IN CLEAR FOCUS: Nick Valenti, CEO of NYC and San Diego-based agency Mādin, shares successful marketing strategies for bringing European sports to American audiences. Nick discusses launching San Diego FC without traditional brand assets and reveals how their Chrome Ball Tour unified 18 cities. Nick also reveals the strategy behind the “Sensory Overload” campaign for the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix and reflects on why emotional brand storytelling and community-building are crucial for sports marketing.

Episode Transcript

Adrian Tennant: Coming up in this episode of IN CLEAR FOCUS:

Nick Valenti: We’re at this beautiful intersection in marketing and creative, specifically in sports, where it’s no longer just about the team’s performance, or if it’s an individual sport, the individual’s performance, but it’s about building culture and it’s about building community.

Adrian Tennant: You’re listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS, fresh perspectives on marketing and advertising produced weekly by Bigeye, a strategy-led, full-service creative agency growing brands for clients globally. Hello, I’m your host, Adrian Tennant, Chief Strategy Officer. Thank you for joining us. In today’s global sports market, audience behaviours are evolving and traditional sports compete with newer options. Marketing strategies for building fan engagement have to adapt accordingly. This has been particularly evident in the expansions of Major League Soccer and Formula One racing in the US market. Our guest today brings a unique perspective to these marketing challenges. Nick Valenti is CEO and Head of Strategy at Mādin, a creative agency that has played pivotal roles in launching both San Diego FC, the newest major league soccer team, and Formula One’s Las Vegas Grand Prix. With a background in private equity before entering the ad agency world, Nick brings a distinctive blend of financial acumen and creative vision to his work. Under Nick’s leadership, Mādin has quickly become known for its ability to transform ideas into impactful brand narratives. To discuss some of the challenges of bringing traditionally European sports to American audiences, I’m delighted that Nick is joining us today from New York City. Nick, welcome to IN CLEAR FOCUS. 

Nick Valenti: It’s a pleasure to be here. 

Adrian Tennant: Let’s start with your background, which differs from that of many agency leaders. You began your career in the finance sector before moving into creative strategy. What prompted that transition?

Nick Valenti: I always wanted to be in finance, ended up doing that, was in the private equity world. And private equity interacts a lot with creative agencies, but they have very different ideas of what they want from an outcome perspective. Neither of them is more right or wrong than the other. They’re just doing their job, right? Finance cares about dollars and line items and financial impact solely. And then creative cares about winning awards and making things more beautiful and getting people to think differently and the emotional side. I just saw that there is a massive disconnect, especially in the middle and lower market for founder-led brands and medium-sized companies that don’t get the global creative agency business acumen insights. And so there’s a lot of drop-off. And so my. My business partner Jamie and I, my chief creative, and myself started Mādin to be the bridge that does both, right? With that, you know, my background, I can sit in a board meeting, I can talk to fund managers, I understand what the investors want. I’ve also been on the founder side, so I understand the founder journey. And then, of course, we can guide and direct still the important side of winning hearts and minds, but with financial outcomes in mind.

Adrian Tennant: And how is that working for you? How is Mādin bridging that gap?

Nick Valenti: Yeah, it’s been great. I think we’ve gotten opportunities that we wouldn’t have otherwise received, especially as a smaller agency. We have 20 people total, with offices in San Diego and New York. We have been able to be in the room of what I would call high exposure startups. So Formula One Vegas, we got to build that entire brand for the race and campaign strategy and the copy that goes on the pillars and Aria and all the other hotels. It was quite cool to see, but that was really Liberty Media who owns F1, F1 then saying we want to own a race and run a race in Vegas. All the other races are licensing deals. So, you know, it was eight people in a room, but the decision makers and then us. So it’s still startup, just big brand that people already know. So we were able to speak to both sides of what can we do that impacts on the brand side. And then obviously there’s a financial outcome that needs to happen here. What does that look like? And then same thing with San Diego FC, one of the other more high-profile clients, which was we got brought into that room that was actually a house in San Diego before there was an office with ownership. And we were told essentially, hey, we have a month. The commissioner of the MLS is going to come to San Diego to announce that Major League Soccer is coming to San Diego. We can’t launch with a name, a brand. We don’t have a coach. We don’t have a team. This is in 2023 May. What can we do to lead up to that? From a campaign strategy, you’re going to have 22 months of dead time before the first kickoff, I guess, on the pitch. So it was an interesting, interesting time.

Adrian Tennant: Well, I definitely want to dive a little deeper into the story of San Diego FC. Your team faced an unusual challenge, let’s be honest, launching a major league soccer team without being able to reveal the team’s name, its colors, or logo. OK, walk us through how you approached that constraint creatively.

Nick Valenti: Definitely one of the most wild public-facing, you know, large-scale projects we’ve done because there was no brand. And so, and we weren’t allowed to use it. You know, even if we had a brand, we had been discussing some things, but nothing that we had discussed on the brand side was allowed to be used. So we looked to the community. Ultimately, you have San Diego County, which is 18 cities. You know, locals would say there are other areas that may be counted cities too, but governmentally speaking, there are 18 cities. that make up the county. We wanted to include everyone. We wanted to include the adjacent county as well, Riverside, and get them excited about the idea of a men’s pro soccer team coming to San Diego. And so we played on the culture of San Diego, this laid-back lifestyle. We also weren’t allowed to use the ocean. Because the ocean isn’t unifying, right? You know, you have people inland that don’t see the ocean every day. And when you’re not in San Diego, of course, I think the outside world looking in thinks best weather, amazing beaches, ocean, and then probably the military. So none of that was allowed to be used. So we played into the relaxed culture side of things, cause that does translate across the entire county. And we came up with this campaign called Let’s Kick It initially, which was double meaning of this relax, let’s hang out mentality, but also, you know, let’s get the ball rolling. Let’s kick the ball and start going.

Adrian Tennant: I love that. Well, an element of the campaign was the Chrome Ball Tour. Can you tell us about the strategy behind that and how it helped build anticipation without any traditional brand assets?

Nick Valenti: Right. So, you know, we had this idea for “Let’s Kick It – Amazing. We’re going to launch with that. That’s going to be our message for out-of-home and everything in the campaign initially. But what can we do for the 18 months once the brand is revealed?” October 2023, the brand would be revealed. March 1st would be the first home game of 2025 that just happened. for San Diego FC. So we had to come up with engaging the community during this gap and we built this chrome ball. So going back into the 18 cities, which ended up being built and it was a lot of little Easter egg things, which I think plays into how important strategy is and not just doing things on a whim, you know. In May of 2023, we had this 18 city idea to unify the county. Let’s kick it was the message. We then thought how cool would it be if we had this chrome ball that’s on a stand, it’s 12 feet tall, it’s eight feet tall on its own. That’s at the next to the MLS commissioner launching the news on May 18th of 2023, which we petitioned to have the day moved to the 18th. internally with the MLS, which worked out great. So May 18th, this news gets launched. 18 cities, there’s more than 18 panels on the ball, but 18 of the panels had the 18 cities. We created a custom font for each of the cities, because each town in San Diego has an archway that goes over it through sort of the center of the town. So we created a custom font that embodied the town. And then we activated, so no one knew that we were doing this. So that happened May 18th, 2023. Then we activated the Crumball Tour, where this ball went from city to city every month. We engaged with local artists, local musicians, local vendors, and we just basically did a sort of a block party in each town to get ready for the upcoming March 1, 2025 kickoff. And it really led this snowball effect of every city got super excited. Artists really wanted to be involved. We ended up doing limited edition merchandise. We sold out of most of that merchandise. We broke an MLS wide record when we launched the brand. It was incredibly cool to see something new and an entire community get behind it.

Adrian Tennant: Hmm. The campaign achieved remarkable results using only 34 percent of the allocated budget. So Nick, what drove that efficiency? And how did you maintain momentum with such constrained resources?

Nick Valenti: You know, I think that’s sort of part of what our thesis is at Mādin is being financially resourceful. Of course, you give a creative agency more budget, they’re going to be enthralled. There’s more things that we can do. It unlocks a different level of levers that we can pull and creative insights and people we can tap. So we’re never against bigger budget, to be clear, but we’re given specific outcomes. And then we, and I think this is the private equity strategy side of me, it’s what is the outcome? How do we get there in the most efficient way possible? Understanding, though, that this is a really important case study for building community, which is immeasurable for 18 months until the season starts, right? And then you’ll be able to measure it with season ticket holders and, you know, how packed the stadium is and merchandise and jersey sales and whatnot. So we came back and we said, listen, like San Diego is in this place where They are longing for a new pro sports team on the men’s side You know the wave on the female side with Alex Morgan and the whole team have done such a great job Marketing playing and that led to their success for female soccer So we were tapping into that I guess already longing and desire for this void that the San Diego Chargers the NFL team left and And our goal was just to unify the community. And, you know, I think the community aspect allows budget to be lower because we can tap into people that want exposure on a local level. So local designers, local artists, local musicians, local F&B [food and beverage] vendors that just want to be involved in this sort of movement of the MLS is coming to San Diego. allowed us to not have to spend on the events that we did in every city. And then once we got the word out that the MLS was coming to San Diego, there was the natural early adoption of, OK, we love soccer already, so we’re going to get behind this. And then there was, you know, the more reluctant people that came along once you saw we were doing really cool things. And this was a much more thoughtful thing than we’re just launching a pro team. And I do give the credit to the San Diego FC leadership team and the Right to Dream Foundation, because they’re a part of an international organization, which is probably why they won the bid to come to San Diego instead of Vegas and the other places that were on the table, because it’s really they’re inputting a system that worked in Ghana, that worked in the Netherlands and is now working in the US.

Adrian Tennant: Excellent. As you mentioned, the San Diego FC campaign engaged with 18 different cities. Overall, how did you ensure each community felt appropriately represented while at the same time maintaining a cohesive brand message?

Nick Valenti: What we like to do is we love to build these worlds, right? So the world that we built was men’s pro soccer in San Diego County. And then within that world, same as the world that we live in, you have different areas and different interests. And so each city we viewed as its own unique area. And we sort of allowed each city to tell us what their world looked like. You know, if you’re in Solana Beach versus Santee, what are your interests? What do you want to hear? What do you want to taste? What do you want to see on a San Diego FC, Santee, Solana Beach, Del Mar piece of clothing or piece of art? When you give people equity in a conversation, it immediately leads to buy-in. The unifying factor being the Chrome Ball and of course, the team that were sort of all behind the same team.

Adrian Tennant: Let’s take a short break. We’ll be right back after this message.

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Adrian Tennant: Welcome back. I’m talking with Nick Valenti, CEO and Head of Strategy at Mādin, a New York-based agency. Mādin also worked on launching Formula One’s Las Vegas Grand Prix. Nick, what parallels do you see between introducing soccer and Formula One to essentially new American markets?

Nick Valenti: Great question. With San Diego FC, it’s interesting because you have this international organization coming into a domestic league. With F1, you have an international organization coming into a domestic arena, I guess. They, of course, already have Austin, Miami, and then the race in Canada, and then Mexico City for North America. But this is the first owned race for F1. So it was the first race that they owned, operated, managed rather than it being a licensing deal where they show up and someone else is handling it. That’s a city representative. So we had the opportunity to tie in this global audience for Formula One, which was predominantly European and Asian. Of course, Drive to Survive, brilliant marketing play by Liberty Media, boosted the US engagement tremendously, so sort of paved the way for us to do something. We said you had to marry two global brands. You had to marry F1, and then you had to marry Las Vegas. And the way that people view F1 is pretty unified. There’s only one, I think, dramatic view of Formula One, which is this luxury, premium, exhilarating race. And then there’s a million ways that people view Vegas, from the locals to the whale high rollers that get flown in to the family affair that just wants to come in and see Adele or Cirque du Soleil. Like, there’s very different audiences for Vegas. Both are viewed on a global scale. Similarly, we tried to reflect Vegas to itself. You have these combining forces of adrenaline, and we called the campaign Sensory Overload because Vegas in and of itself is adult Disneyland, and then Formula One in and of itself is, you know, race enthusiast. Super Bowl, like the mecca for racing. So putting those two on the Vegas Strip together makes for a lot going on, sensory overload. And that came through with, you know, the iconic thing for every F1 race is the poster. You know, there’s this sort of pride and prestige behind what does the poster look like? How well is it portraying the race? There’s a million other elements that go into it, but the poster is sort of the end all. And we had this reflective car that had many elements of Vegas and F1 sort of blurred as if they were all cohesively meshing, which is this sensory overload where everything mixes together and the only thing that you’re able to focus on is the car going by.

Adrian Tennant: That’s cool. Just exploring this idea of sensory overloading and obviously creating immersive experiences. Do you think that’s the approach that really helps establish sports properties in the American market specifically?

Nick Valenti: Yes, I especially think, maybe even globally, just post-COVID you have consumers longing for community. So everyone wants to feel a part of something, but they also want it to be unique. And they want to feel like they’re uniquely a part of something. Right. And so how do you create that? And how do you make it so memorable? Because everyone’s getting shouted at. on social media, on TV, when you’re walking down the street, when you’re talking to someone, we’re all being advertised to constantly. So what is something that really can stop someone in their tracks and they can eventually tell their children, I remember when this happened? And those are the moments that we try to create.

Adrian Tennant: Both Formula One and soccer have seen significant growth in the US. What lessons do you think other emerging sports could learn from these successes as they look to expand in the American market?

Nick Valenti: So I think Americans fundamentally are wired to be individualistic and we care about our independence and we care about freedom of speech and individual thinking. And when you’re trying to build a brand or a sports league, whether that’s team or full league, you’re trying to build a community of a collective of people that all follow or believe the same thing. So it’s incredibly important to allow the US audience to actually have feedback or at least be along for the journey and feel like they are involved in the journey. You have, you know, true feedback, which is San Diego FC. We actually got the community involved with Formula One. You had follow along feedback would drive to survive. And then I also think we’re at this beautiful intersection in marketing and creative, specifically in sports, where it’s no longer just about the team’s performance, or if it’s an individual sport, the individual’s performance. But it’s about building culture and it’s about building community, which happens more recently through fashion. You see that in international soccer. You obviously see that with Formula One. So I think the opportunity to partner with a brand, whether that be fashion or a brand that’s culturally relevant, where you can co-own an audience or get a new audience engaged is a smart and sort of low-hanging fruit strategy.

Adrian Tennant: Wel, both of the projects we discussed involved launching without complete assets. The soccer team without players and Formula One without a completed track. So how do you build credibility in those kinds of situations?

Nick Valenti: It’s definitely a balancing act because you want to get people so emotionally invested and excited for what’s to come without, I guess, over-hyping and under-delivering. So you have to make sure that people are adequately excited and that you are over-delivering, of course. With the two examples that you brought up, San Diego FC came in admittedly at a good time because the community wanted to get behind something. But what we really focused on, our message and strategy was unifying the community because I don’t think the Chargers did an amazing job of that. We just looked at the case studies of what had happened in San Diego, and there are other sports teams, and the two that are the most prominent right now would be San Diego Wave, female soccer team, and then, you know, the San Diego Padres, which have done an incredible job, rebranded a few years ago, and they’re in the heart of downtown San Diego, so stadium obviously helps. You can go to dinner and then walk to the game. But you look at what every other stadium’s doing and what every other team’s doing that’s doing it incredibly well and impacting culture and community well, and that’s engaging the community. And so we had to do that and get people excited about the philosophy of how we viewed what the team would stand for and get them behind the belief system that would ultimately be San Diego FC before the team was called San Diego FC, before we had the jersey, you know, the logo that the crest has 18 lines that sort of look like a soccer ball. Those 18 lines are the 18 cities that unify San Diego County. And then this chrome idea of we couldn’t own the ocean in our brief and so we own this reflection back of San Diego has such a diverse population of people that have very different hobbies and pastimes. There’s just so much to do. So we wanted it to be, you know, this is your team and that’s where, you know, the colors are chrome and Azul, which is reflecting back to you. And then, um, this idea, not of Azul being water, but Azul being this sort of like darkness after sunset, you know, we are unified by the sunset and surrounded by, you know, the gradient that, that is the sunset and Azul because we’re so close to the border rather than it being chrome and blue. And we have a pretty large, very engaged Hispanic audience. And so they love that because they feel represented in that. And then you look at Formula One and no track and so many public opinions. I mean, even Verstappen, you know, he ended up winning the inaugural race. He was very vocally against Las Vegas having a Formula One race. He ended up winning it. I don’t know if that’s what changed his mind, but it’s also the most exhilarating race, the most number of takeovers of any race. There’s a number of stats that prove that F1, the track is actually an incredible track, and anyone that’s been can attest to it being a one of a kind event unlike anything else. And I think F1 does a great job of having such dramatically different locations that each event is unique already. But Vegas, you know, our goal is to make Vegas the pinnacle race that everyone saves up and dreams to get to go to. And that’s the emotion that we sold even before having the track. You know, it’s it’s this is this marriage of two global brands you can’t avoid how incredible it’s going to be because of that and telling that story.

Adrian Tennant: Well, I know we’ve been focused on sports marketing specifically, but what advice would you give to marketers tasked with introducing established international brands or properties to new markets?

Nick Valenti: I think learn the story. Once you’re a big brand in the world and you work with large creative agencies on certain initiatives that are going out. The initial story sometimes is lost, and it doesn’t need to be the initial story, but the deeper meaning of why you exist as a brand, if that can come out in the storytelling aspect and marketing collateral and messaging, you’ll win, right? You know, you have AI tools and so many automation tactics that create these stale brands now where there’s no sense of belonging, no sense of emotion. So the storytelling aspect is going to become that much more important. I think strategist jobs are so much more important now than they were 10 years ago, and they were, in my opinion, one of the most important 10 years ago. But Jamie, my business partner, and I joke, you know, anyone can be a designer. And that’s beautiful and hurtful, right? If someone has an idea, to some level, quality aside, can create a brand, can create a visual identity, can create a website, can put packaging on a product, can private label some product and get it into the world, but getting people to buy into that story and the brand philosophy and ideology is where strategists come in and how you ultimately create long-term enterprise value and build a real brand.

Adrian Tennant: Great conversation. Nick, thank you very much for being our guest this week on IN CLEAR FOCUS.

Nick Valenti: Thank you for having me. This has been a blast.

Adrian Tennant: Thanks again to my guest this week, Nick Valenti, CEO and Head of Strategy at Mādin. And if you’d like to learn more about the agency, visit their website at Mādin.com. That’s M-A-D-I-N dot com. As always, you’ll find a complete transcript of our conversation with timestamps and links to the resources we discussed on the IN CLEAR FOCUS page at Bigeyeagency.com. Just select Insights from the menu. Thank you for listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS, produced by Bigeye. I’ve been your host, Adrian Tennant. Until next week, goodbye.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00: Introduction to Sports Marketing and Community Building

00:30: Evolving Audience Behaviors in Sports

01:02: Guest Introduction: Nick Valenti

01:55: Nick’s Transition from Finance to Creative Strategy

03:25: Mādin‘s Unique Approach to Bridging Gaps

04:18: Launching San Diego FC: The Challenge of No Brand Assets

05:26: Creative Campaign: “Let’s Kick It”

07:05: The Chrome Ball Tour Strategy

09:25: Achieving Results with Limited Budget

10:42: Community Engagement and Local Involvement

12:14: Ensuring Representation Across 18 Cities

13:25: Break and Message from Sponsor

14:47: Parallels Between Soccer and Formula One Marketing

15:10: Combining Global Brands: F1 and Las Vegas

17:44: Creating Immersive Experiences in Sports

18:54: Lessons for Emerging Sports in the U.S. Market

20:13: Building Credibility Without Complete Assets

21:27: Emotional Investment in New Sports Teams

24:03: Advice for Marketers Introducing International Brands

25:50: Conclusion and Final Thoughts from Nick Valenti

26:01: Outro and Resources