ESA Member Spotlight: MBP

What's your name and position within the organisation?

My name is Mark Blundell and I am the CEO and Founder of MBP, the relationship-driven sports marketing agency.

In brief, what does MBP do and what is your approach to sponsorship and partnerships?

Since its foundation just over a decade ago, MBP has developed into a full turnkey sports marketing agency which places a real focus on people-led partnerships.

Our company's roots lie in talent management and since I retired from professional motorsport, it has been a passion of mine to foster young talent and guide them through the ranks, helping them avoid some of the pitfalls and reach new levels in their respective careers.

That foundation of the business has taken us in new directions with a desire to connect talent with brands and rights holders where there is true authenticity and impact in what we deliver.

That has extended our work into sports marketing consultancy, events activation and digital marketing, alongside the B2B partnership programme that has become a real core component of our business.

What approach differentiates MBP and makes your sponsorship strategy unique?

Given the nature of our business and the personnel involved from a leadership perspective, I would say that most of our conversations start as a commercial one rather than a sponsorship-focused discussion.

By that, I mean we tend to work initially with prospective partners discussing our existing corporate partners and network, looking at ways that value can be extracted from collaborations and B2B partnerships.

If we can start a conversation by asking what challenges you are currently facing, or how can our business network help yours, we find ourselves prioritising the commerciality of any partnership before the proposed value from a brand and marketing perspective.

There is a strong entrepreneurial spirit that runs through the business and that is a key factor in all our delivery. We become professionally and emotionally invested in the success of our partners and our activation strategies - that makes a great and genuine starting point for any long-term relationship, which is what we prioritise in every circumstance.

What do you see as current trends within sponsorship, and how are they affecting how you work and how you deliver on strategy?

With the employment market becoming ever more competitive, it's perhaps unsurprising that the importance of internal advocacy and utilising your partnerships as a means to reward and incentivise internally is becoming more and more important.

Typically, partnership activations have tended to be dominated by brand and external client objectives but we have seen a real shift in brands utilising their partnerships as a means of internal engagement.

When this is done successfully, it can have a huge impact - whether that be on internal reward and loyalty or a sense of culture building around your organisation. This has become a key part of activation planning with our brands in recent years.

How has sponsorship changed for MBP over the past five years, and what predictions can you make about how it's going to change in the next five years?

I think the notion of sports sponsorship is in a really exciting position at the moment. While budgets are tighter than ever and the competition is fiercer than ever, that forces people to create, to innovate and to experiment - it is in that space that we have delivered some of our best work in recent years and I am proud of what our young team continues to deliver up against some of the industry's most notable names.

In terms of predictions, where sponsorships have tended to be evaluated by the commercial and brand impacts traditionally, I think the trend of partnerships being judged by their broader social impact is here to stay.

We are seeing brands and rights holders now using their partnerships to underline and reinforce their broader social commitments; showcasing how they support their local and global communities, how they support social mobility and inclusion and how they serve a greater purpose than your traditional sponsorship practices.

How does your experience as an ex-Formula One driver support your work with brands and rights holders at MBP?

I have been privileged to enjoy a role in the world of professional motorsport in almost every sense; initially as a driver, then through the world of the media and TV, within team management as well as the agency world now for nearly two decades. Beyond giving our business a fantastic black book and network of relationships to call upon, it's given us a real understanding of what success looks like for all the different stakeholders involved.

Having been inside elite, professional sport for over three decades working alongside global brands along that journey, it gives our agency a unique depth of experience, especially in the world of motorsport, to deliver for our clients both on and off the track.

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