Drafting a new sponsorship strategy is hard work. It’s usually done in response to a crisis in an organization. Whatever the circumstances, drafting up a new sponsorship strategy often requires making meaning out of a mess.
A growing number of brands are promoting themselves as leaders of positive social change and positioning themselves as beacons in a storm. They participate in social debates and have had the courage to take controversial positions even if it has meant alienating some their customer base.
Just a few years ago, standard, and often rigid, sponsorship structures set most sponsors on the same level. But as brands get better at crafting their own narrative, generic platforms with properties are no longer working to create goodwill. Brands need to find a clear positioning for their sponsorship portfolio as well as within each property.
Using Tech to Empower Decision-Making
How do you know if you’re making the right sponsorship choices? This is a hard question to answer because sponsorship is a complex industry with lots of moving parts. But when you start with the data and use tech to track your progress, it empowers you to make better, more informed decisions.
One of the most popular articles on the Elevent sponsorship blog is a piece called “Top 10 sponsorship ambushes.” This always makes me wonder: why is this still a thing?
Many of the examples in that article are dated, with the most blatant cases of ambush marketing perpetrated by Nike in the 90’s (though they remain the bad boys of sponsorship to this day).
The presentation centred around the misguided practice of organizations spending "big money" to establish platforms such as magazines, blogs and video channels and then obsessively force-feeding them content, simply because the platforms exist.
Lee described how some businesses are the masters of their own misery, creating content-guzzling monsters that—in a vicious circle—"keep growing and thereby require more and more input." Ironically, efforts to beef up platforms leave in their wake ever-expanding monsters bloated full of token content.
Relevent15 conference review
By Joey Franco
In a world where the dissemination of brand communications is dictated by a mysterious and constantly-evolving media landscape, companies like French need to be at the top of their game and on top of the many mechanisms that make up today’s connected world.
Noel makes it clear that the ever-changing media space has made sponsorships more challenging. Brands are looking for more return on their investment, and every dollar counts.
How many times have you heard that sponsorship is no longer about visibility but all about engagement? Pretty often, I’d wager. While this is true enough in principle, the fact remains that 1) sponsorship can still be an effective way to build brand recognition and 2) before even thinking about engagement, you’ve got to first be sure consumers are going to remember who you are. Almost in all cases, the link between sponsor and property needs to be made before moving on to more complex objectives.
The vast choice of sponsorships can by tempting for any company, especially if you assess each one in a vacuum. It’s easy for a sponsor to feel like a kid in a candy shop when so many options abound, but the wrong choice can lead to a scattered portfolio. Such an approach can sometimes yield positive results for a sponsor, but a well-structured selection can enhance your performance tenfold. Here we’ve broken down the strategies successfully leveraged by major brands, and drawn a few important conclusions. Here are six sponsorship strategies worth taking note of:
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