Steve (00:01.504)
What a pleasure, a true pleasure across the Atlantic, all the way in London, Louise Johnson, Global CA, take two. What a true pleasure having today Louise Johnson, Global CEO. Louise, if I do it one more time, I'm inviting Ryan to host. No, I was told that I should do this. This is good. Give me one sec. Give me one sec. Here we go.

Louise Johnson (00:26.1)
He's me.

Steve (00:31.238)
Maybe it's the shirt you have a lovely shirt on today and the.

Louise Johnson (00:33.59)
Putting you off.

Steve (00:37.104)
So one, two, three. So what a sincere pleasure having on the transaction report today, Louise Johnson. She is global CEO of Fuse Sports, one of the now internationally known organizations with over three, at least the last time I checked, over 320 employees globally now with her expansion into India and the United States. I would imagine that number is now incrementally larger.

Louise Johnson (00:50.168)
Bye.

Steve (01:03.54)
And with, again, two years ago over 1.2 billion in sales of sports sponsorship, Louise is a true opinion maker, influencer in the industry. Louise across the Atlantic, in London, what an honor it is to have you on the show today.

Louise Johnson (01:18.478)
Steve, what a fantastic welcome. Thank you so much for having me on the show. Big fan of yours. I'm really excited to be talking to you today.

Steve (01:25.244)
You know, when I look at your background and I got to know you this year, we were talking about some collaboration in our mutual businesses, sports biz and Fuse. And I was impressed with your, the scope of your involvement in the industry in what I would call, let's call it five spokes, gender equity, mentorship, crisis leadership, your global nature. You have a new slogan.

I shouldn't say new, what we found is to be a new slogan where you speak about how you have a certain, maybe I'll let you share it, but it was almost an extension or a modernization of think global, think local, act global, or think global, act local rather, and yours was culturally connected, seriously affected. And so when I look at your many talents,

One particular that stood out to me greatly is this enormous knowledge that sports marketing is a jewel. It's a true gem, but it's a gem that's also very often not recognized as a gem and not incorporated into the crown in a way that can be effectively commuted to target markets. So if you would, let's give our viewers today an understanding of first and foremost, your understanding, your vision, your perspective of the

the paramount importance of sports marketing in the toolbox of corporate brands using it to impact the mindscape of their consumers.

Louise Johnson (03:00.32)
Yeah, great question, Steve. And I think that I've worked in sports marketing for a very long time. obviously a big fan and will jump up and down to promote it. But I think actually now more than ever, we're moving into, I would say, like golden age of sports marketing or sponsorship, but particularly in sport. And I think how people have really started to use sport as a growth driver for brands. And I think there's a couple of reasons for that. And I think with the continued fragmentation of media.

Sport sponsorship continues to be that anecdote to those opportunities to reach that mass audience to, you know, that the kind of size of those mass audiences gets CMOs super excited. And you can see that across all of the audience figures across, you know, the Super Bowl, the World Cup, women's football, the NWSL final recently, all the figures are increasing. And because of that media fragmentation, sport continues to be the only opportunity to live and to watch live.

So think that's the first piece. think second of all, with obviously more audiences becomes a lot more interest and you're getting more advertisers looking at it, big deals from all of the networks coming in to renegotiate deals or, you know, take out competitors. And I think with that, it's the recognition that, you know, people want to see this, people want to see it, advertisers are wanting to put their brands around it. And because you've got...

more audiences, more attention, there's more investment. So brands are starting to wake up and go, okay, this is actually something that we should be doing. It's a great way to drive our growth as our brand. But also you're starting to see a huge amount of private equity coming into the business. And that's been a trend, Steve, know this better than anybody over the last couple of years. But I think even just the requests that we get from consultancy for private offices or private equity companies to go right, what's the rights that we should be investing?

And it's no surprise, it's that now the business is expected to be over $300 billion by the next five years. So I think that's one element that it is that the business is booming and that's great news, great news for us. But also I think the way that people are operating and activating is really shifting now. And we're very much encouraging those shifts. It used to be very much, you know, lots of branding, lots of hospitality, a little bit of digital.

Louise Johnson (05:24.502)
And now again, because of that realization that people can use sport to really drive a brand's business and their growth, we're seeing much more integrated activation and we're seeing it being driven further down the funnel. It's not just about awareness consideration, but we're seeing it much more in actual sales metrics and actually having this shopping meets sports element through retail media and e-comm and it's

We're really starting to see those kind of shifts now of how to use it much more from a commercial revenue driver perspective as well.

Steve (05:56.978)
You know, so interesting when you mentioned digital, the youthful woman that you are, having gotten involved in this industry when I went over to Asia in 1990, I can tell you we had no digital at the time. And the big three without a question would be TV number one. Hands down to this day, we both know as much as we want to extricate, and you've written on this extensively, you have a beautiful article on your website talking about the

Louise Johnson (06:01.996)
What?

Louise Johnson (06:08.555)
you

Steve (06:25.594)
if you will, the illusion of ROI or be careful about being anchoring expressly on ROI. We'll get into that as to how do we attempt to define ROI. But when you look at the valuation, no matter how much we want to extricate, don't be reliant on the media alone. The media is still for any brand manager, marketing manager, sponsorship director. It's up there as a big three, if you will. You mentioned VIP corporate hospitality, and then those

minority that did it very well integrating into their sales element. What was going to be a driver, measurable driver, and again, talking about the measurement aspect and you use a host or I would call the trifecta of measurement is if I recall from what I've read, you kind of look at it at your organization in a way that breaks down sports sponsorship into looking at three pillars of media performance, impact on brand health,

and econometrics modeling, if I remember correctly.

Louise Johnson (07:23.658)
You've done your homework on us. I'm very impressed.

Steve (07:27.256)
Louise, a woman of your stature coming on the Transactor Report requires only thus. So if you will, when we look at trying to go beyond, for those who get sports marketing, you've lived this for over two decades, you're a leader in the field, and we don't want to see a sponsor, a company, let's make it human, a human being in the role of steward, a custodian of their brand, who have the obligation to spend their budgets effectively.

Louise Johnson (07:33.237)
Yeah.

Steve (07:56.208)
recognizing they have a broad number of tools in the toolbox to strategically impact their target market. And sports marketing is one of those anchors. It's an anchor. But we see all too often, it's done in a way that can be very fleeting. Or they might stick with it, but they have, what we like to say is they have on their optimization index, done very little. They're very poor performing. Because they have not made use, as you've said,

activating this effectively. So one of the articles you wrote about the Olympics in Paris talked about Samsung's expertise and the success they had with Team Great Britain, Team GB. Would you just give our listeners kind of an overview of what made that successful for Samsung? And if you will, was it such a novel idea and can it be replicated? And in the competitive environment, I want to load too many questions on you.

Louise Johnson (08:32.632)
Yes.

Steve (08:54.354)
But is it now a necessity that the way they did it at the Paris Olympics, is that now a one and done experience? Because as someone likes to say, special effects are effective if effectively used. I'll yield to you to give our viewers an understanding of what happened with Samsung at the Paris Olympics and why did you find it to be such a successful activation?

Louise Johnson (09:09.944)
Yeah.

Louise Johnson (09:19.298)
And I think Samsung's a really interesting one. I think because obviously they've got a lot of legacy and a lot of time and investment that they've put into the Olympics. And what I really liked is that they took very much a athlete first approach this year in Paris. And I think that's interesting because not only are athletes seen as that real engagement tool now, they're activists as well as athletes. And being able to use athletes to tap into a younger audience because

the Olympics is actually quite an older audience and actually needs to be aged down to remain relevant. And I think Samsung really recognized that, that actually too, you need a blend of people who have participated in previous Olympics, but also a whole host of new athletes coming in as Team Galaxy, but also looking at kind of the new sports that they were going into. So, know, skateboarding, breaking, all this kind of stuff and people with real stories.

I think coupled with the fact that the IOC relaxed the athlete rules when they were in the village. So they were able to have a more direct athlete to fan interaction enabled by Samsung's products was brilliant because you could actually have, it's a real deep insight into the fan village. And I think we all saw that, didn't we? Of kind of, you know, what food they were eating and, you know, what they were getting up to and just real personalities came out of the Olympics, not necessarily people who won medals, but people who were really kind of shunned.

through. So I think that was really interesting for me. They were, they used influencers and athletes in a very unique way that demonstrated with the audience, but they also used it from a digital perspective in terms of how to really have a sort of digital first strategy. And I think obviously like putting the phones into the actual, you know, the round as well, they were able to negotiate, negotiate that with the IOC. So there were moments that they could then capitalize on that digitally as well.

And I think that digital shift was seen by a number of brands over the Olympics this year. And I think, okay, that's obviously a combination of budgets being deployed differently, but also it's really where the engagement and the content is being consumed. And you saw that across a number of brands like P &G as well. Usually they done a huge, great big hero creative ad.

Louise Johnson (11:37.994)
Actually, that wasn't the case this year. They actually made it more brand specific. And again, it was much more digitally focused than on broadcast. So I think Samsung just captured, I think, kind of where we are as a moment in time in terms of, you know, digital first, capturing athletes, getting into the heart of it, and then just using it tactically throughout the games really, really well.

Steve (12:00.904)
And just for additional color, so Samsung distributed over 17,000 flip phones, one of their new phones to every athlete competing in the games in Paris. In addition, so after a team Great Britain, which was a sponsor team, after every victory, every medal acceptance, according to what I've read, quoting, actually, you're my source text that sales went up 23 % based on that aftermath of their

Louise Johnson (12:06.222)
Yeah.

Louise Johnson (12:24.169)
Thank

Steve (12:30.94)
their metal count. And so you had a direct measurable effect, which in this, what has been an elusive industry, powerful, but elusive. What did I get? How do I know there's a correlation or preferably one day a causation between what I did? And when you start looking at what Samsung did or with the nurseries for the children that Pampers engaged in, where they engaged one of the top athletes, female athletes.

Louise Johnson (12:40.056)
Yeah.

Steve (12:58.978)
in representing their opportunity to have daycare for the children of athletes. Interesting, today I sent out to my team at SportsBiz an article, it was brief, it was about Pop-Tarts. Now, declaration, I don't eat Pop-Tarts. I understand they are toaster pastries. I grew up on them as a kid, but in this stage of my life, I try to avert.

Louise Johnson (13:18.219)
Are you supposed to know that?

Steve (13:26.952)
those types of products. not going to go into a bashing of our friends from Pop Tarts. I will say when I saw the Pop Tart Bowl in the United States, the college bowl game last year, and again, or this year rather, actually it was December, I'll quote, I'll ask my expert, our CMO, Dave Wharton, whom you met, I'll get my fail fact check me on that. It was December or January. I'm going to stick with December. So they did something so innovative, which caught the hearts of many, which by having a toaster pop out of

Louise Johnson (13:45.292)
Yes.

Steve (13:56.359)
giant, giant Pop-Tart and award that to the winning team in the bowl game. What I just read was the more important part that if you measured the eight weeks after the Pop-Tart bowl versus the eight weeks prior to the Pop-Tart bowl, two months of sales, just for fun, because we like to have fun, I'm going to give you three choices. They went up in sales by 50 Pop-Tarts.

by 250 pop tarts, by 3000 pop tarts, or over 22 million pop tarts. Which would you choose? 22 million pop tarts. So, mean, smart.

Louise Johnson (14:36.29)
okay, the third option. 3,000, think you said. Is it more?

No! my goodness. That is incredible. my goodness, you have to know what that equates to sales.

Steve (14:56.836)
Measurement eight weeks prior, eight weeks after. Again, we don't know what other factors went into the eight weeks after the bowl game. So just to be true to statistics and true to the market of what they might've invested in, were they investing in more commercial time? Were they airing different types of commercials that came out after the bowl game? What type of point of sale activity was going on? Were there any discounts on sales activated nationally at that time?

Are you getting feedback?

Louise Johnson (15:29.614)
you're cutting out slightly.

Steve (15:29.66)
I just got feedback. Just give me one sec. Are you hearing my voice all over?

Yeah, I got it. Right?

Steve (15:42.77)
Test one, two, three. So keep this in, we'll edit it out. All good. Thanks, Ry. So what's fascinating is while we have this, I think it was on the last one with, give me one sec. So perhaps there were point of sale discounts being given by the brand Custodian and it was done nationally. but for the most part.

there you can kind of give or take, let's give it a 15 % standard deviation. Incremental sales were meteoric and there's no question the amount of press they got for the novel way they activated during game live activity. And that seems to be perhaps the holy grail today and I'd like your take on that. Is the chase now to one of the chases?

to more how can I get live, near live, as concurrent as I can because of the technologies we have. And therefore, is it an imperative today to be more, like you referenced Pampers as an example, is it essential for brands to be thinking more of in the moment activation as where the big score for sponsorship is gonna take place?

Louise Johnson (17:09.912)
think it's really interesting. I think measurement as a whole, I think in our world, is always been slightly behind sort of broader media marketing. And it's great to see that agencies like ourselves are really driving that forward to be like, how do we make sure that sport is being measured like for like in terms of modern marketing and looking at all of the inputs that you would get to say, what are the actual return on objectives and what is that?

regardless of what brand you are. So I think I'm really pleased to say that more clients are really leaning in and putting investment into measuring the whole funnel now, which is great. I think in live moments, I mean, I think we're seeing from clients is that you need a bit of everything. You need to invest in these big cultural moments, but then how you activate is really, really important. And actually the Poptox one is a great example actually, because...

And I remember seeing a case study in Cannes this year. was incredibly lucky to be president of the sports jury in Cannes this summer. And they had a fantastic entry. But a lot of the entries that we saw was live moments. They were brilliant. They were absolutely fantastic. But they didn't necessarily put any measurement against that or an effectiveness. And that was the one thing as a jury we were really looking for in terms of, here's our criteria. It's got to be, you know,

Steve (18:16.273)
Mmm.

Louise Johnson (18:30.422)
relevant to the fans, it's got to be driving for the brand, but also what actually did it deliver? How is it being measured? So I think it's still, we've still got a long way to go. I still think that more investment needs to be made in measuring this activity. More investment needs to be looking at what worked, what doesn't. Live events are going to be, you know, they're still king. And I do really feel that we are moving into this golden opportunity.

Steve (18:39.624)
Mmm.

Louise Johnson (18:56.396)
I also think as well with the whole element of cross-culture at the moment. you know, sport, it's not just sport or soccer or football. It's soccer times fashion. It's soccer times music. And these live moments are going to get more and more and more sophisticated and elaborate and more cross-genre. And again, I think there's even more ways to then measure it because you're using so many different genres. So I'm really pleased that we've made progress as an industry, but I do feel that there is so much more to be done.

moving forward. And I think, you know, as an industry, we need to be really elevating that with all of our clients to really demonstrate, you know, the industry is booming and there's a reason because it works. Let's really show how that works now.

Steve (19:39.56)
So tell us just brass tax measurement. You have a kind of three fundamentals I call the SIB, shifting perception, increasing top of mind awareness, and building relevance to an audience. Those are three areas that your company uses to assess measurement or help them understand that value proposition they received that hopefully affects the bottom line to justify their sponsorship.

While we recognize there's a lot of intangible value propositions that exist, one of the areas we're getting deep into, it's brutal. It's a very nuanced, difficult space. requires a lot of collaboration with the brand is understanding VIP corporate hospitality. When you have such an intangible, and did I maintain sales because that individual came?

Did I, do I understand how to stratify my VIPs because not all VIPs are created equal? Did I, was I able to correlate any again, we were up for a contract and I learned that at least from their emotive standpoint, the experience they had with us at Man United was meaningful enough because of the way we treated them in such a unique fashion, gave them such a unique experience. Their kids were photographed with their favorite athlete.

And that was furnished by Louise Johnson and Fuse, or actually, if you will, Louise's clients. That's a lot when Louise's clients are getting some very, very serious long-term memories that exist from the sports sponsorship. Those memories sometimes are very hard to quantify. So if we look at just your approach, and again, on a very high level, when we look to shifting perception as a means to drive sales, ultimately,

Louise Johnson (21:09.527)
Hahaha

Steve (21:31.836)
contributing towards what we call that RI. So give us just that high level view of what does it mean to shift perception? And that will help me understand my ROI, my sales. It will lead to better sales consequence.

Louise Johnson (21:44.694)
Yeah, sure. I mean, I think a lot of work that we do with clients is around shifting perception, but first of all, getting that mental availability. So you've got to be in the areas that people are passionate about. And I think being able to get that mental availability first is absolutely key and very, important. Shifting perception is then about how do you want to talk about your brand to those, you know, to this, to this client.

sorry, to your consumers, whether that is a mobility story or it's about a trust story. And it's how that you can demonstrate those values with that partner and show that in tangible ways. I think so a lot of the work that we do, we test a lot of the activation theories that we do. So before we go in, we will test, OK, what does this creative look like? Will this shift the perception of brand X from Y to Z?

Here are some of the activation principles. How does that fit? So we'll do quite a lot of consumer panel work first as well to say, okay, it's this property, but how we activate and show up, we need to try and shift that perception and look at those different values. So I think that's really...

Steve (22:50.104)
Are those third, just interject one just quickly, are those third party panels, are those synthetic panels using AI today? Could you give us an understanding of what constitutes those panels?

Louise Johnson (23:03.542)
Yeah, sure. So old fashioned way at the moment, just regular people.

Steve (23:07.842)
focus group focus group life of experience. Is that done by your action? Is that done by your firm or do you actually outsource that?

Louise Johnson (23:14.798)
We do both. have, it depends on the client and it depends on, know, say for example, if it's a health client, you need very specialized experts to do it. If it's more broader than we'll do ourselves. But I think you just mentioned AI here. And I think it's so interesting about the role of AI coming in on measurement as well. And it's something that we are really leaning, like what is that transformation story with AI, particularly on measurement, because, you know, you're going to be able to do quicker, faster.

more accurate measurements very, very quickly. And I know it's something that you are obviously an expert in as well. So I'm really excited about how that is going to kick the industry on as well. Of course, there's an ethical piece around this as well, an ethical framework that needs to be in place because with greater transparency and speed with AI, there's also a huge amount of risk. So I think, again, that's the dynamic that we're going to have to work through as we go through.

benefits of AI within our space, not just from a fan engagement perspective, but also from process tools, efficiencies and measurement.

Steve (24:20.988)
You know, just to finish, I'm gonna come back to the AI in just a moment. The awareness, top of mind awareness. Can you give us an illustration of what would constitute effective top of mind awareness?

Louise Johnson (24:31.648)
Yeah, sure. So I think, you know, one of our clients recently, it's a handset brand who basically said to us, you know, we need to go and we don't have the budgets of some of our big boy competitors. We need to be getting top of mind. And partnerships is a great way of doing it. Help us work out what this is. So we were able to do that. We took them into a number of bunch of European football clubs.

because obviously soccer is a great way to get that top line awareness. But it was also how they activated, which was incredibly important to get that awareness and the considerations shifted. And again, goes back to what we talking about earlier. It's about doing activation of your assets in a very integrated way, in a very, very digital way as well. So I think we've had some fantastic results with that brand over the last season and a half.

And now as you evolve that property as well, you're moving it from awareness and consideration into sales as well of those handsets, a little bit like the Samsung example. So I think, you know, it's, there's an evolution with all brands and it's kind of where they want to start in that process. But, but yes, we're kind of, we're having some great success with some of our clients on those European properties at the moment.

Steve (25:45.062)
And your third leg, if you will, was the building relevance to the consumer. And that kind of gets us back into this whole AI world. The last guest we had on our show was David Edelman, who was the former CEO of Aetna, the insurance group, who just came out with a book. He's now at Harvard, and he's, I believe, associated with Boston Consulting Group, was at McKinsey. Just came out with a book he co-authored entitled

Louise Johnson (26:01.132)
Yes.

Steve (26:13.746)
personalized. I think it's marketing strategy in the age, customer strategy in the age of AI. And to distill it, which you really wouldn't be fair to distill the entire book into one sentence here, it's a good read. He writes in a very, very easy to digest fashion. But it's this recognition, to your point about relevance to consumer and relevance to consumer using AI today, this personalized journey.

Louise Johnson (26:25.606)
No.

Steve (26:42.418)
that we've now come to a much more pulling people into the messaging and rewarding them for being a client of your handset client, rewarding them in a way that they feel the messaging to them is holistically personal and that AI can, as a fan of sport, provide that very personalized experience. So it's not just your old style

mass marketing, constant bombardment of email to a what's called generic audience, or it might have Steve, we thought you might like this. But it's really based on my behavior, my consumer behavior, this keen knowledge base that particularly as a fan of sport is put forth to the property owner, that they have enormous amounts of data collected on the fan and their interaction with the property, the team.

Louise Johnson (27:18.986)
Thank

Steve (27:41.028)
And therefore in the relationship with the sponsor, there's an opportunity to come off much more personalized. How much is that now becoming front and center in your, your, your, your kind of Welton shang, how you see the worldview of sports marketing and how you evolve in your relationship, your fan experience.

Louise Johnson (27:58.72)
Yeah, such a great time, isn't it, to be working in our industry. I think, know, brands that will embrace an AI strategy and do it respectfully in the way that consumers are going to appreciate their data being handled. I think those are the ones that are going to really win. think, you know, again, agree with you, like hyper-personalized content, you know, experiences.

completely co-created for you, predictive merchandise, all of this stuff is so exciting. And you're starting to see that, think, from brands. Puma just came out with Man United recently to do an AI, the third kit version. So fans can go and make their own AI version of the third kit, which is a great example. So some really nice stuff that's coming out. I would say more broadly, brands that we're seeing, our clients, they are more in the test and learn stage at the moment.

And I think because it's a huge responsibility with this, you know, with AI, it's going to transform our business. But I think at the moment, everybody is still in the test and learn and looking at the ethics around it. And I think we'll see that change into next year. Definitely sort of second half of next year. I think people will be braver once they've done those tests and learns. But I think 2024 has been, let's just explore, see what we can do, like baby steps and then build from there.

Whereas I think, you know, over the next couple of years, that's obviously going to explode. And I think what we're trying to do is, is help clients. What is that roadmap? What are the things that you need to consider? What's best practice? What's kind of the watch outs? What are those ethical frameworks that you need to put in place? And then once you've got that right, then scale up.

Steve (29:45.244)
Louise, when you look at being a member of the Omnicom family and obviously big news this week, so thanks for joining us. I won't probe on that one. Just to say, it will be interesting to see how the regulatory bodies handle Omnicom's prospective acquisition of IPG, creating, I think, a $34 billion entity and clearly a media forerunner. When you look at your team, do you ever sit and say to yourselves,

Louise Johnson (29:50.983)
Thank

Steve (30:15.278)
Where are we going to become obsolete? How do we, let me rephrase that. Where do we avoid, how do we avoid obsolescence in the era where a year from now, you and I, I believe within 12 months, maybe 24 months, let's say I'm off by one deviation. We can have this conversation. It'll be Steve's bot and your bot literally speaking to one another.

Louise Johnson (30:33.207)
you

Steve (30:38.952)
And I think it's within 24 months that that will happen. Reid Hoffman, as we know, I mentioned David Edelman, just enamored with Reid's interviewing of himself from 18 years ago. And was interviewing his bot and he has more demands for him to speak on the speaking circuit for his bot to speak than Reid Hoffman, the actual flesh and blood human. Do you ever sit down with your team and say, are there areas of the client relationship sponsorship provision that we, what we proffer?

Louise Johnson (30:48.398)
you

Louise Johnson (30:54.126)
Are you kidding?

Steve (31:06.3)
that we think that actually in this next one, two, three, five year, 10 year, whatever it may be, that could be rendered obsolete. We might not be needed for that. And then where do we regain our quote unquote human supremacy?

Louise Johnson (31:21.036)
Really interesting. was actually having a conversation with a client at lunch yesterday about this and it's interesting. And I think there's always going to be a place for that trusted advisor consultancy piece, which that's from experience. That is from being in contracts. That is being on the ground. That is dealing with crisis management. I just don't think that you are going to be able to put that into AI and have that successfully implemented when a client calls you to go, I've got a problem. However, of course there are...

so many ways that AI can come in and transform that agency and client relationship. And actually we've been asked to do that, you know, how can you make the team more effective so that you spend less time doing project management and more time being creative and more time strategically looking at how we can hit some of these measurement metrics even faster. And a lot of clients are saying to us, come on, come and do that as a journey with us. You know, how do we do a trial together to go, right, okay, what's the...

client responsibility here, what's the agency responsibility here, and how can we make improvements? And I think that's really exciting. I'm, the whole collaboration piece, I think is really exciting in the way forward. What I think, you know, lots of people are scared of is, AI is going to take my job and AI, there's not going to be a need for, you know, a bunch of account managers anymore. And I think, of course, AI is going to help taking some of those laborious tasks away from us.

Steve (32:20.712)
you

Louise Johnson (32:48.184)
but it's also going to free us up to be able to come up with bigger ideas, better thinking, more time with clients, more time with rights holders, more time being able to think about where this industry is going. So yeah, I'm hugely excited, but it's a real hot topic with clients at the moment and no one's quite got the right answer. And I think there's lots of different variations being talked about.

Steve (33:12.562)
You know, I'd be remiss if I didn't address one of your perhaps most accomplished areas of your career is in recognizing that in one particular case where you cover the gamut, when we look at women in business, let alone sports.

It's while it's extraordinarily gratifying for someone like myself to see parody and to yearn and to see the yearning for parody starting to come to somewhat of a promise of fruition that it could be consummated. For you having lived this and experienced it as a woman in the business, as I understand it, at least what I've read multiple times, you are the only female CEO, woman CEO in all of the UK or perhaps

in our industry, I mean, is it our industry or is it?

Louise Johnson (34:03.79)
Hopefully, I think that's changed now. For a long time in the UK, I was the only female UK CEO. I'm delighted to say now that we, there are, I've seen a few other people being elevated up. I'm delighted to say in the UK that has changed now. But I think globally, I think I'm the only, if you look at all of our competitors there, I am definitely the only female global CEO.

Steve (34:14.962)
Okay.

Steve (34:25.316)
I was going through all the lists in my mind of everyone with whom we interact, and I actually couldn't think of a female CEO of any, let's call it international corporation. This year, 2025, 2024, rather, has been just, it's inexplicable how the likes of one human being could have such an effect to catapult a topic where male counterparts

who play the game, and I'm speaking specifically basketball and Caitlin Clark here in the United States, were guys who were legends from 20, 30 years ago who are broadcasters, particularly Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal, starting to say, you know, last year I would never even thought about going to a WNBA game, but I'm going. And I went, and then they come back on air and saying, it was so gratifying, it was so satisfying, it was extraordinary ball, it was entertaining, it was worth it.

Louise Johnson (34:58.9)
Thank

Steve (35:23.544)
every minute being there. And for the first time, I think in a holistic level, there's not a company that cannot, that you just can't ignore women's sport. And there's a sense that as I hear myself think out these thoughts, that actually there are opportunities that we may not be able to afford to miss. That we're at a inflection point that if we keep this in coast mode,

Well, we might come back and it's instead of what we thought it was and an entry price at X dollars, it's now exponentially beyond that. And our competitors have seized it. And we just have been shut out of some very important places in the narrative of consumer relationships and relevance that women's sports is here. It truly is now here from a broadcasting level.

from a sales standpoint on ticket sales, from a consumption of merchandise, certainly an incremental value of what's being covered in the press and how much front headline news that we see. Your sense of are there challenges associated with coming into the relationship and now building a connection in the women's sports space? And again, if you would just hit

What might be those challenges? And again, where do you see this evolving both in the United States and on a global level?

Louise Johnson (36:57.92)
Yeah, I mean, we have had just the most amazing, I think, you know, two years in women's sport. It's been incredible to watch. And you mentioned Caitlin Clark there. mean, that was the Nike deal that she did. I mean, just got so many headlines and it was a real kind of moment of, OK, right. OK, this is we'll be taking really seriously now. And actually, you know, people have forgotten that the purchasing power, you kind of ignored half of the world's purchasing power and actually, you know,

Steve (37:22.344)
Well, how about fidelity? you just to share one thought, how about fidelity that we've known for 30 years that the patrons, those who really will patronize a sponsor's brand in a much higher level than their male counterpart is women who are passionate about sport will. NASCAR was really the vanguard of this. We learned that women were much more loyal to the team. I forget what the spread was.

But it was the fact that women will acquire more and be more loyal to the brand when they have an affinity towards the sport and that brand has that concurrent, know, collective affinity.

Louise Johnson (38:04.15)
Yeah, absolutely. to build on that, I mean, all the work that we did actually in looking at the European soccer audience and actually like where is the relevance for brands. And actually, you know, there was an opportunity for women's sorry, to basically say, look, actually, you know, people are more willing to buy from a brand who are a partner of women's football. And I thought that was really interesting, much more so than the men's. But I think

Steve (38:26.864)
Hmm. What do you attribute that to, by the way?

Louise Johnson (38:31.413)
I think it's because, mean, you sort of it, when you go to a basketball game or, you know, I go to the Arsenal's ladies, women's games a lot with the team and it's just, it's an amazing experience. It's so much more fun. It's so much more lively. It's more family-orientated. It's less aggressive. It's just, there's a real feeling of joy in these things and it's fantastic sports. I mean, those athletes are amazing.

I always go to Arsenal and the women score much more goals than the men. So it's constantly, it's brilliant.

Steve (39:07.336)
Well, look at the United States as a parallel. mean, I never watched the American national team, US national team in soccer, football. I just don't watch it. The women's team, mean, every World Cup, mean, Alex Morgan and team, I mean, for us, that was superior in every aspect of viewership and of engagement. It was a much more compelling product to consume. Is there...

Louise Johnson (39:15.48)
Yep.

Steve (39:35.44)
Is there any pitfall when you when you deal with brands that's expressed to you? We want to be a part of this culture. We we've decided this is important to our corporate vision, corporate philosophy alignment with our whole D.I. approach. All these important fundamentals. Is there any any any cautionary message that you as a as a a guide, a coach, a nurturer, a creator of strategy and choice, a guider of choice of what they should sponsor?

Is there anything that's cautionary in the approach when it comes to new brands coming into women's sports?

Louise Johnson (40:10.07)
I mean, there's challenges from it. mean, even though it's, you we've seen a massive shift in women's sport, which has been fantastic, there is still some nervousness of brands actually putting their money where their mouth says. And I think there's a couple of reasons for that. I think the first point is that there's a fear of brands getting it wrong. And I think a lack of knowledge from marketers on how to invest in women's sport authentically and for the long run. So I think a large part of what we do is show them how to do that.

Steve (40:19.975)
Mm-hmm.

Louise Johnson (40:37.582)
authentically, show them that it is a long process. It's, know, you're not going to get results in a year and then you come out, not with any partnership anyway. So I think kind of overcoming this fear of getting it wrong. I think the second piece is around media coverage. Now, of course, audiences have increased massively and we've seen that from a number of, you know, US and global properties over the last two years, particularly around the summer of sport.

However, it's chicken and egg a little bit because, you we talked about this already, that some brands are still very hesitant to invest due to the lack of confirmed media coverage. And people still do put that whole, you know, media investment lens on things to get sign off. And then broadcasters might be hesitant because the lack of confirmed money from advertisers. So it's still overcoming that as well and showing people that this is a different, it's a different way to activate it. It's a different way.

to get your value from it as well. I think overcoming that challenge. I think also the third piece for me that we have really advised clients on is that of course there is still a very big parity story to be done. And that's absolutely essential because there still isn't equality in terms of, you know, prize money and how much they're paid and coverage. However, there is a massive creative storytelling opportunity with women's sports.

And I think, you I've spoken a lot about this over the last couple of years, and I think for me, it was really amazing to see some of that come through. can. Out of the 21 medals that we awarded, over a third of them were given to women's sports. And that really showed that actually that creativity is coming through. And we awarded the Grand Prix to Orange Women's Football. And there's amazing other examples like Nike's What the Football, WhatsApp, I under.

Matilda's in Australia. And I think it's that recognition that, you know, these are athletes in their own right. You can't compare them to men. They are fantastic athletes, they're big personalities, and there is a big opportunity to use them in a very creative way. And I think that's the real bit that we're trying to get clients to go, yeah, of course, like EDI is really important. There's a big parity story to do, but do not forget, these are brilliant athletes and let's celebrate them.

Louise Johnson (42:55.104)
And for me, this summer, seeing that was just a real pivotal moment of like, OK, we've got this. And I'm really excited to see how that's going to build over time as well.

Steve (43:04.296)
So I'm gonna end on a statistical note. I have a hypothesis. And my hypothesis was in preparing to get to you, to know you better, in getting to know you better for this discussion, is that I think there's an inflection point that's happening. And I think as there's a direct correlation, no rocket science here, but I think there's a direct correlation between the rise of women's sports and the rise of women executives in women's sports.

Louise Johnson (43:08.588)
Okay, go for it.

Steve (43:31.93)
And that's on the brand side, that's on the property side, that's on every side with respect to how we start seeing the integration of women into the business of sports on a much more pervasive level. I'm starting to see it piecemeal. And I believe that the increasing attention to women is breeding a new culture of women who yearn to be in the business of sports and have a voice in the women's of sports and not leave it male dominated. And obviously having that parity.

We'll do wondrous things for sponsors and all other stakeholders, fans, et cetera, in the industry. So I think over these next several years ahead, we're going to start seeing more names populate. And, and I think it's all positive for the industry. We need to do this again. There's so much more to discuss with you. It made for compelling conversation. And again, as the CEO of Fuse and with all your overtures globally.

was exciting to see the announcements that have come out just routinely now. And I gather you have a pretty bold mission of being world empress, which is exciting, which we know we'll continue to see more from Fuse and obviously your foray into United States and with your parent OmniComm and all that activity. a real pleasure, Louise, having you on the transaction report today.

Louise Johnson (44:55.576)
Steve, it's been such a pleasure. I've really enjoyed that. Thank you so much for having me on the show.

Steve (44:59.912)
Great. Great.