Tom Brady, Birmingham City and the mystery of 17 billion ‘positive media impressions’

“This is just the beginning of our journey,” Birmingham City boss Tom Wagner wrote in an open letter to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak this week.

In the communiqué, Wagner expressed concern about the plight of a proposed high-speed rail network linking London to the north, while also pointing to his football club’s growing prominence.

Explaining why England’s second city needed the network, Wagner highlighted the global reach of football clubs.

There was mention of a surge in interest in the West Midlands club – Players participating in a tournament, one level below the tournament super league — NFL legend Tom Brady experienced this after becoming a minority owner following the Wagner acquisition.

Wagner said this gave the club good exposure and headlines around the world.

So far, so good – This is After all, the Brady factor. We’re talking about one of the greatest and most recognizable quarterbacks the NFL has ever seen. A-list names.

Wagner expanded. “For example, during the 10 days in August that coincided with seven-time Super Bowl champion and entrepreneur Tom Brady announcing a minority stake in the club, Birmingham City became the most watched football team in the world, generating over 170 billion positive media impressions.”

Of course, as he said, there’s a lot of interest, right? But wow, wait for the Super Bowl…how many impressions? 17 billion? Seventeen. thousand. million? Really?

The current population of the earth is 8.04 billion. Does this mean that everyone on the planet somehow saw something about Brady and Birmingham in August and then saw it again? Or have a lot of people seen it countless times?

Let’s think about it…

What is a “positive media impression”?

The Dictionary of Public Relations Measurement and Research defines impression as “the number of people who are likely to be exposed to a story that appears in the media; also called opportunity to see (OTS).” Digital marketers and publishers use impressions as a unit of measurement, often paying less attention to the fact that they reflect how many people might have had the opportunity to see something.

So, in the world of social media, exactly how many impressions count is up for debate.You see a lot of content in your feed, but do you often click on the content that catches your eye or real read?

How does an impression become “positive” anyway? This is a difficult question to pin down, with no clearly defined answer.

Traditionally, companies have tried to label the sentiment of their media coverage as positive, negative or neutral (take a look at the bottom of this article to understand this), but doing this on social media will rely on engagement: likes, Retweet and more Like and save on X (formerly Twitter) or like and retweet on Instagram.

Can Birmingham-related content really generate 17 billion clicks?

What is the impression of the industry?

For some industry experts, the impression “didn’t impress anyone.”

As Katie Delahaye Paine, measurement, insights and analytics consultant at Paine Publishing, wrote earlier this year: “Impressions do not measure awareness or any other marketing goal. They are made-up numbers designed to make you think you are reaching people, when all you are doing is triggering the algorithm.

“You look like an idiot to senior leadership. Anyone who goes to a conference and reports that they “reached” 5 billion people is going to be satisfied. Even if you have

For every person on the planet, how many are real potential customers?

“Impressions don’t lead to results. They’re like sperm – there are a lot of them, but few do what they’re meant to do.”

So is this all marketing scam?

It’s possible – but it’s possible that Wagner’s claim holds true.

Tom Scott is the founder of Little Mesters, a marketing agency based in Sheffield, UK. While he agrees that “positive media impressions” is an odd metric to use, he thinks Wagner’s statement is reasonable if based on a specific methodology.

“If you take into account any news coverage from that period that mentioned Birmingham and Brady, it’s possible,” he said. “An article on a site like MailOnline can generate tens of millions of impressions, so if they added that to an article anywhere in the world, maybe on CNN, I think you could get those huge numbers.

“Then if you add in the number of viewers of any TV news channel covering the story, then that’s reasonable.

“Of course, unlike the ‘reach’ metric, which involves individual views, impressions might mean one person viewed something 100 times.

“Maybe they’re using some kind of tool to monitor sentiment, and if the TV story reports the story neutrally, I guess you can view that as a positive.”

sports world It is understood that Wagner’s statement may indeed refer to every piece of content and club content related to Brady, including instances where the same person or device has registered multiple views.

In addition to social media impressions and online views, it includes all news clips and TV viewers.

“This letter details Tom Wagner’s position and we do not wish to add anything further at this time,” a club spokesman added.

Wagner is co-founder and co-CEO of Knighthead Capital Management LLC, which completed its acquisition of Birmingham in July. story. In this case, this article would further inflate the total.

But isn’t Brady’s impact key?

The NFL legend is a global superstar with a massive social media audience. He has 3 million followers on Twitter and 14.4 million followers on Instagram.

In August, the 46-year-old formed a partnership with Knighthead USA, meaning the seven-time Super Bowl champion gained part-ownership of the championship team and became chairman of the advisory board.

In this role, Brady will “work directly with members of the club’s board of directors and Birmingham City Football Club’s leadership team”. Birmingham said Brady will work with the board “on global marketing efforts and identifying new commercial partnership opportunities.”

“Birmingham City is an iconic club with a rich history and passion and it is a real privilege for me to be part of the Blues,” Brady said. “The club is built on teamwork and determination and I’m delighted to be working with the board, management and players to make our Second City club a premier club.

“I have been part of some great teams and I look forward to applying my perspective to create the same success in Birmingham.”

Brady will retire from the NFL after the 2022 season, ending a 23-year illustrious career. The former quarterback spent most of his career with the New England Patriots but spent the final three seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

He holds the record for most Super Bowl wins (seven) and most Super Bowl MVP awards (five).

And, most likely, this is how 17 billion “positive media impressions” were generated.

(Above: Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)