A sporting  solution

I love Formula One, and it is probably those hundreds of Sunday afternoons across my childhood that saw me sitting with my Dad watching those speed demons tear around a track, that has sustained my allegiance to the sport. But what I remember most fundamentally from all those races, is the branding on the cars, across the tracks, and worn by the drivers.

The huge Shell and BP signs, Camel’s yellow and blue livery on Williams cars, the white and red of the Canon logo, and of course the F1 logo itself. It is bizarre, but today just seeing a Shell sign starts to conjure up a feeling of intangible nostalgia. But why?

Well, there are billions of pounds sloshing around the UK sports industry alone in terms of sponsorship deals on everything from runners’ arm bands, to banners, billboards, and car side pods. All that money means you want your branding to be memorable, and advertisers will pay handsomely to get in front of their target market.

Looking back in misty-eyed memory, the 1980s and 90s saw major branding only at the very biggest events. But technological advancements and the affordability of producing graphics that can be applied to almost any media or substrate means that even our local eleven-year-olds’ football team has the local chippy’s logo emblazoned across their shirts.

O Factoid: The world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt, signed the biggest sports branding sponsorship deal in athletics history, when he signed a multi-year deal with Puma in 2013. The deal is thought to have been worth around $32.5m (£21m). O

One man who has been there and seen it all in this sector, having worked in it for more than 30 years, is Mike Betts. Proprietor of Native Promotions, he started out doing lorry hoardings and large-format screen printing before starting up a company producing American football shirts in 1985. It would become the largest supplier in Europe before a race to the bottom on price among start-up competitors saw him pull out with no margin left to be had on quality products. He diversified and now provides a huge range of products and services around promotional clothing and sports garment branding. 


“Sports branding is so easy to get into nowadays for small runs and irregular contracts. I mean thousands of sign-makers already have the equipment in house. If you’re talking about equipment like a Roland DG VersaCAMM that prints and cuts, you can buy the substrates to do vinyl transfers that will stick to just about anything to do with clothing,” says Betts.


He continues: “What we offer is real flexibility, as we are skilled in using old-fashioned screen printing. This means we can do things that can’t be done digitally and print onto things you still can’t with a digital printer and hope for any level of quality or durability.

“I know quite a few sign-makers from my old connections who still turn work away like sports branding projects. This is probably because they see them as ‘not part of their core service’ and also due to a lack of understanding and expertise in the area.


“However, rather than turn it away, I think they should pass it on to someone like us who can do it. I’ve got a dozen middle-men I do work for and they bring in a lot of business. Some think they should do it themselves, but they don’t, as, if you move into this area properly, it requires solid investment and you need to know what you are doing. If you have an order for 500 branded t-shirts for a marathon, we could probably print them in a few days, whereas it would take them around six weeks.”


A well-known materials brand across the UK sign industry, digitally printable vinyl specialist Metamark, is so passionate about the value and potential of the sports branding sector they have put their money where their mouth is by sponsoring high-octane motor racing. If you head out to a Formula 4 race any time soon then look out for Tom Jackson and his Chris Dittmann Racing machine and its professional-looking livery with Meta-mark emblazoned across its side pods and Dittmann’s helmet and kit.


“Getting into supplying signage to sports teams and events is an opportunity that cannot be underestimated,” says Metamark chief executive officer, Paul French, who adds: “The problem with this industry is you cannot size the opportunity to a number. But all you have to do is watch any event on TV and you see a whole array of brand advertising, marketing in stadiums on cars, buses, vehicles, transporters and so on.



“What’s happening is the marketing teams are getting more aware of the brand awareness to drive traffic to their internet, Twitter or Facebook. Before they used to use a product to support something. Now, you often see Apple or Samsung in name only, rather than the iPhone 6 or a product. The other thing driving it is if you think about how much digital technology has improved in recent years, print quality is far greater than it was in years gone by.

The cost of machines hasn’t changed much, but the cost of output has changed significantly. You are now getting four or five times the output from a machine now than you were five years ago.” 

French also makes a very good point, that increasingly advanced materials mean wrapping is easier now than ever: “Wrapping a vehicle is going to become a staple part of being a sign-maker, fundamental to operating in the sector.”

Formerly head of the industry’s two biggest names, Robert Horne and Spandex, French adds: “If you can’t wrap within the next five years, you probably won’t be in the sign market.

“This sector is not about getting the 500-vehicle Sky contract. If you can get some local stuff like rallycross or even yacht racing, they all want to look as professional as Formula One.

“The print quality of our materials are second to none, so you’re going to get a great result. They also allow easy application, but also removes without any residue or problems for cleaners. You have to remember it’s not just about the cost and how they are applied, a lot of these are put on and removed a lot, so you want to be able to remove it nice and quickly.”

Speaking to French, he outlines that the checkpoints for companies wanting to move into this sector are to make sure they can do everything, they know how to produce high-quality colour-perfect graphics, and that they are competent in the service they will offer.

“There is a level confidence required to be good at this stuff,” he continues, adding: “When a sign-maker starts out doing vehicle branding, the majority begin with a wrap on their own van—they become their first customer. They test the stuff out. What is critical to ask before offering vehicle wrapping or graphics as a service is: would they buy off them themselves?”

Keep it at home

Moving across the ball park to the printer manufacturers—the sector that fuels a large part of this sector’s creative scope—one key player which focuses on educating its customers about the opportunities is Hybrid Services.


Exclusive distributor in the UK and Ireland for Mimaki, the company’s national sales manager John de la Roche has a very interesting take on the sector: “For sports branding, the big knock-on for the sign-maker is that you might be supplying a vehicle wrap, but these events will need flags, bags, banners, boardings and so on.

“It’s a bit like trying to get sign-makers to look beyond the front door at décor—it’s getting them to think beyond the vehicle wrap and look at the other assets they can offer to clients.

“A solvent printer, like a CJV30 or the new CJV300, will be able to produce all of the vehicle graphics, banners, pit boards, garment marking and some promotional items. The chances are sign-makers already have the kit to get into those markets, but you still need a dye-sublimation printer to be able to print things like rally overalls. But, in terms of working in the sports industry, there’s a lot to go after with the kit that they have already got.”

Citing customer success stories such as sportswear specialist Farndon House and big textile print player RA Smart, De la Roche also explains that the high levels of quality demanded from many sports teams, and the need to get brand colours exactly right also means focusing on getting colour-management right.

“Using a good quality RIP software and having a correct profile, are the first places to start. After that, the process for seemingly complex processes such as dye-sub printing is the same as for any other printing technology—managing the variables,” continues De la Roche.

He concludes: “It’s about maintaining a consistent material, inks, environmental conditions, and printer profile. If everything is as it was when you created that profile, then there is no reason that you should not be able to maintain colour critical work. There are a couple more steps to producing a printer profile for dye-sub printing, but if you are consistent in how you operate, there is no reason why you cannot achieve your goal.”

Looking back across the annals of SignLink at case studies that have seen sports branding used to good effect, one of the best examples can be found on our website by searching ‘wow’ and then reading ‘Signage goes up through the gears at rally.’ With branding carried out by Cardiff-based Genesis, and using a range of materials from Spandex, the firm applied graphics to everything from the cars, to perimeter scrim, banners, and even fast-food cabins. They did not do anything especially clever or revolutionary beyond simply researching all the key sporting events for the year ahead, meeting with organisers, and then putting in a competitive quote. So, what are you waiting for? For those sign-makers that want to grow their revenue, perhaps it is time to search out a sporting solution.


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