| COOL FRIENDS |
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| Mihai Negut, Managing Partner, 4All Sports & Entertainment. |
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1) Mihai you chose to start a business in a pioneering field! Although it is said that everybody is good at... sports and marketing! So could everybody try their luck at sports marketing? Or are things a bit different? What is so special about what you do?
You could say that everybody's good at sports and marketing. Partly because they appear to be in easy reach for all, but you can just as easily fail for one simple reason: marketing, as well as sports demand long term investments, strategies and results.
Currently in Romania we can't talk about sports marketing because that would mean talking about more than marketing campaigns that are somewhat related with sports. What we're doing can certainly be called pioneering. The reason is very simple. A discussion about sports marketing starts the moment you have partners that understand the sports phenomenon and its value when integrated in the marketing campaign of a company or in association with a commercial brand. Our purpose isn't that of selling sports personalities to be used as a company image or in association with a certain event. There wouldn't be any long term results. We want to deliver a strategy, which comes along with a certain celebrity. One from which both sides can benefit as much as possible because it's never just about cashing in.
2) Could everybody do what you do? What traits should a person working in this field have? How do you build a name for yourself and your company? There aren't a lot of books about this type of subject!!! Anything else?
Anybody can do anything is the short answer. As children we all dream of becoming firemen, formula 1 racers, pilots, doctors etc. I never saw myself as a sports celebrity manager, but I realized, at a certain point that this is what I like to do and I can do it very well!
Of course it was a train of events that led me to this conclusion. I started out as an event agency, a position from which I organized sports themed events and my partner, Gigi Loghin, came up with the idea of doing sports marketing. I had a lot of experience up to that point working for one of the most successful sports show of the 90's: "Procesul Etapei" as well as a significant contribution to the Hagi Gala, in 2001, when I worked for McCann Eriksson. What followed was The Romanian Sports Gala in 2003 and 4 editions of The Champions Series, organized with Gica Popescu. My partner had already handled the contract signed between Bergenbier and F.R.F., and indirectly with the national football team, back when he was an employee of Interbrew and as such had a vast experience in this area as well. So together we thought we could be successful in an emerging market such as Romania.
Concerning the idea of creating a name for yourself that is not necessarily true. It's more of a recognition of what you, together with your team, achieved. Another reason for our success was the constant desire to learn all we can from those that have been doing this for a long time such as sports marketing agencies and companies from Western Europe. A major step was the fact that we managed to establish a partnership with one of the most important companies in our field: IMG WORLD.
I can't really say that this field requires certain traits. There is however an essential quality that is vital for your success: patience. Being patient when listening to your clients, explaining absolutely everything; the patience to build a powerful relation with them, one that is based on trust. I think that up till now we've managed to do so since some of our clients include: Gheorghe Hagi, Gheorghe Popescu, Dan Petrescu, Cristian Chivu, Razvan Lucescu, Bogdan Lobont and Victor Hanescu
3) How did you manage to convince such sports celebrities as Hagi, Popescu, Petrescu and Chivu to become your exclusive partners? How do you manage and grow such business relations?
As I was saying it's all about patience and trust. In our case business partnerships don't start with "how much do I make?". This comes last. What matters is that we enjoy the projects our stars and us are involved in as well as trusting each other. If they know they can trust us and that results will soon come, then we can have a long term successful business partnership.
This sort of partnership we have is very special. These people aren't companies or private entities and you can't treat them as such. They are first and foremost good friends and this sort of partnership develops over time.
4) We believe that sports has a major impact in developing a society: it educates the young, creates role models and communities, it's a platform from which you can build values such as ethics, respect, responsibility and fairplay! What can be done in order to increase the importance of this activity in Romania?
The sportspeople we represent are involved in personal or public projects aimed at revitalizing sports in Romania. The best examples are those of Gica Hagi and Gica Popescu. Gica Hagi started, organized and financed, through his organization the only national football competition aimed at children between the ages of ten and twelve: "The Hagi Cup". This year he also launched The Football Academy named after him. Beside these activities together with Gica Hagi we also launched two DVDs that offer an in-depth view of his career for national and other football teams, a first in Romania.
All these projects are born out of his desire to contribute as much as he can to the future of Romania. They are based on his experience and as he likes to say it's proof of the recognition he has for everything football gave to him. Gica Popescu made his first investment in Romania, a football school. He built it in Craiova, the city where he made his debut in the big league, out of a desire to offer talented children a chance to make themselves known and perhaps share the same destiny he had. Then together with him we created and organized the most important charity sports event in Romania: Champion's Night.
Besides these personal projects the people we work with are also involved in talent recruitment campaigns (Hagi, Popescu, Petrescu): The "I want to be big" campaign from Gillette is based on the idea of discovering talents that could become role models for future generations.
A large part of them support international charitable organizations that are present in Romania. Gica Hagi is a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF Romania and Gica Popescu and Cristi Chivu are both ambassadors for SOS Children's Villages Romania.
I don't want to enter a discussion about what could be done to revitalize sports in Romania. I can only say that the celebrities we work with are trying to do this everyday. I gave you just a few examples and I can give you one more: Dan Petrescu. When nobody believed in him and said it couldn't be done he proved them wrong through hard work, confidence and passion. All these people are worth looking up to based on not only what they have been or what they represent but through their actions and initiatives.
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Human Invest is a Premier League company in the arena of training and organizational development consultancy services, present on the Romanian market since 1998.
We are recognized for conceiving and implementing programs which offer managers an authentic experience towards improving their leadership performances, and thus we support companies in becoming more and more engaged in delivering excellent services for their clients.
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