Sport was the big winner at this year’s Sports Marketing Awards, which took place on Thursday 26 September at the Gazarte arts and culture hub. This major celebration of sports communication was aimed at bringing together, high-lighting and rewarding the best practices and most innovative ideas that have materialized on behalf of the Greek sports’ ecosystem, in the presence of prominent representatives of sport in the country, elite athletes, officials from top Greek teams, journalists and officials of sports marketing.

For Stoiximan, communication and sport are combined with creativity and responsibility, highlighting long-term sponsorship partnerships and corporate social responsibility actions with substantial social impact. Within this context, it is not by chance that the leading company GameTech in Greece, and one of the fastest developing in its field in Europe, entered the limelight alongside the evening’s leading winners.The solid support for great athletes, such as Olympic Gold Medallist Leftheris Petrounias; the strong sponsorship support for the Stoiximan Tokyo Team, for the 17 sports men and women as well as for the two national water polo teams on the road to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games; and again the communication highlighting this year’s champion PΑΟΚ in a spirit of unity far from team competitiveness, are all evidence that Stoiximan and the quality of its communications’ management place it in a class of its own.Furthermore, the activation of major athletes like Leftheris Petrounias, Dimitris Diamantidis, Spyros Gianniotis and Vassiliki Millousi as ambassadors for the programme “Little Heroes by Stoiximan” – a programme that has reached the remotest corners of the country and touched more than 26,000 children – demonstrates that sport can act as an inspirational model, from the Heroes of Today to the Little Heroes of Tomorrow.

More specifically, Stoiximan’s five nominations were honoured with six awards, the most prominent of which was the Platinum award for the “Little Heroes” programme of corporate social responsibility, achieving the highest average rating in the “Best Sports Marketing for Brands” category. By the end of the evening, the company had received two Gold awards in the “Best Sports Marketing for Brands” category for the video “PAOK FC – This is how the heart of a champion beats”, as well as for the corporate social responsibility programme “Little Heroes by Stoiximan”; while in the “Best Sports Sponsorships” category it was awarded a Gold in the category “Sponsorship of an Athlete” for its collaboration with that “Midas of the Rings”, Leftheris Petrounias, a Silver in the same category for its support for the Greek Olympic Team, “Stoiximan Tokyo Team” and finally, Silver in the category “Sponsorship of a Sports Association” for its major sponsorship of the PAOK FC team. “The fact that a communication project for corporate social responsibility action gained the largest average rating in its category, is a well-deserved acknowledgment for everyone involved in communi- cation”, commented Ms Angeliki Papadopoulou, Stoiximan’s Corporate Affairs Director, on the reception speech of the Platinum award for “Little Heroes” programme.

“The award for this programme has great significance, both for us as well as for the more than 26,000 children up to now, from all over Greece, who have had educational experiences through the opportunity it offers and have also got to know some of our leading athletes. From the thousands of students in urban centres, to students from Sikinos, Agathonisi and the other eight border islands we have adopted within the ‘Little Heroes for Greece’ programme, the ‘Little Heroes’ are constantly expanding with the collaboratiοn of such important organisations as HopeGenesis, Syblefsis and The Tipping Point.”“As people in sports marketing have a responsibility, for us it is that of promoting fair play, those exact values that make each game better”, stressed out Mr Panos Konstantopoulos, Stoiximan’s Chief Marketing Officer.

“At Stoiximan, we support sport in every way: from major teams to individual athletes, from the most popular sports to the least popular, from the rallying cries of the stadiums to the great honours of the Olympic Games. Sport is an integral part of Stoiximan and since our beginnings we have been fortunate in, and grateful for, all the collaborations that we have developed in this great Greek sports family: from Leftheris – one of Stoiximan’s oldest friends, with a collaboration that began in 2014 – and PAOK FC, with whom our story began in 2017 and was marked by the achievement of the Double, to the large Greek delegation in the Stoiximan Tokyo Team, with 17 female and male athletes and two national teams. For us this relationship goes far beyond marketing: it is the solid, day to day, support for athletes and teams, for all those who challenge themselves to attain the unattainable, for those who bestow great moments of entertainment, pride or both of these together. Support for those who inspire and unite.”