пятница, 14 сентября 2012 г.

Sparks-based Imre launches sports marketing division - The Daily Record (Baltimore)

Marketing agency Imre has launched a sports-focused division totake on national events and clients.

The Sparks-based firm has hired two new employees for its five-person department that will help garner more sports-related clients.Imre's sports clients have included the PGA Tour's TravelersChampionship, the Cadillac Grand Prix of Washington, D.C., as wellas Behr, Stanley Black & Decker and John Deere, which sponsors theFEI World Equestrian Games.

'We want to help those clients leverage their sponsorshipdollars,' said Mark Eber, president of Imre. 'Following that, we'lllook for other brands that we think that might be spendingsignificant dollars in sports, but may not be leveraging it as wellin social media.'

Eber said the firm will help connect companies with events inNASCAR, the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball,professional boxing and more up-and-coming sports, like ESPN's XGames.

Imre already has divisions in financial services, health care andconstruction. But for the past 15 years, the company has also workedwith major sporting events, product launches and professionalathletes, by providing services in public relations, socialmarketing, event managing and advertising.

To launch Imre's new division, Eber hired Matt Saler, who hadworked for Maroon PR doing public relations. While Eber oversees theentire department and brings in new business, Saler will do the day-to-day managing of it. The company also hired Stefen Lovelace as anaccount executive. Lovelace was a sports writer for The BaltimoreSun and an associate account executive at Maroon PR.

'There's a lot more money in sports marketing,' Saler said.'We're looking to work with the major players in differentindustries.'

The Travelers Championship, held annually in Cromwell, Conn., inJune, is a long-time client of Imre.

Fellow sports marketing and advertising agency executives say theindustry is wide enough for the extra competition.

'There's room for that, and everybody's reinventing themselves,'said Bob Leffler, owner of the Baltimore-based Leffler Agency.'There really aren't any substantial sports marketing housesfloating around here. And those kinds of people need to berepresented.'

The sports marketing industry is still growing because moreorganizations and companies are jumping on to be affiliated withrecognized sports brands, said John Maroon, president of Maroon PR,which is based in Howard County. That kind of growth creates enoughopportunities for more marketing and advertising agencies toparticipate in the industry, he said.

'Having started a sports firm from scratch five years ago, I knowhow hard that can be, but sports marketing and sports publicrelations are growing,' Maroon said.

His agency recently picked up Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank'sSagamore Farm and the NFL Players Association as clients.

'Everyone's trying to associate themselves with sports,' saidChris Daley, senior account executive for Maroon PR. 'There's plentyof business out there.'

Imre, which has nearly 80 employees, will continue to hire forits sports unit as more business trickles in, Eber said.