Tag: Agency Partnerships


A Day in the Life – Festival Sponsorship Management 3rd September, 2015

As another part of our Day in the Life series we invite you to Pula, Croatia and the current site of Slingshot Sponsorship clients Outlook & Dimensions music festivals.

The music festival is now in its 5th day with international artists and brands in full swing. The Slingshot Sponsorship team have been hard at work over the last week to ensure all the sponsors plans and activations are fulfilled and surpass expectations. Welcome to a day in the life of onsite sponsorship management:

Morning

  • Awaking to the near sound of silence (with most festival goers all recouping from the previous night’s antics) the team meet for breakfast at the festival’s staff area to discuss the sponsorship programme delivery so far, the plans for the coming 24 hours and to share any stories from last night (always entertaining!).
  • Following breakfast the team retreat to the confines of their laptops to ensure all images, social media and admin are planned and in order for the day ahead.
  • The rest of the morning is allocated to ensure delivery on any outstanding work from other client accounts, liaising with the team in London to stay up to date on any actions from head office.

Afternoon

  • The early afternoon has been a flurry of activity each day with a host of tasks and favours called in, whether ushering VIP’s to locating an elusive set of keys the team are on hand to ensure all activation is running smoothly.
  • One of the key features of Dimensions Festival is the Knowledge Area, an area where festival goers can create music, collaborate with each other and listen to acts and idols from across the festival talk about their experiences and deliver expert workshops. Sponsored by the likes of Native Instruments, Abelton and Urban Ears the team are busy setting up the necessary sponsor equipment, marketing information and ensuring all attendees are aware of the schedule for the day including the featured artist’s key note – a huge draw in the late afternoon.
  • New Era’s key activation at Dimensions Festival is the artist lounge. A place for artists to relax, meet the crew and other artists as well as access the range of New Era merchandise available. The team are underway ensuring the lounge is still in pristine condition, stocked with all styles and set for tonight’s activation.

Night

  • Following dinner the team are briefed in and informed of any specific requirements.
  • One section of the team are on hand at the Knowledge Arena to ensure the smooth change over from the workshop to the delivery of the artist key note speeches with a huge crowd set to listen to the legend George Clinton.
  • The remaining team are on hand at The Clearing to welcome all artists to the lounge, mingle and capture content. Tonight there were specific requests from a number of artist from across the festival stages who asked for New Era caps for their onstage performance, which the team duly delivered and captured the content from.
  • As the music continues until 6am, enough of the team are on hand for the rest of the night, a couple of members take the opportunity to visit a select stage or two of their favourite artists and join in the Dimensions vibe.
  • With happy sponsors, well delivered activations and content captured from across the festival it’s time to retire to bed and catch a few hours’ sleep before it all begins again!

Top 3 Sponsorship Predictions 2012 9th January, 2012

Following the mulled wine and too many Quality Street sweets over the Christmas period, I thought it would be important to kick start the year with some predictions on the sponsorship industry for 2012.  With so many new things happening this year, it may prove to be a unsettled year for many organisations and difficult for anyone to predict much; however, here are my top 3 predictions:

1.  The Olympic Predicament

To sponsor or not to sponsor events during the London Olympic Games period – that is the question on everyone’s mind.  Although most of the big brands have taken one road or the other, many brands still have not yet decided how to take advantage of the opportunity of millions of people descending upon London providing a fantastic opportunity to reach a global community locally.

The nervousness lies in history as well as legalities.

With many brands having never been involved with initiating marketing campaigns during the Olympics, it can be almost impossible to decide whether sponsoring events or even increasing marketing during the London Olympic Games will pay off or if you will just get lost in the brand mass.

Although I can’t predict whether or not every brand should go for it as it will always be brand dependent and also dependent on the activation and platform you will be pushing your marketing through – I can say that the London Olympics is providing an opportunity that won’t be coming around again in the near future and if you are able to take advantage, then you should get on board.  However, I’d recommend deciding how you’ll participate sooner rather than later in order to make the most out of your sponsorship and marketing campaigns during this period.

2.  Brands are Working Together

I mentioned this in last year’s prediction post, but it still rings true today.  More and more, brands are working together and creating synergy of resource.  Most often this is because it is cheaper, but more importantly brand partnerships achieve more together than they can apart.  This is a huge benefit of sponsorship, but you can also achieve the same benefits through in-kind partnerships and joint strategies – for example, getting a Print Partner or a Media Partner on board with your event.

Furthermore, more agencies will be looking to work together rather than treating each other as competitors.  We’ve even gone done this route recently teaming up with Brand Innovation Agency BITE in order to provide their Scandinavian-based clients with sponsorship services and our clients with branding services – benefiting both sets of clients!

3.  The Sponsorship Market will be Cluttered!

With a significant number of public funding organisations losing their funding this year, I anticipate there will be an influx of sponsorship proposals being sent out to brands.  This means a number of things for rights owners, but mainly:

  1. Rights owners will have a harder time selling sponsorship.
  2. Great proposals and pitches will differentiate the competition rather than platforms due to lack of resource.

And for interest, you can also read my 2011 Predications Blog and find out whether I was right.

Good luck with 2012 – regardless of whether my predications are right, I can bet it will be a very interesting year for everyone.  And of course, don’t forget to sign up to the Slingshot Sponsorship Blog in order to track my predication progress!