PHOTO TAKEN FROM COURSELINK
Hello and welcome to the final content strategy blog! Can you believe that we’re at the end already? Our final guest speaker is Marco Renda, a marketing and sponsorship expert based in Toronto, specializing in purpose-driven sports business. He works at Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE), as a Sales Executive in Partnership Development, creating and renewing strategic partnerships across the Toronto Maple Leafs, Raptors, and FC teams. Renda, a graduate from the York University Schulich School of Business enjoys listening to country music, playing golf, and exploring culinary gems. Renda shared that he always knew he wanted to be involved in the marketing industry, but didn’t exactly know where he wanted to get involved. However, through one of his courses he was introduced to what he claimed as a very interesting part of the business called “partnerships” and “partnership marketing”. This is where he got first involved with MLSE as an intern. During his third year, he completed a rotational program where he learned all about the business of partnerships and discovering that a huge aspect of this industry is media and communications. He mentioned that they produce a lot of content for various programs for their different partners leveraging association with the teams that MLSE owns the Leafs, Raptors, TFC and Argos. Because Renda started out as an intern, he had to learn everything from the ground up, but in his eyes, it was more about wanting to gain real world experience. Additionally, he highlighted the process of aligning brand partnerships with team goals, stating that successful campaigns focus on enhancing the fan experience while meeting business objectives. For example, he describes a standout partnership with Subway featuring Toronto Raptors player Scottie Barnes. This campaign highlighted diverse fan stories, while blending marketing, journalism, and production. Furthermore, he emphasized the importance of understanding platform-specific content strategies and learning from audience feedback, which is something that many of the other guest presenters this semester also touched upon. A few of the key takeaways from his presentation that resonated with me the most was: you have to seriously tap into what you’re passionate about and what draws you in and what ultimately makes you happy. I think that this is simple yet strong advice for anyone, in any industry. In addition, his mention of how any experience is good experience, whether that’s an internship, working part-time, personal life experience, a project that you might have worked on independently or with some colleagues, friends or family, any of those are good experiences. Finally, in this industry and in most industries, it all comes down to truly understanding what specifically you like and where you think you fit into the equation the most, then seeking out opportunities that make sense for you. Thanks so much for reading all of these blogs this semester! 🙂
– Taahirah Baksh – 11/28/24 –