welcome to

Inform

Network

Connecting business with sport and entertainment


info@informnetwork.com

YOUR SMART CONNECTION
TO THE WORLD OF SPORT AND ENTERTAINMENT

We provide insight, strategic advice, ideas, introductions and management services to stakeholders across the world of sport and entertainment. With our world class experience and network, we ensure you are better informed.

WHAT WE DO

We serve brands, rights-owners, investors, institutions and public bodies, other agencies and senior leaders, providing a range of services around sponsorship and partnerships, commercial strategy, acquisitions, communications, and IP and concept development.

 

WE ARE EXPERT, CREATIVE AND CONNECTED.

Our network means more than just connections and knowledge, it is relationships, partnerships and access to resources which allows us to deliver projects across a range of disciplines and territories.

WHO
WE ARE

INFORM was founded in 2018 by Rob Mason, whose career includes an outstanding breadth of experience across the global landscape of sport and entertainment.

Prior to creating Inform, Rob spent 10 years as a senior leader at IMG where he headed up IMG Consulting, the multi-award-winning marketing services and consultancy division of the world’s largest sport and entertainment agency.

Prior to that he was co-owner and Managing Director of leading UK-based sponsorship agency and event owner-operator SBI, which was acquired by IMG in 2007. From identifying and creating multi-award-winning sponsorship campaigns, to devising commercial strategies for leading rights-owners, to driving growth of owned-event properties, to leading and managing complex management consultancy projects, Rob’s client experience is very extensive and much respected.

The Inform Network

We combine a small core resource with the ability to rapidly plug into an unrivalled network of people, agencies and resources as the project requires – all under Inform’s management. This enables us to deliver the specialist skills the project demands, anywhere in the world, and provides clients with a cost-effective and bespoke solution.

OUR SERVICES

Our offering combines…insight, strategy, introductions, ideas, and implementation.

BRANDSRIGHTSOWNERS INVESTORSAGENCIES

Brands

In a world where sponsorship and partnership marketing has the potential to be more powerful and relevant than ever before, our speciality is the strategy, selection and acquisition of partnerships for brands and businesses.

INSIGHT

  • Marketplace analysis and information
  • Industry trends and commentary
  • Competitor analysis
  • Partnership opportunity scans
  • Sponsorship & evaluation best practice

STRATEGY

  • Partnership and sponsorship strategy
  • Business case & KPI modelling
  • Bespoke selection methodology
  • Talent strategy
  • Communications strategy

INTRODUCTIONS

  • Partnership acquisition
  • Deal negotiation
  • Contract advisory
  • Agency selection

IDEAS

  • Platform creation
  • Event conceptualisation and creation
  • Activation concepts
  • Design and production*

IMPLEMENTATION

  • Activation planning
  • Partnership management
  • Event management
  • Communications*
  • Social and digital*

NEW PRODUCTS

Times have changed. If you can buy world-class services on a short-term or project basis, without committing to retainers or longer-term agency arrangements, why wouldn’t you? Inform has created three new products tailored to the new reality of business – advice, insight and ideas when you need them.

INFORM MATCHMAKER

  • Targeted at brands, our proprietory approach to sponsorship strategy and selection: combining objective setting, selection methodology, market analysis using our MarketScan product, evaluation, selection, and getting organised for success.

INFORM MARKETSCAN

  • Our uniquely deep and well-connected analysis of the marketplace for rights, across sport and entertainment, in terms of what’s available now. Informative for both brands and rights-owners, it’s available as a stand-alone service or as part of a larger project or brief.

INFORM CREACTIVATE

  • In partnership with creative agency Imaginate, a project-based service which combines strategic thinking with creativity to deliver a range of options for brands, rights-owners and other stakeholders.
  • For brands, we will imagine and visualise sponsorship activation concepts, from big ideas to specific executions. For rights-owners, we can refresh and re-imagine how you present your proposition to the marketplace, and produce appropriate collateral to showcase it.

RIGHTS OWNERS

In an increasingly complex and challenging environment, we help rights owners maximise the potential of their brand, business and reputation.

With extensive experience of constructing commercial programmes and evaluating and marketing rights for some of the world’s leading rights owners, we also help bring a wider perspective to the process which can encompass a deeper understanding of your IP, creating impactful and resonant positioning and messaging, and the ability to properly interrogate and bring to the fore what really matters to brands and potential partners.

We also cater for the growing requirement for organisations to demonstrate they can be trusted to act with integrity and social responsibility: in today’s world, few things are more important to stakeholders and potential commercial partners.

COMMERCIAL

  • Audits
  • Strategy
  • Partnership frameworks
  • IP & asset valuation
  • Rights marketing
  • Brokerage

Participation

  • Analysis and audit
  • Strategic development
  • Event and IP creation
  • Fan and audience engagement*

Governance

  • Leadership counsel
  • Integrity and security*
  • Organisational advisory

Investors

We provide services to organisations investing in sport, and businesses seeking investment or preparing for sale.

From market analysis and investment strategies for sovereign wealth funds, to acquisition ID and targeting for private equity groups, to helping position a business for future sale or incoming investment, we can assemble expertise with a wealth of experience in this space, founded on our understanding of the sport and entertainment landscape.

  • Marketplace insight and analysis
  • Investment strategy
  • Acquisition ID
  • Introductions and brokerage
  • Development strategy
  • IP & brand development

Agencies

Inform Network is an agency, but as our name suggests we aim to work with a network of partners on a collaborative basis, and we are set up to work with fellow agencies in a variety of ways.

A number of our initial projects have been in collaboration with other agency partners where our complementary contacts and specialist expertise has delivered better results for the client.

  • Pitch preparation
  • Client & campaign advisory
  • Commercial rights marketing
  • Training and mentoring
  • Senior leadership counsel
  • Strategic development

Our Work

Some of our clients and projects feature below. Within our first two years, we’ve worked on significant client briefs across all our lines of business, across multiple geographies – with a focus on advising brands and rights-owners on sponsorship strategy, partnership ID and negotiation. Contact us to find out more.

OUR APPROACH

We are nimble, flexible and provide clients with a model for our times – specialist, quality resources tailored to match the client’s requirements, however short-term they may be, and managed as a single-source supplier to ensure straightforward administration and procurement.

Our network is made up of high-quality people we have worked with and can vouch for, based around the world. We’re called Inform, and you can trust us to perform.

“knowledge is power”

Sir Francis Bacon

Want to get better informed?

CONTACT US