much well in quite a large you know number of cases more than many other clubs exactly what is happening on the the financial front and there's this whole um industry around the finances of manchester united as well yeah um anyway so i spoke to um mark and on out in can we're going to hear um from mark second uh we're going to hear from don mcguire the cmo of qualcomm first qualcomm as mentioned uh a real a huge organization but a growing sponsor organization it's not just the headline front of shirt deal with manchester united that they have they also have fairly significant deal with mercedes formula one team um with various esports organizations they title sponsor a stadium snapdragon stadium uh and they recently did a deal with bryson de chambeau and live golf an individual deal bryson de chambeau but also a team deal through live golf uh for the crushers they're a growing spender on sport and they clearly intend to position snapdragon as this sort of cultural brand through sport.

17:33Don Maguire is a unique character, a great spokesperson, an absolute bundle of energy. One of these sort of, he likes a speakership, does Don Maguire. But he's really good. He's very articulate on the power of partnership. And I think it's useful to hear from Don Maguire first and then into Mark Armstrong. So shall we do that and bring on our experts? Mark Armstrong, the Chief Business Officer of Manchester United. But before that, Don Maguire, the CMO of Qualcomm.

18:13Right, James Emmett here at Stagwell Sport Beach for Leaders and Sports Business Journal. And I'm with my returning hero, Don Maguire, from Snapdragon slash Qualcomm. Don, how are you doing? I am doing well. trying to stay cool in this can heat, but it's going well. This is my second can. You were sort of my debut last year, and you really have to learn how to operate with a thick slick of sweat on you, don't you? Yes, I do. Get comfortable being very uncomfortable. Being moist, yes. Yeah, very much so. Don, you're the CMO of Qualcomm and Snapdragon, or CMO of Qualcomm? CMO of Qualcomm, yeah. Snapdragon is one of our brands.

18:54So lots of CMOs here. it's a festival for marketers, for CMOs and people who cater for them. How would you describe what you do to a room full of strangers in a non-professional setting? I would basically start with saying I'm a storyteller. I mean, that's what kind of marketing is. It's really telling stories in a way that relate to people and their experiences and then hopefully making some sort of impact. Okay. And they'd say, oh, do you tell stories for children, Don? Sometimes. Yeah, okay. It just depends on the audience. Yeah, okay. Storyteller. And how much of your role do you say you spend on partnerships?

19:38Partnerships is actually a new part of our marketing mix over the past three years. So I would say three years ago, probably very little. But it's become a bigger part of the mix as we look to build the Snapdragon brand, especially. with consumers around the world. We've added partnerships into the mix in a big way. Sports being one of those verticals within partnerships and couldn't be happier with the results so far. So give us a little run through your portfolio of partnerships then, if you can remember. I'm not going to hold you to, you know, if you miss some out, that's okay. Okay. So first and foremost, obviously our biggest is Manchester United.

20:12We are the front of shirt partner with the club. And it's been an amazing partnership so far. and we're now going to be on our second season as front of shirt partner. Mercedes Formula One. Yeah. The amazing team with George Russell, who just won Montreal. Yes. Great timing. Great timing. And Kimi, who got his first podium, which is great. Again, a fantastic partner. We just signed a deal through Live Golf with Bryson DeChambeau and the Crushers. Yes. We are featuring the Qualcomm brand as part of that partnership. Yeah. We have a partnership with the San Diego Padres, Major League Baseball. And we have a stadium with the Snapdragon name on it.

20:54Of course you do. Snapdragon Stadium. And then we have our eSports competition, Snapdragon Pro Series, which is a global eSports competition. And that's sort of the portfolio. Yeah, but room for more? I guess you're still growing? Sure. I mean, I think we want to deliver ROI on the partnerships that we have, but then we will look to grow. Yeah, okay. Anyway, Bryson DeChambeau, he has got to be the most important figure in golf right now. He is a phenomenon, right? I mean, he didn't obviously do so well at the US Open this weekend. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. He's a top eight player. He has done an amazing job with his personal brand.

21:30He's got probably the biggest social following of any golfer. He is a physicist. He was a physics major in college. He's very, very, very much into technology. and there's lots of brand alignment between the company and his personal brand as well as the Crushers. So we're very excited to move into golf with him in this way. Yeah, and Live Golf, really interesting proposition. I think it's fascinating what's happening there. Scott O 'Neill in as the new chief executive. They've got Chris Heck in as the commercial lead. And major brands now coming on board. We saw Salesforce come on not too long ago.

22:08Obviously, you guys are now in with one of the teams. This is a major force in golf, right? It is. And it's just going in a really positive direction. I think we got in at a perfect time. I think it's still early for brands. Salesforce coming in at the Live level is a big move for them and for Live. I had a chance to have dinner with Scott recently. He's also a force, I think. And he's going to do amazing things for Live as they continue to grow. Yeah. Did Scott tell you one of his maxims? He did not. Not one of his sort of leadership idioms? He did not. No, he didn't tell you to keep the main thing the main thing?

22:42He did not. That's a shame. Get him on leadership. I will, for sure. What does a Snapdragon or Qualcomm partnership need to do for you when you're sort of lining something up and you're trying to make sure a lot of the boxes are ticked? What are those boxes? What represents ROI for you? Yeah, so I think there's obviously hard ROI and there's soft ROI on any of these partnerships. But when it comes to the Snapdragon brand, ultimately our sports sponsorships deliver a scale and reach. to build the brand and to achieve our brand building objectives. Not only awareness, but also understandability and affinity.

23:16So it's really important for association with Snapdragon in any sports team or player or whatever it might be that we can get that scale and that reach. We can connect authentically with the fandom around that player or that team. And then we build understandability and connection with the brand in multiple ways. So that's sort of the numbers of the hard ROI on brand building and how we build affinity. And then the soft ROI is really about, you know, goodness and likability and those types of things as we sort of kind of merge our personality with their personality, etc. And I think one of the ultimate payoffs with the work that we have done so far over the past several years is for the first time ever in the history of Qualcomm and the brand, Snapdragon appeared on Brand Z's list of top 100 global brands at number 38 this year.

24:12Yes, congratulations. Thank you. Very good. Top 50. Yes, top 50. Top 40. Top 40. We spoke this time last year just at the outset of your front of shirt partnership with Manchester United. Right. And you were talking about, well, there were two things that really struck me. First of all, you said there's lots of different types of winning, which is a kind way, I think, of saying Manchester United are not winning on the field. But you can still get something out of it. That's still the case, I would say. But you also talked about wanting to use the partnership to create a sort of cultural impact, to turn Snapdragon into something culturally relevant across all sorts of different demographics, across B2B, B2C, you name it.

24:54a year in, how are you going on? I think it's been going phenomenally. I mean, obviously the club has its issues. And we're being their, you know, kind of premier partner. We are in it to hold hands and kind of help them how we can help them through as they sort of rethink and recalibrate the club going forward. But we've done some amazing things together from the front of shirt launch that we did last year, which we debuted here in Cannes with Eric Cantona, really the authentic moment of launching the front of shirt with a new brand. The response was phenomenal and amazing, especially with fans of Man United, which is really important to us.

25:36And then all the way through to our recent Red partnership, where we put Red on the front of our jersey for the West Ham match on the men's side and the Arsenal match on the women's side. And we built a whole program around raising awareness for Red, the work they do with the Global Fund, health and justice around the world. and using that platform to really kind of turn a moment into a movement and raising, you know, which ultimately the Global Fund needs to do, raise money to eradicate health and justice around the world. So it really, really runs a large spectrum of goodness and value. And we continue to just do amazing things with the club and around the partnership.

26:15Yeah. On a slight tangent, I just started listening to a podcast with some comedians who are doing the podcast in a sauna. Okay. And the point is that it's kind of ridiculous. We're kind of in a sauna right now. I am covered in sweat. Yeah, me too. Anyway, we'll persist. Okay. There'll be towels and water outside. I hope so. What can you do as a partner? And obviously Manchester United have a fleet of partners, and I'm sure you'll be getting to know many of them. I guess that's part of the point of joining Manchester United to have access to other great brands that are in the family. Right. You sort of alluded to it there.

26:55They're going through a tough time on the pitch. They're going through a tough time off the pitch as well. There's a big transition, new owner, lots of change, upheaval, people coming and going. Right. How do you approach that as a partner? Are you being sort of, you know, just let them get on with it and do their own thing and everything will settle down? or are you making sure that your sort of opinions are heard as this process goes on? Well, I think the number one thing is we stay close. As they make moves or as they make decisions that could possibly impact our partnership or my brand, it's important that we stay close to the situation.

27:36So I think we've done a good job of staying in close contact, understanding some of the decisions that they're making both operationally as well as on and off the pitch. in other ways, um, and making sure that we're aligned. Um, or if we have feedback that they take that feedback and, and I think it's been, it's been good. Um, so far we've, we've had, you know, lots of access. Omar has been amazing. You know, whenever I need something or I have a question, I can get ahold of him super, super quickly. You know, I've met with Joel Glazer, uh, to understand sort of the future and where his head is.

28:09And, and so they've been very open, and trying to communicate kind of their vision. And that's been super helpful and very important. It feels like you're very, again, I'm switching tack. You're a dynamic guide, Don. Thank you. You're doing lots of sessions here. I think you're speaking six times across the week in various locations. You know, being moved from pillar to post. Right. Where do you get your energy from, both as a person but also as a professional? and how do you stay kind of open-minded and have that open mindset that you need? Sure. I mean, my team gives me so much energy. The fact that they are a bunch of adrenaline junkies, I would say, helps me tremendous amount, especially sometimes when I might be feeling challenged or frustrated with the world around me.

29:02And then just the passion for what I believe in my craft. Yep. And then a little caffeine on top of that doesn't hurt. The drug you're addicted to. Right, yes, that is also very helpful, especially with jet lag. And then my family, my support system, kind of everything around that, sort of keeps me on a positive. And my boss, Cristiano, is super supportive. And he's, talk about high energy, he's very high energy as well, and I feed off of that. So that all kind of works together. And if you weren't doing this, what do you think you'd be doing? If I weren't, I think I would be in broadcasting. I think I would be in broadcasting.

29:41I think I would love to do that. I think you could do it. I think I might. I could see you doing sort of play-by-play, maybe golf commentary. Golf, I would probably fall asleep. What's the best CMO job, do you think, out there? The CMO job where you can make it beyond three years is the best CMO job you could possibly have. How many years are you on now? I'm four. Oh, wow. Okay. So, yes, I've made it past the invisible threshold. You're running on bonus time right now. I'm running on bonus time right now. In all seriousness, I think it's a CMO job that allows you to exploit or explore your craft in service of a product or a service that you believe in.

30:26I think that there's a lot of brands, a lot of products, a lot of companies out there that are making things that are moving the world forward in a positive direction. Landing a job, that's why I love being a tech CMO. Because I, down to my heart of hearts, believe that what Qualcomm does every day changes people's lives for the better. And so I can wake up every morning and look in the mirror and love what I do and be proud of that. I'm sure there are some brands and some CMOs that are out there struggling with that at times. And especially when it comes to things like sustainability or stuff like that.

31:04So I'm just super lucky that I get to be a tech CMO for a company that has invented so many wonderful things and continues to move society forward. And do you believe in something called a flow state? I do believe in a flow state. And have you ever been there to that nirvana? At times. Okay. And when you're in this flow state, what does it look like for you when everything's clicking and you are just having the best day? It's a combination of sort of ricocheting of ideas that sort of constantly kind of come out of my brain and into the world in various ways. But a calm along with that, that is kind of a confident sort of assuredness that you are making the right decision.