On today's episode of The Negotiation I’m speaking with David Noel and Leif Rogers, Partners and CoFounders of Red Phoenix Entertainment, a firm that bridges American sports and entertainment with emerging markets by connecting sports stars, celebrities and musicians, with global companies and brands, helping to expand sponsorships, branding and market presence across Asia for American brands, stars and sports and vice versa.
In this episode we discuss the opportunity available to sports brands, and the sports themselves, that’s present and clear in the China market, how they help purely domestic Chinese corporate entities build presence in America though sporting sponsorships, the importance of using agencies to go cross-border as a local market sherpas, and their 5 tiers of brand building success.
Show Notes
David and Leif discuss the business they have built helping sports brands enter China and Chinese corporate brands enter the US, the latter of which we dive into a bit more to learn more about how purely China-centric brands look at market entry into North America. We also discuss the different aspects of relationship building with their North American clients vs. their Chinese clients.
After asking Dave and Leif to talk about the secret sauce that makes Red Phoenix so successful, it segue’s perfectly into the next topic of why it’s so important to leverage the help of agencies or experts who know how to do business in China at a granular level who’ve experienced not just the geography but also the culture.
We then move onto the topic of sports in China and the opportunities that lie in that industry, beyond sports, in general, to include health and fitness in general. We discuss their 5 tiers to success in brand building for sports brands, which includes boots-on-the-ground initiatives like camps and grassroots development as well as government relations. We also discuss where the money is flowing in sports in China, where David cites a very deliberate effort from the top down in China’s culture that clearly understands how important sports can be to a country’s economy.
Near the end, we do bring up the now-famous tweet from a prominent NBA executive that got the NBA in hot water in China in order to discuss the importance of understanding cultural sensitivities when entering a new market especially when you don’t have a good grasp of its native language nor its history. Now more than ever it is important to understand what topics one should avoid and issues to let lie.
What is The Negotiation?
Despite being the world’s most potent economic area, Asia can be one of the most challenging regions to navigate and manage well for foreign brands. However, plenty of positive stories exist and more are emerging every day as brands start to see success in engaging and deploying appropriate market growth strategies – with the help of specialists.
The Negotiation is an interview show that showcases those hard-to-find success stories and chats with the incredible leaders behind them, teasing out the nuances and digging into the details that can make market growth in APAC a winning proposition.