Like selling refrigerators to eskimos

James Boyd talks yachting sponsorship and the Swedish Match Tour with Scott MacLeod, of sports marketeers Octagon

Eight Volvo campaigns at $15-30 million a pop, similar figures for many of the America's Cup campaigns then a great many more smaller sponsorships in the Global Challenge, the 60ft tri, Open 60 and French classes, the Swedish Match Tour - all told a great deal of corporate money is ending up in yachting and the man who would ideally like to have it all channelled through his coffers is Scott MacLeod (above), Senior Vice President International Sales and Marketing of Octagon Marketing.

Alongside Mark McCormick's IMG, Octagon is one of the largest sports and event marketing companies in the world with 1,800 employees working out of 45 offices in 23 countries, including London. But what is unique about Octagon is that they have a specialist sailing division run by MacLeod.

Remarkably for a company of this size Octagon is just four years old, part of Interpublic, the world's largest marketing and communications company (quoted on the NY stock exchange).

Among their jobs is representing sportsmen and women such as tennis stars Llayton Hewitt and Anna Kournakova and cricketer Darren Gough. They handle the TV production and distribution for the World Superbike and British superbikes and Western Union rugby (whatever that is). They do event management - the Stella Artois Tennis in London is theirs and they also own Brands Hatch and the rights to the British Grand Prix.

Alongside this is Octagon's sailing division. MacLeod can talking yachting with the best of them. He is an accomplished yachtsman in his own right, who today dabbles in the Farr 40 circuit in the States. Based in Connecticut, McLeod was on the Olympic campaign trail in a Finn during the 1980s, but "didn't make the big show" despite a third place in the Gold Cup and winning the North Americans. After losing out in the Olympic trials he says it was a toss up between getting a real job or becoming a pro-sailor, which he half jokes during the 80s equalled becoming a sailmaker. He chose the former route, starting his own sports sponsorship company, Sailsports, specialising in yachting.

"Somehow I got this stupid vision about holding a pro-event in Bermuda with prize money, TV and spectators. Sailing would be the new Formula 1 in three years." McLeod acknowledges that it hasn't quite got there yet... He was also the man who can be thanked for bringing Brut by Faberge into match racing sponsorship. Four years ago he sold Sailsports to Octagon.

Today the main job of his division of Octagon is handling the Swedish Match Tour. Of this international series of match racing events, they own the Tour's event in Bermuda (which McClod originally set up in his pre-Octagon days) which is today sponsored by a division of Tyco. This year his team have set up a new event, the UBS Challenge back in the original home of match racing - Newport, Rhode Island. They also run the Accentura SORC in the States.

"We are the leading sports marketing company in sailing if you look at the positioning and properties we have and what we're doing on a yearly basis. My remit is to grow that within Octagon," says McLeod.

Although they have developed strong relationships with the America's Cup teams which regularly participate in Swedish Match Tour, the company have not got seriously involved with the America's Cup other than a marketing association with OneWorld.

"AC is a difficult market to make money on," says MacLeod. "The market place since Sept 11 is tight for big money sponsorships. We just haven't had the resources to focus on selling sponsorship for the AC."

So is he confident of the future of sailing as a sponsorable sport? "People within Octoagon like sailing and think it has some opportunities. The difficulty with sailing is that it is not a cut and dry sport - it comes in different forms and it's a question of where you dip your toe. Should we be investing in 60ft tris or a cat in The Race. At some point you need to position yourself. With the Tour we think we've done that."

He says he is amazed at the amount of money that goes into sponsorship in sailing worldwide (after a 30 second calculation - we guesstimate it could be in the region of $100-200 million per year). "That is a significant amount of money, but it's spread out over the year and the world. In tennis you only have one place to go."

A recent project Octagon have taken on is developing the endorsement opportunities for one Ellen MacArthur. "She has a tremendous amount of marketing value in the English and French markets. We're helping Offshore Challenges to exploit that," says MacLeod. In my mind I am conjuring up interesting comparisons between Ellen and Anna Kournakova. "We're looking for some specific categories - watches, clothing, auto. She's got a tremendous story that transcends sailing. Hers is a human interest story."

We get into a philosophical discussion about the importance of personalities within sport. "Sport is so personality driven," says MacLeod. "David Beckham, he's a great soccer player and he's got the right wife. You either like him or hate him." He goes back to the Swedish Match Tour/America's Cup analogy.

"In New Zealand sailing is big and people like Dean (Barker) and Russell (Coutts), can exploit that. For Team New Zealand who market their merchandise, it is a huge revenue stream in that market. I saw a picture in Hello magazine of Prince Harry with TNZ baseball cap. In the Italian market, Francesco (de Angelis) is huge."

Of their main event, the Swedish Match Tour, MacLeod says they are pleased with the way it is developing. Seeing the competition at Marstrand you would have to agree with America's Cup heavyweight such as Russell Coutts (Alighi), Dean Barker (TNZ), Bertrand Pace (TNZ), Peter Holmberg (Oracle) and Magnus Holmberg (Victory Challenge) taking part.

"With the Tour it is about personalities and about the sailors and the head to head battles between the sailors," but he stresses there is a significant difference between their event and the Cup. "It is not about who can spend more on their boat, who can spend more on their keel. It is about Peter Holmberg and Oracle versus Russell Coutts and Alinghi." All the events in the Swedish Matchh Tour are raced in one designs.

"From a sailor's perspective it is more of a fine-tuned psychological battle. At this level crew work should be equal. So it gets down to who can psychologically put it together and that's what we try to market."

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