On May 28th, the IAI Chuanjian International Creative Festival and the 21st IAI Chuanjian International Advertising Awards Ceremony were held in Beijing. Echo Li, Managing Director and Senior Vice President of Global, SPORTFIVE Greater China, received the IAI Person of the Year category – "2021 Most Growing Industry Figure" award. It is worth mentioning that in the list of winners, Li Ying is also the only representative of the sports industry.
IAI's Most Growing Industry Figure: Echo Li
SPORTFIVE/LAGARDÈRE Sports won the "Sports Marketing Award" with the "Closer Than You Think" Xylem × Manchester City case from more than 3,000+ cases from more than 700 companies at home and abroad.
IAI Sports Marketing Awards Bronze: Xylem × Manchester City Football Marketing
IAI Chuanjian International Advertising Award is a well-known comprehensive advertising and brand marketing award in Greater China, founded in 2000 by the School of Advertising of Communication University of China, the China Business Advertising Association, and the IAI International Advertising Research Institute, and has been successfully held for 21 sessions so far, and is known as "the vane of the highest level of domestic advertising creativity and trend trends" that year. The award is committed to creating a platform for the selection of high-quality awards in Greater China and the promotion of vertical industries, etc., and empowering the brand industry with professional standards and a broad pattern.
Since 2018, when SPORTFIVE facilitated the global partnership between Xylem and Manchester City, the SPORTFIVE creative team began to influence a wider range of people by creating innovative and interactive content from the perspective of football + environmental welfare. In 2019, the team helped Xylem launch the "Closer Than You Think" campaign to raise awareness among millions of fans around the world about the looming water challenges and kick-start Xylem's unprecedented array of moves in creative content marketing. In addition to winning the IAI International Advertising and Sports Marketing Award, the event has also won many awards at home and abroad, such as the Silver Award in the Overseas Group of Gold Awards, the Silver Award for Corporate Social Responsibility at Strategies duSport, and the Best BrandEd Content Award for ESA.
The 2018/19 Xylem × Manchester City's Premier League title marketing
In the 21st IAI Biography International Advertising Awards Annual Company and Person Selection, the expert jury selected the most representative company, platform and person award of the year in a fair, impartial and strict manner through the evaluation criteria of influence, core advantages, contribution to the company/industry, industry evaluation and other evaluation criteria. After the multi-dimensional selection of "business insight / strategic vision + growth and innovation + contribution of the company / industry", the jury finally selected the growth industry elite represented by Li Ying. With their strategic business insights, efficient business development capabilities and innovative powers, they have made outstanding contributions to the industry while driving team growth, creating value and self-improvement.
In 2021, less than five years after SPORTFIVE/Lagardère Sports set up its greater China headquarters, Li Ying efficiently integrated the group's international network advantage resources and built a localization team from scratch, so that SPORTFIVE has grown into a comprehensive sports marketing agency in China with strategic planning, creative activation, digital communication and offline event planning. Li Ying led this all-China class of freshmen to work with SPORTFIVE's overseas branches and teams to deepen the Chinese sports industry, and promoted more than 60 international and regional sports marketing cooperation and digital creative projects.
Li Ying and the Greater China team have been committed to enabling Chinese brands to create projects that affect global market audiences and enhance the brand's international influence with the help of world-class event IP or sports resources, such as promoting the cooperation between Tsingtao Beer, Yibao Mineral Water and the AFC Champions League, the online and offline sponsorship activation of Hisense's international market during the 2018 World Cup, the creative digital media marketing of Hublot during the 2018 World Cup, the content cooperation between Bundesliga giants Dortmund and the international version of TikTok on Douyin and the Development of the European market.
As the sports industry enters the post-epidemic era, digital media and e-sports have become important business growth points in the sports industry. Li Ying led the team to embrace the digital era with innovative thinking, broaden the marketing opportunities for brand owners to accurately reach young customers with the help of e-sports, and create cases to enhance brand rejuvenation, such as the cooperation between Hisense Group, the world's leading electronics and home appliance market leader, and Fnatic, the European giant team, the cross-border cooperation between the League of Legends legend team T1 and Kuaishou, China's leading short video platform, and the series of integrated e-sports marketing services for TCL around LPL. While looking for business cooperation opportunities for sports resources such as the Belgian national football team, the Spanish national football team, Atletico Madrid and Augsburg, SPORTFIVE also helps them actively embrace the digital trend of the Chinese market.
Li Ying and SPORTFIVE Greater China team have always adhered to the brand-oriented thinking strategy and continued to help the world's high-quality sports resources expand their business in the Chinese market, including the Los Angeles Lakers in finding the best business partners in the global and Greater China regions, and the all-round commercial development of the F1 Chinese Grand Prix in the Chinese market. In 2018, under the leadership of Li Ying, the team successfully won the hosting rights of the French Super Cup, the top official football tournament in Europe, for Shenzhen, and assisted in the successful hosting of the tournament in 2018 and 2019. In the summer of 2019, the team also facilitated a friendly match between Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan in Macau.
2019 Paris Saint-Germain China Tour
Whether a company can win the IAI International Advertising Awards is one of the important indicators of its advertising creativity and effective marketing power. SPORTFIVE won two awards for its first competition, which is enough to reflect the industry's praise and affirmation of SPORTFIVE's long-term innovation in sports marketing creativity and business, helping brands and sports resources to achieve both brand power and commercial growth.
（LXS）