Portland-based digital marketing company SQWAD is teaming with Portland apparel brand Baseballism for an in-store marketing partnership.
It’s the first such program with a retailer for SQWAD, which specializes in in-stadium sponsorship campaigns with sports teams. However, since the pandemic the marketing startup has been expanding beyond stadiums and into other entertainment venues.
“We knew we would have to branch out to scale,” said co-founder and CEO Nick Lawson. “As great as sports teams are, if you want to build a big business you need more verticals.”
SQWAD, which started in 2015, has 75 clients that pay a subscription based on different features per activation, he said. These clients include sports teams like the Chicago Bulls, The Seattle Storm, Ohio State University and the Edmonton Oilers, as well as zoos, malls and a handful of country music stars who have used the technology to interact with concert audiences.
SQWAD has created a web application that allows clients to easily add in-game, in-stadium mobile activities. These activities include scoreboard trivia and digital scratch-and-win promos that can be sold to sponsors.
New partnerships beyond sports teams have come to the company organically, said Lawson. People see the technology in play and then see how it could work in their own environments. The small team at SQWAD then works closely to understand how to apply the product to a new vertical before targeting others in that space for sales, he added.
“The core (of the business) is brand partners that want to be in front of an audience in a unique way, but in a measurable way,” said Lawson. “We have been able to transfer that to different verticals.”
The Baseballism deal came after Lawson was introduced by a mutual friend to the brand’s Chief Operating Officer Kalin Boodman, said Lawson. The two had dinner and started chatting about sports sponsorships — Lawson previously sold such sponsorships before starting SQWAD — and what those partnerships could look like in a retail setting.
“That turned into conversations and a crazy idea to put (SQWAD) in stores,” Lawson said. The first activation was in March at Baseballism’s spring training store in Arizona. Following that success the partnership was rolled out to other store locations in June.
Customers within Baseballism stores are given the option of a QR code to an interactive scratch-and-win mobile site where they can uncover different prizes and discount codes. The idea is to get shoppers in physical stores into the brand's digital environment.
“The customer acquisition from SQWAD's platform has generated a proven ROI that rivals our Meta marketing.” said Jon Loomis, CFO at Baseballism, in a written statement. “Thanks to this partnership we are now exploring marketing activations we otherwise couldn't justify.”
SQWAD is still a small team of just three people. The company is profitable, said Lawson and has raised less than $100,000 from investors. Those backers are mostly angels, who know the industry, as well as the Pittsburgh accelerator AlphaLab.
Lawson and the team are determining how they want to move forward with funding. The company isn’t in need of funding at the moment, he said. Lawson will revisit that decision in the first half of next year.
