5 Minutes with… Jon Dyson
Jon Dyson has always had a sport-focused career, starting in broadcast production before moving over to marketing. He learned his trade on his graduate job at Sky Sports as part of the team producing football-based comedy talk show Soccer AM – five years of hard graft that honed his understanding of football culture and its meaning for people.
His broadcast career later led him to a role as producer and director for FATV, creating video content for the Football Association from 2010 to 2014, which was when he took a turn into sports marketing, joining Pitch International.
In 2018 Jon joined London culture-focused agency Formidable as a producer before stepping up as head of sport in 2021. His focus is on developing social campaigns and content series for sporting brands and with sport influencers. Recent creative highlights include Amazon Prime Video Sport's 'Ben Foster Meets' social series, and 'Make Me Smile', in addition to Sportsbet.io x Southampton FC's collab campaign that featured Southampton fans participating in a game show which was hosted in the Southampton FC Locker room.
LBB’s Alex Reeves chats to Jon about football culture, best-in-class sports marketing today and his favourite sport moments.
LBB> What sports did you always have a passion for, and which have you acquired a taste for later in life?
Jon> Football. If I wasn’t kicking a ball around until it got too dark, I was glued to Radio 5 Live and Football Focus, digesting every word from back to front of FourFourTwo, and then eventually going square eyes at Sky Sports Super Sunday when that became a thing. I also loved to play cricket, but as a kid, found it a bit too slow for my liking (something which has TOTALLY changed as I got older).
LBB> What were the defining moments in your broadcast career, before you got involved in sports marketing?
Jon> I did a lot of work experience as a teenager: The Grimsby Evening Telegraph, BBC Radio Humberside, The PA, and a stint at FourFourTwo. But without doubt it was my first job fresh out of uni that shaped my career – Soccer AM.
I was a HUGE fan of the show. It was probably the only thing I couldn’t miss other than live sport. So being able to kickstart my career there was life changing.
Producing three hours of live TV every week for 46 weeks of the year was the hardest thing I have ever done – and still is. We weren’t there to edit banging ‘openers’ for the live games. We weren’t there really to research and write the best interviews for managers and players. We were there to look at football in a different way. To work with players in a different way. We were there to bring players and fans closer together. And whilst doing all of this, we were impacting and creating fan culture… the show was an ‘influencer’ before anyone really knew what this word meant in the content world.
LBB> And how did you get into the marketing side of sport? What's kept you interested?
Jon> With the proliferation of social media, we’re seeing the worlds of traditional sport entertainment and marketing blend, and there’s a huge amount of untapped opportunity here, which is what got me interested in sports marketing.
At Formidable we specialise in blending the sensibilities of advertising, entertainment and PR to create social-first content for brands, so when I came on board, I started to explore how we could offer this to sports brands and personalities specifically.
With my experience of working with football players and understanding their strengths on camera, we realised there was an opportunity to help brands who had access to sport talent tap into the player’s potential (and limited time) to create engaging and entertaining content.
Whilst there are agencies out there who focus more on traditional scripted and message heavy TVC content, we started to build a reputation for creating content using sports personalities that helped build up fan communities, whilst also delivering a brand’s message but in a much more authentic and platform-specific way.
The challenge of making something that speaks to fans, works for brands, and is enjoyed by players is something that really excites me. If you can tick all those boxes, you’re well on your way to a strong piece of social content.
LBB> The dynamics of sport have changed a lot in recent years and sports stars now have a lot of power over their own narrative. How do brands need to approach that situation?
Jon> I actually think brands have it easier than ever before.
Yes, players are more demanding of controlling their narrative… but this is a BRILLIANT thing. It means they care. They get it. They don’t want to do ‘any old advert’ to get a few extra quid. They want to be associated with brands that work for THEM.
And it also means that brands can really research the right talent to work for their campaign. They can really home in on a particular audience and find out which players – and influencers – would be the best fit for this. And that is what we love helping with.
Whilst the audience has never been as content savvy as they have today, neither have the players. When you say to them ‘this is for TikTok’ they instantly know what that means. They know it’s probably not a detailed interview. It’s probably not going to take too long. It’s probably going to be a bit of a laugh. Whereas if you say, ‘this is for the host broadcast’, they know it’s probably an interview. They probably need to concentrate. And it might take a little while.
LBB> What have been your recent creative highlights and why?
Jon> We’ve had a lot of good success creating content for Amazon Prime Video Sport in recent years, and probably the ‘Ben Foster Meets’ series is a highlight for me.
When we got Ben Foster onboard, we knew straight away that we had the perfect blend for a great series; a former athlete with a great career behind him who also totally understood social media and had a great YouTube channel (and podcast!).
It meant when we pitched the series to agents or the clubs themselves, they relaxed knowing Ben was involved. They knew it would be a chat baked in football, with bags of personality and a chance for the player to relax. They weren’t going to be stitched up and they weren’t going to be on the back pages the next day.
LBB> Looking ahead to the year in sport, what are the specific dynamics around sporting events that you're most interested to see play out in 2024?
Jon> It’s a massive year for sport with the Euros and the Olympic Games, so we’re all in for a treat.
I love seeing what other countries do on social when it comes to covering their team – like Spain having Jose Enrique doing live Q&As on Twitch during the World Cup in Qatar.
England of course set the bar very high when it comes to content. Their access to the players in camp – something I never had when I was doing FATV – is so good. And the people they have behind the scenes means the players are always relaxed and it never seems like they’re forced into doing something.
And of course, I am looking forward to seeing what the broadcasters do to take the viewing experience to the next level. They’ve started trialling wearable cameras on referees in the Bundesliga, so it will be interesting to see if they make an appearance somewhere this summer!
LBB> What's your favourite sports marketing moment?
Jon> For me, it’s the unexpected moments that really stand out. It’d be easy for me to sit here and talk about the latest adidas Predator campaign or the brilliant campaign they did with Jude Bellingham. But you kind of expect adidas to be doing great stuff.
I really like it when you see something unique. Something that makes you sit up and take notice. And there are a few that jump out to me.
The first, was Norwich City’s brilliantly impactful #WorldMentalHealthDay video. A really simple creative but brilliantly written, acted and edited.
Another one I loved isn't technically just a marketing campaign, but at its core, it was publicising a sport and a huge brand – and that was NFL’s ‘Toy Story Funday Football’. Such a brilliant way to engage with new fans, promote a classic brand, and just wow the rest of the world with the creativity and technology to pull it all off.
I also loved most of Burnley’s player announcement videos. Some were better than others, but it became something football fans were waiting for when the club were linked with a new player ‘how will they announce this guy?’.
And away from sport (kind of…) is basically anything Ryan Reynolds does. He has the Midas touch when it comes to social marketing. He and Rob McElhenney have played a blinder with the way they’ve embraced their role at Wrexham, and it’s meant they can play on the stereotypes perfectly.
LBB> And to finish on something more fun than marketing, what's your favourite sport moment?
Jon> What a question!
Probably because of the occasion and time in my life, I’d say Beckham’s goal versus Greece. I was at uni in a pub, and it was like a scene from the famous BOXPARK celebrations of Euro 2020. To be honest, I had to watch the game back to relive it (probably after a few too many snakebites!). He must have had so many free kicks sail over that day, that eventually one was going to go in… and it did.
On a personal note, I’d also add my first FA Cup Final when working for FATV, which was unreal. I remember being on the pitch filming the celebrations and thinking to myself, ‘if you’d have told 10-year-old me that one day I’d be stood on the hallowed turf at (the new!) Wembley during The FA Cup Final…' special moment indeed!
