How VLAST helps leaner teams deliver the right message.

Organisations built on talent know how they can be pulled in all directions.

For teams that run light on numbers or on resources, that can create a real backlog of challenges.

In the sports business, PR, marketing and communications departments are often kept lean but with an expectation of strong results. With responsibilities that run across the board, they must remain efficient and creative to meet their targets.

Their task is made many times more complex by the question of talent. Communications departments must often control access to star athletes for media and commercial partners, as well as a team’s own audience needs.

Demands in all directions
Those in PR, communications and marketing functions share a unique balance of responsibilities. Their role is both inward-facing, with obligations to partners and colleagues, and outward-facing, including oversight of a team’s reputation among fans and the media.

As well as managing third-party requests for athlete appearances, these departments must consider where talent fits in community and fan engagement campaigns. That level of accountability can trigger an avalanche of requests, set to different timelines and with varying expectations attached. It can be difficult just to prioritise those duties, let alone execute on them all.

Meanwhile, the stakes are high. The running risk of miscommunication and missed appearances threatens dramatic consequences. Poorly flagged appointments can frustrate athletes, whose time is at a premium, and coaching staff, whose pursuit of sporting success comes first.

Failing to meet obligations to partners can undermine negotiations for renewals - or, worse, see deals end early - with an obvious financial impact.

That all feeds into one simple reality: lean organisations do not have the luxury of wasting time.

Pulling together with VLAST
VLAST’s unique talent management solution helps teams keep a comprehensive view of appointments and requests.

A secure, centralised platform keeps updates for multiple departments and stakeholders in one place. It also improves talent activation outcomes by tracking and monitoring all deliverables, ensuring partners’ demands do not fall through the cracks.

This helps PR, communications and marketing departments identify who is available for any opportunity, while athlete profiling to ensures the right talent is chosen for the right activation based on their interests, social audience and personality.

All of this is achieved while preventing the overuse of star individuals. Not only does that protect relationships, it makes commercial appearances a positive experience instead of a burden.

All that added efficiency can help any team become more than the sum of its parts.