San Francisco Super Week, no offset. This is the Sport Beach Clubhouse, where sport, culture, and marketing play on. Hi everybody, I'm Ally Kornford, CEO of 72 and Sunny New York. And I'm joined today by our good friend Don McGuire, CMO of Qualcomm, and we are coming to you live from the Sports Beach Content Clubhouse here in San Francisco during Super Bowl week. So excited to have this conversation and first and foremost Don, thank you so much for joining us and taking the time.
Thanks for having me. It's great. It's a fun Super Bowl week.
It's fun Super Bowl week and really what we're starting to do here is just celebrate the convergence of sport and content and culture. And I'd love to start off by asking what brings you to San Francisco and what are you most excited about this week?
Well, it's now become sort of more about the events around the event. Right. Exactly. And so there's a lot of really interesting business to be done, networking to be done. So my dance card's pretty full leading up to game day. But it is an exciting time. Sports has become such a catalyst for culture, for brands, for just sort of moving business forward. So I'm excited to be engaged in that and this event is one of the pivotal events in sport. So really excited to be here and looking forward to the next couple days.
As you said, I think it's incredible to see the number of brands, marketers, and athletes that are here for the week in San Francisco leading up to Super Bowl. Really a testament, I think, to the community that sport is bringing together. And I know just how important is sport to you at Qualcomm, not only to drive brand awareness, but to drive relevance. And would love if you could talk to us a little bit about the incredible partnerships you already have in Manchester United, Mercedes F1, now Live Golf. Talk to us a little bit about what you're doing in terms of sport.
Yeah, I mean we've, you know, dove into sport probably about four and a half years ago in a big way and we've got some pivotal and really, you know, so I would say kind of pillars that we have sort of across sport for different reasons, different audiences, different objectives, but within the Snapdragon sort of portfolio, it's really all about our partnership with Manchester United and our front of shirt partnership there, which has been phenomenal and amazing. And it's helped us achieve so much awareness and an affinity for Snapdragon around the world. Because it's probably the, you know, Manchester United is the biggest sport brand in the world and that piece of real estate is arguably one of the most coveted pieces of real estate in sports. So, that's been phenomenal. Our Formula 1 entry with Mercedes, you know, because our auto business has taken off and it's been super, super high growth is also a great way for us to build Snapdragon awareness and affinity in a different context. And then we've engaged locally with the San Diego football club, the new MLS franchise, the Right to Dream Academy. We've taken our sports partnerships into tech for good and into cause-based arenas. So, we've partnered with Manchester United and RED to help reintroduce RED to a whole new generation of people and the good work that they do for the Global Fund. We've partnered with Mission 44, which is Lewis Hamilton's foundation to improve the access to STEM education for kids in underserved communities. So, we've parlayed our partnerships not only for business objectives, but also for societal good. And that's been great. And it kind of brings that whole soul concept to the brand. So that's been great. We have an amazing relationship with Bryson DeChambeau and the Crushers at LIV, which is focused on the Qualcomm brand and really business decision makers and ecosystems and super happy about our partnership with Bryson. He's amazing. And so we're always looking for ways to sort of parlay and use sport to meet our objectives. And so it's been fun. Indirectly obviously we are involved here with the NFL because Microsoft is such a huge partner of the NFL's and the Surface which is the official device that is used on the field is powered by Snapdragon so indirectly we're involved but it's been fun and we continue to use sport and we think sport's a very powerful tool and passion point for people that allows us to then do brand storytelling.
What an incredible range as well, not only across the different sports, but in terms of how you're showing up within those sponsorships in general. I'm curious as well knowing that most of those are multi-year engagements. You're already locked in. Do you see sport as something you think you'll be continuing to invest in and even increasing investment over time?
I mean, I think if it makes sense, right? So, we are going to be announcing some additional sports sponsorship here very soon, which stay tuned, which we're really excited about. And you're right, we have multi-year agreements with Manchester United, obviously, and with that specific relationship, you know, we hope that we continue on even beyond the five years that we have contractually because it's such a special relationship and where the team is headed, the club is headed, but also the ROI is just so strong. Formula 1 is also just this ever evolving growing sport, especially in the US and so big season coming up, the cars are changing, should be exciting, we'll see who kind of moves up and down on the podium. So that's going to be fun to watch and so yeah, we're always looking to explore new opportunities if they fit and then we're looking to take some of our partnerships to the regional level as well. Things that are important. You know, we're a global company. We operate all over the world, but things that might be more important in Asia or in India or somewhere else. We're also looking at those opportunities.
That's great to hear. I think one of the words we've heard a lot this week is authenticity. And yes, that's a marketing buzzword, but I think, you know, as so many brands continue to enter the space of sport and really see that benefit, making sure you're showing up in an authentic way, not only for your brand, but for your consumers is even more important. Would love to hear from you. What does authenticity mean in terms of showing up not only as a brand but for yourself as a marketer?
