Tag: Festival Sponsorship

The Knowledge Arena – Challenging The Traditional Festival Model 11th September, 2014

The end of summer always signifies the end of another chapter for the Outlook and Dimensions Festivals team at Slingshot. But summer blues aside, this year’s editions of Outlook and Dimensions Festivals brought with it the launch of the Knowledge Arena.

Curated alongside CDR Projects, an evolving multi-platform music project – Outlook & Dimensions developed an immersive new learning experience space that focused upon music creation, performance and collaboration. For the 14 days spanning first Dimensions and then Outlook Festival, festival-goers and artists were granted the chance to be inspired by their surroundings and have the opportunity to creatively channel their experiences in the sun at the Knowledge Arena.

The Inspiration

Technological advancement in the music industry has meant that the process of music creation and performance have continued to blur. Spawned from the minds of festival Director Johnny Scratchley and CDR’s Tony Nwachukwu, the Knowledge Arena was created to take a deeper look into these processes and to understand what factors influence the work that is produced and then performed and enjoyed at Outlook Festival and Dimensions Festival.

The Enablers

Alongside Ableton, Akai and M-Audio, the Knowledge Arena created a fully immersive experience for individuals. The tailored programme featured a mix of music creation workshops, artist masterclasses and conversations and ‘Open Play’ slots which allowed individuals the chance to develop their own ideas supported by a team of specialist producers and DJs.

Such an exploration was delivered alongside Ableton, M-Audio and Akai. A studio was built on the festival site and was fitted with a wealth of equipment for everyone to get their hands on from – Ableton Live, Akai APC40, Ableton Push and M-Audio Trigger Finger Pro.

The Results

Not only was the Knowledge Area a space for festival-goers to engage with workshops from our Knowledge Arena professionals, it also hosted a programme of talks and demonstrations from some of the top artists on the bill for both Outlook & Dimensions. The Knowledge Arena saw the likes of Omar, Seven Davis Jr, Alexander Nut, Roman Flugel and more discuss their creative processes.

The Knowledge Arena brought another element to the festival experience at Outlook and Dimensions Festivals this year. Not only did it allow festival-goers the opportunity to try their hand at the latest kit out there, it gave them the chance to delve further into the creative processes of the artists they admire. Each of the artists engaged with their workshops and talks with a level of honesty that you would not be able to find elsewhere.

Coming from a single conversation between Johnny and Tony, the Knowledge Arena is just the first step towards the evolution of the festival experience at Outlook and Dimensions. Keep your eyes peeled for exclusive footage that will be released over the coming weeks.

Thinking of warmer climates: Why UK brands are investing in festivals abroad 27th November, 2013

The fact that the heating is permanently on in our office, my (much maligned) Parka jacket has come out from the back of the wardrobe and I’m already bored of the hype around Christmas can mean only one thing: it’s November. In order to stave off the cloying, high-pitched tones of Santa’s elves and remind us of warmer times, our friends at Outlook have released their 2013 Festival highlights – a 9 minute long adventure through the myriad of music and magic that is Fort Punta Christo, Croatia, for four days at the end of August each year.

The video itself takes me back to an incredible two weeks working at Outlook and Dimensions Festivals this summer, but it’s a scene at 4:22 that reminded me just how successful the sponsorship around both festivals was for 2013. The scene (below) is UK-based DJ EZ performing a headline set wearing the official festival jacket, which was created by the festival’s fashion partner, Majestic Athletic. Over 500 of these jackets were created to announce the partnership, with an initial 100 being used for promotional purposes (gifting, Facebook competitions and artist fashion shoots) with the remaining 400 selling out within the first 48 hours of going on sale at the festival itself.

Majestic’s sponsorship of Outlook was a major success for the brand, as were the campaigns by the other partners we brought in for 2013. Although all four key partners were successful, investing big chunks of UK marketing budget in festivals 1,000 miles away was a leap of faith for all parties: a ‘shot in the dark that paid off’ were the words of another sponsor who I recently had a sign-on meeting for 2014 with. So, why were the sponsorships so successful and why are UK brands increasingly looking to partner with foreign-based (in particular Croatian) festivals instead of the closer and well-trodden events in the UK.

The experience

I think anyone who’s spent a week partying in an abandoned Austro Hungarian fort that overlooks the Adriatic Sea, sunbathing on a beach all day while eating fresh calamari for 50% of what a burger costs in the UK would find it hard to argue that festivals along the coastline of Croatia have one-up on your standard ‘music-in-a-field’ UK festival. The exotic location and the novelty of the experience make stronger, lasting ‘holiday-like’ memories that invariably influence brand-attitudes and ultimately purchasing decisions amongst festival goers when they return back home.

The audience: adventurous and committed

Whether it’s booking flights, changing currency or remembering your passport, getting to Croatia takes more effort than going to Reading. There’s also the reality that your mum can’t pick you up if you drink one too many tequilas and lose your wallet containing all of the above. In short, this means that the 30,000 hardy souls that descend on Pula for Outlook and Dimensions each year, not only rely less on their parents, but are also likely to be more adventurous and instigators of brand trends, rather than followers. For a drinks or clothing brand these are the exact people they want to target as they are the people that will promote their brand when they return home.

In addition, the effort involved to get to Croatia illustrates the commitment the audiences have to the festival they’re flying to go to. From research we’ve done into customers of Outlook, over 65% of them have been to the festival on more than one occasion, meaning an increased level of loyalty and therefore more receptive to the brands that the festival has chosen to further compliment their experience at the festival.

Social – reduced burden on experiential

The ascension of social has given festivals (and therefore its sponsors) a year-round platform to speak with this committed following on a daily basis, rather than through sporadic and often un-targeted communications. This has allowed for sponsors to leverage their benefits for prolonged periods of time and puts less pressure on them spending vast amounts on on-site activation. One of the key reasons for UK brands failing to invest in Outlook and Dimensions has been this lack of understanding of the social benefits available and the worry that their on-site activations will be even more expensive and more difficult to carry out than if they worked with a UK-based event.

The Sun – Because no one likes the rain. Apart from ducks.

My Top 3 Digital Sponsorship Campaigns 25th March, 2013

Sponsorship campaigns have always relied on brand synergy and mutually benefitting concepts but now it is imperative to incorporate the partnerships through a digital platform. Here are three of my favourite digital sponsorship campaigns…

Nike and Apple (Nike+)

The Nike+ sponsorship campaign stands out for simply the sheer size of the two brands involved, as corporate logos go, few are as identifiable. For Nike and Apple there was no case of ‘clash of the titans’- merged products (shoes, sensors, kit) allowed joggers to be notified of progress by iPod prompts as well as tracking distance and duration. The data could be uploaded to a Mac or PC, and then on to Nikeplus.com, giving people the chance to record progress, set targets and share results.

For Apple, the sponsorship allowed them to target consumers from a different angle and created a much more fulfilling exercise experience thanks to their technology. For Nike, the sponsorship helped them shift their brand image away from bad press concerning labour ethics and high-profile court cases previous to 2006. Aligning to Apple, which had a very clean reputation at the time, aimed to help add credibility to some of the promotional tags that Nike were trying to shed.

Vice and Intel

Vice is brash, incisive and radical, which is exactly why Intel bit, their aim was to diversify their brand image. John Galvin, director of Intel’s partner marketing group, admitted that “if we give music fans the opportunity to have this amazing experience, maybe they will think about Intel differently, becausewithout our technology, this wouldn’t be possible.”

Having Intel as a sponsor not only associates Vice to a global brand but it also acts as a service for their multiple digital ventures. Intel has now partnered with Vice on two of their most impressive subsidiaries, The Creators Project and Noisey. The collaboration has a real sense of synergy – Vice finds fresh talent and creative pioneers in order to distribute the content and footage while Intel supply cutting edge ways for fans to engage digitally.

Kopparberg and Spotify

Independent cider brewer, Kopparberg partnered with Spotify and Last.fm in 2012 to create the Kopparberg Festival Player, which helps UK festival-goers plan their schedule of bands they want to watch over the summer based on Spotify playlists, the app featured playlist sharing and chances to win tickets to the most sought-after festivals in the UK.

The appeal of this campaign is Kopparberg’s chance to connect with fans through music, rather than direct, brash marketing which festival-goers tend to disapprove of. Furthermore, the partnerships drives awareness of the brand and drinking Kopparberg before they even get to event, which cuts out the competition and resonates with the customer. With their involvement at more than 15 UK festivals and major events in 2012, this became a key reason for their sales success.

When Sponsorship Goes Green… 10th September, 2012

With the increasing prominence of environmental issues, event organisers can no longer neglect such concerns when planning for their respective event. This has led to ever more sophisticated green strategies, as well as a number of award shows, conferences and competitions dedicated solely to sustainability; the Tree-Athlon, the What Car? Green Awards and the International Green Awards to name a few.

In his latest blog post “Olympic Sponsorship: Remember the Positives”, Nick Anderson mentioned such “sponsorships [were] becoming dangerously close to having an adverse effect on certain brands”: McDonald’s and Coca Cola were both heavily criticised in the early stages of their Olympic sponsorship. Nevertheless their Recycling program is playing a big part in achieving LOCOG’s goal to hold the most sustainable Games ever. At the beginning of the Games, Coca Cola placed 4,000 branded recycling bins across the venues and the Olympic Park, committing to recycle every soft drink bottle that was put in the bins into a new one within six weeks. Furthermore all Coca‑Cola products currently sold at the Olympic and Paralympic Games are in 100 per cent recyclable PET packaging containing 25 per cent recycled plastic and 22.5 per cent plant-based plastic. Those are just two examples of many actions that Coca Cola took ahead of the Games to implement their sustainable strategy.

Another example of this development is the recyclable McDonald’s restaurant that was built on the Olympic site. With this initiative, McDonald’s aim at reusing 75% of the restaurant and recycling almost everything else by re-allocating all the furniture and equipment to McDonald’s UK restaurant estate after the Games.

But it is not just sports events that are concerned by this green movement. Music festivals and their sponsors are increasingly trying to integrate sustainability within their sponsorship strategies. According to a Havas Sports & Entertainment Research, 80 per cent of European festival goers strongly feel that sponsors need a green strategy. The Glastonbury Festival in the UK seems to have it right, through partnerships with WaterAid, Oxfam and Greenpeace as proofs of its environmental commitment. The 2012 Reading Festival, which took place two weeks ago, followed this trend as well by launching a Recycling Champion competition two months before the event. The Student Recycling Champion worked with Every Can Counts to help promote the recycling of drinks cans and he got a chance to get backstage access to this major music event.

A benchmark example in the US comes from the Lollapalooza Festival in Chicago that dedicated a whole area within its site, called the Green Street, to showcase various environmental initiatives from different organisations and to engage festival goers. The Lollapalooza Festival included several charities and environmental groups in its sponsorship portfolio and gave them the chance to promote their environmental projects.

As the Havas Sports & Entertainment Research study proved, it is important to understand that “green sponsorship” is vital to every right owner and sponsor, no matter which age group they target. A decade ago sponsors with a green strategy were unique. Nowadays it has become a fundamental requirement of any sponsorship strategy. Thus whether you are a right owner or a sponsor, don’t miss out on the sustainability trend and seize the opportunity to make something unique out of it.

Are UK Music Festivals Created with Cookie Cutters? Outlook Festival Proves Not 4th September, 2012

The Slingshot Sponsorship team just got back from an amazing week in Croatia at Outlook Festival – Winner of the UK’s Best Overseas Festival 2011. It was an amazing event and we arrived home – albeit a bit dusty, sun burnt and tired – with so much enthusiasm for next year’s festival and sponsorship opportunities around it I wrote this blog en route.

But before I begin, I will first explain that the term ‘cookie cutter’ means the same thing as carbon copy or effectively just the ‘same’. Apparently (which I’ve just found out from my British colleagues) you do not use this term in the UK. It makes a better picture than carbon copy, so we’ll use ‘cookie cutter’ for the time being.

Now that is cleared up…

During our trip we spoke to a number of brands who came out to join us and the same conversation kept coming up – that UK music festivals so often mirror each other and rarely offer a truly unique experience – they are cookie cutters of themselves. Same stage, similar line ups, same parks, and even the same brand sponsors! Now, of course, this doesn’t include every festival, but on the whole the feedback we’ve had is that brands have started to fall out of love (which equates to a loss of ROI) from something that has been a stronghold in our sponsorship industry.

Because of this, brands who are interested and align themselves to music have started to consider new platforms in music and other music events that feature a UK audience, but position themselves in a different environment whether that is music genres or geological location. Outlook Festival combines both.

Engagement with a more unique event can be tailor-made for sponsors and the experience stands these brands out from their competitors in an often uncluttered market as they are more forward thinking and attract less bandwagon followers. This allows sponsors to showcase and create a more genuine, forward-thinking, and most of all memorable brand experience.

My music festival sponsorship tip – If you are a brand sponsor, consider looking outside of the usual. If you are a music festival in need of sponsorship, start considering how important differentiation of your festival is to ensure you are able to effectively drive brand relationships with your audience.

And just to share, here are some of our Outlook Festival Instagram moments from the team:

The Invisible Brand 17th July, 2012

Sponsorship in the past has focused largely on naming rights and branding. However, increasingly brands are moving their attention away from this approach towards more creative activations and a less ‘visible’ form of sponsorship.

Invisible Sponsorship

Festivals are a good example of where understated sponsorship can be the most effective. With a different music festival virtually every weekend of the summer in the UK, it is no surprise that plenty of brands want a piece of the action. However, festival sponsorship requires careful consideration on behalf of the brand.

Often a highlight to their summer, people tend to approach festivals with a more relaxed vibe and are therefore more open-minded and receptive which can make sponsorship of these events hugely appealing from a brand perspective. However, too much obvious branding and a lack of relevance to the event could have a negative effect. Festival goers want to relax and enjoy the music and brands should not make them mistake of trying to get involved if they won’t be perceived as bringing something positive to the experience.

Festival goers complained that gaming brand Xbox’s sponsorship of Bestival was not in line with their outdoor experience and this created a negative perception of Xbox’s involvement with the event. Whereas, alcohol brands have such a good response from sponsorship of festivals because the brand is integrated into the event, and in turn leads to people associating it with their positive experience.

When approaching a sponsorship campaign surrounding an event such as a festival brands should consider:

Creating the chance for the audience to experience the brand at the event in a relevant format through experiential activities
Amplifying the best attributes of the event through the sponsorship campaign – adding to the experience not taking attention away
Providing exclusive content in some form to share with the audience
Ensuring the brand has relevance to the event in some format

It is no surprise that the positive environment surrounding festivals continues to entice brands, however, it is important that brands think beyond the obvious message and provide real value to the event in order to gain the crowd’s approval.

Music Festival Sponsorship: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly 17th April, 2012

We have been talking a lot about music sponsorship here at Slingshot. Mainly because we are knee-deep in a couple of very exciting music projects, but also because everyone is gearing up for festival season. Mostly I have been consumed with which festival to go to for our agency’s second birthday, but I have also been having some interesting conversations with both brands and rights holders on what is coming up this year and the current state of music festival sponsorship.

The Good

Festival sponsorship has always been a great platform for brand engagement – especially in the UK market with the English music lover’s ability to bare rain, sun, sleet, and a muddy tent with a smile on their face. It not only provides the perfect atmosphere for a receptive audience, but also the space to really leverage brand experiences. Festival-goers walk away with memories they cherish forever, which can provide a significant amount of brand recall for future years to come. Consider V Festival – the name so synonymous with Virgin Media it surprises many when you find out they don’t actually own this festival, but just act as the Headline Sponsors.

The Bad

Because festival s has been such a great sponsorship platform, brands have flocked in droves – creating a cluttered market. Instead of engaging with a couple brands, festival goers are often bombarded by marketing messages,samples, activations, offers and more. One festival had so many pre-sale sponsors that most people didn’t know where to purchase tickets and so opted to not do it, which consequently saw the festival getting cancelled as they couldn’t underwrite the loss nor project the future sales of tickets for a show that saw a disjointed initial promotion.

The Ugly

Not only are festivals becoming more cluttered making it difficult for brands to ensure cut through, more festivals are entering the market and then being cancelled for a variety of reasons (see above). This creates nervousness for Marketing Directors who really need to be confident that their marketing budget is safe and working for them. Plans, resources, campaigns are in place well in advance and having a significant portion of their plans cancelled at the last minute is just not an option in the current economic climate where budgets are scrutinised and sometimes wrong decisions can place your job in jeopardy. Last year alone saw 42 festivals cancelled and already this year many major festivals are also calling in the towel.

But all is not lost!

This is not to say that sponsoring music festivals is a bad idea – far from it. But there needs to be careful consideration into which music festivals brands do choose to partner with and also a solid strategy in which to activate. When both the brands and the rights owners work together amazing potentials can be created and tend to drive not only the experience for the muddied music lover, but also create brand advocates and sustain the festivals that can deliver these innovative types of sponsorship collaborations.

Let Little Noise Commence 23rd November, 2011

Mencap’s Little Noise Sessions sponsored by ASUS and curated by Mencap ambassador Jo Whiley kicked off with a bang last night. Held at iconic church, St John-at-Hackney, the first of six shows saw Elbow headlining last night and, as many tweeps this morning commented, it was indeed epic.

With the St John-at-Hackney priest blessing the event, it would have been impossible for the gig to not go as well as it did.

The fundraising festival runs from tonight until Sunday and also includes gigs from the likes of rapper Example, pop diva Goldfrapp, Coldplay’s front man Chris Martin, and Scottish Mercury Music Prize nominee King Creosote.

Sponsors ASUS have tied it in with their fantastic campaign In Search of Incredible promoting their new N series of laptops and Zenbooks that have incredible sound systems developed with Bang & Olufsen.

We can’t wait to see how the rest of the week turns out!