Author: Slingshot Team

My Sponsorship Predictions 2017. 23rd January, 2017

I predict a big year for sponsorship. It’s been steadily gaining a bigger seat at the big boy table, but this year I anticipate it will accelerate at great speed. We have seen big brands slowly start to pull away from badging and into more integrated experiential campaigns – lead by partnerships, whether in a traditional rights holder/sponsor sense or through multi-agency collaboration. The value of Big Data is finally being understood by the ‘every brand’ and implementation of data is finally getting into Star Wars territory (A.I. and more). As a bit of a geek myself, I am truly excited for 2017.

But at the heart of sponsorship and at the heart of sales for any business is the audience – which is why I predict 2017 to be big for our industry like never before.

Here are the trends I think we’ll see:
1. Young blood, new ideas: Sponsorship as an industry has grown and more university students are realising that if they can’t be the next David Beckham, then they could perhaps work in football through sponsorship. We’ve seen a significant increase in university students applying for internships and placements in the last year. Once these kids are out and start working, I think we’ll see a shift in process with some of the more traditional sponsorship agencies – and the creative that comes out of them.

2. Consolidation makes way for the little guy: A number of long-established sponsorship agencies got bought, sold and acquired last year (Brand Rapport, Brand Meets Brand, Generate Sponsorship) and I predict we’ll see a number of new start-ups in the sponsorship space launching in the next 6 months.

3. Consolidation lends to campaigns rather than ad hoc projects: With a number of long-established sponsorship agencies merging/selling into larger agencies with additional disciplines, the aim will be to create a more integrated approach for their clients. This type of business is more beneficial to clients through a long-term approach so I predict the desire of these agencies to focus on campaigns and retainers. This may create opportunities for other agencies to scoop up the ad hoc projects throughout the year.

4. Big brands taking on transformational sponsorship: Transformational sponsorship is sponsorship that shifts an entire business practice. Rather than being stuck moving the needle in the marketing department, Boards are starting to realise that integrating sponsorship can impact the entire organisation. We have had more requests from brands last year to help them integrate transformational sponsorship (or sponsorship without logos) than we have had in our 6-year history. This trend is sure to continue.

5. The ‘British Brand’ of sponsorship agency makes bigger waves overseas: Slingshot now has more than 35% of our retained clients headquartered overseas, with 60% of our clients international and the remaining national in the UK. This is a radical change from a couple of years ago when we only worked with local clients on local programmes with maybe a handful of smaller international projects. As technology makes the world smaller, there is greater opportunity to expand and grow market share elsewhere. I believe this trend will continue with both an influx of international agencies working in the UK and UK agencies getting brought in for more international pitches.

However you look at it, I think 2017 will be a very exciting year – best of luck!

*I was 4/5 on last year’s predictions, to see last year’s predictions click here.

How To Value Your Sponsorship Opportunity 23rd March, 2018

Value your sponsorship opportunity just right to ensure you’re not selling yourself short or scaring buyers away with an unrealistic valuation…

How do you value your sponsorship opportunity?

Rights holders often price their sponsorship packages based on how much funding they need, but they also need to pay close attention to the value that price offers to buyers.

The reason brands sponsor properties is because they believe the sponsorship will give them greater ROI than using their budget in a different way, such as buying traditional media display space. The price you set must reflect this calculation and offer better value than the many other ways a brand can spend their money.

These Dos and Don’ts that will help you set the right price for your sponsorship opportunity.

DO… Benchmark against competitors

Find out how much similar properties are charging (or have recently charged) for sponsorship to see how your pricing compares. You may be able to command a higher price than your competitors, but you’ll need to think about what you can offer that they can’t. Your buyer’s focus will be on ROI, so if you want them to invest more, they’ll want to see a greater return.

DON’T… Benchmark against properties that are in a different league to you

There’s a tendency to compare your property to the biggest and best rights holder in your given field. This will give you a false impression, unless you actually are in their league. Now is not a time for ego or kidding yourself that your property is bigger than it is.

DO… Know the true value of what you’re offering

Work out how much reach and coverage a brand will receive by sponsoring your property, then compare this to the fee they would ordinarily have to spend to reach this number of people. This can be worked out by finding the average CPM (Cost Per Thousand) for the given platform.

DON’T… Forget to consider sponsor impact

You may have calculated the value of each asset a sponsor will get, but don’t forget to consider the impact they can expect and how this may be diluted if you have more than one sponsor. A brand’s logo may be included on the press board at your launch event, but if their logo is alongside nine others, their impact should be calculated at 10% of what it would be if there’s was the only logo. This can also help you decide how many sponsors you want. Will it be better to target 10 sponsors paying £100 or one sponsor paying £1,000?

DO… Offer tiered sponsorship packages

Not every brand and potential sponsor will have the budget to sponsor the whole property, so it’s a good idea to have cheaper packages available. If you can split your assets and target different types of sponsors for each asset, you can secure multiple sponsors who all feel like they’ve got exactly what they wanted from the deal.

DON’T… Allow brands to pick and choose what they want

Splitting the assets can work well, but make sure it’s on your terms. Allowing brands to cherry-pick from the sponsorship opportunity will create a lot of work for you and may leave you with assets that you struggle to find a sponsor for. A sponsorship package is not a supermarket.

DO… Count your competitors

When looking at your competitors to compare pricing, it’s also a good idea to make a note of how many of them there are. If you have a lot of competitors offering similar opportunities, your pricing will need to be extra competitive if you want to secure maximum interest from potential sponsors.

DON’T… Try to charge a sponsor the total media value

As we mentioned, the sponsorship package you are offering needs to represent greater value and ROI than the media the brand could buy for the same price. So if you calculate the media cost at £1 million, the sponsorship package should be valued lower than that.

Following these do’s and don’ts will help you value your sponsorship opportunity at a level that attracts sponsors without undervaluing your offering. If you’d like further help with this or any other sponsorship queries, feel free to get in touch and we’ll be happy to help.

Contact Slingshot Sponsorship

Find us on Twitter: @Slingshot_UK

The Digital Value of Sponsorship 6th December, 2016

Rights holders need to begin realising the value digital can bring to their sponsorship packages. Due to the current lack of understanding around what constitutes a digital asset and how to incorporate this into a partnership, this will take a while.

Digital technology empowers rights holders. It allows them to understand who their audience is, where they spend their time and what they spend their money on. Some rights holders are using this digital understanding to improve fan engagement, but they’re not packaging and presenting it to brands in the correct way.

“I have an audience of 500,000” won’t wash. “We have an audience of 500,000; 75% Male, 65% between the ages of 40-60 and with an average income of £120,000” is where it should be – at a minimum. Communicating this to brands should be detailed and well thought out. Rights holders need to form ideas and strategies around how brands can access this audience intelligently rather than simply “I have an affluent male audience for you to target”.

Packaged creatively and informatively online audiences not only bolster an asset list but provide evidence and substance, rather than a vague reference point, that impacts a sponsorship far beyond the digital assets in discussion. Brands will invariably trust the rights holder more as they clearly have a good understanding of their fan base as well as the brands target audience.

The ROI can also be tracked far more accurately than before. There are now tangible click-by-click measurements such as how many fans bought a brands product, how many engagements content receives, how many fans entered a competition.

For example, rights holders can now offer feedback such as “our fans bought 500 of your products, and engaged with branded posts 4,000 times, giving you an ROI of 250% on a £50,000 investment”. Giving brands this accurate insight is invaluable and will be music to Marketing Directors’ ears.

These areas of measurement help identify the value of a partnership, its failures and successes. Meaning resources can be dedicated to improving areas of weakness, or focus on an entirely new partnership if the results prove to be that poor.

Brands are much more accustomed to the above way of thinking about digital. This is not rocket science, the above examples are simple yet worryingly foreign to the majority of rights holders. Those that adopt digital in the way it should be will attract more brands with far more exciting propositions than their logo focused counterparts – which is the name of the game right?

Our Top 4 Tips for Uncovering Sponsorship Assets 11th July, 2018

Over the years we have helped countless rights holders and sponsors come together effectively to great mutual benefit. However, that road isn’t always as smooth as it should be – particularly when it comes to sponsorship assets.

There have been many instances where we have witnessed rights holders only offering basic assets to potential sponsors, as opposed to its full armoury of options. Most commonly this translates into a focus around a logo and whilst this still does hold importance to a would-be sponsor, to get real value out of a partnership it is crucially important to ensure all potential assets are made available.

Allow us to put this into context for you. Imagine a fully-stocked supermarket that only sells items in the very first aisle to customers and blocks off the rest of the store. This will inevitably reduce the supermarket’s revenue and narrow the customer’s shopping potential. The same logic applies in the world of sponsorship.

The major problem with only offering some of the potential assets to a sponsor is that it’s impossible to know exactly what a brand requires to make the most of their sponsorship when reaching out before qualifying the lead.

As you may imagine, the chances of understanding exactly what a sponsor desires is increased simply by doing your homework and regular research, but there is still no better way to truly understand a brand’s approach than by speaking with them directly.

However, it is admittedly difficult to uncover all possible assets without previous sponsorship knowledge when you’re fully immersed in your own day-to-day tasks. So Slingshot is here to help with our top four quick tips for uncovering sponsorship assets…

1) Get into the brand’s mindset
Figure out exactly why a brand would want to be a sponsor and work out what you can specifically offer them that they’d simply be unable to get elsewhere.

2) Brainstorm with colleagues
Never tackle this sponsorship conundrum on your own! The more minds the better because, as with any ideas session, everyone thinks differently – which can be key to thinking outside of the box and uncovering assets which aren’t just a bog standard logo placement.

3) Travel the customer journey
Remember that sponsors ultimately want access to your audience. So travelling through the customer journey and understanding all possible touchpoints a sponsor can utilise to engage with your audience will showcase multiple key assets.

4) Check out the competition
Last but not least, try and get hold of your competitor’s sponsorship proposals to see what they are offering and how it differs to you. It may just spark a new idea or illustrate ways for you to improve your own platform for sponsors both now and in the future.

Case Study: Outlook Festival Knowledge Area

Back in 2015, we utilised our expertise of uncovering sponsorship assets to continue pushing the boundaries of the traditional festival model. We created something which added to the consumer experience and attracted brand integration at the Outlook Festival.

Named the Knowledge Arena, it was here we created workshops led by artists where guests could create their own music at the festival. This forward-thinking rights holder maintained focus on the consumer, leading to greater engagement and sparking brands’ interest in being involved with connecting to the audience in a deeper, more meaningful way.

Key takeaways

Any rights holders looking for sponsorship must think strategically before approaching a brand. Think carefully about the plethora of assets you can offer, particularly ones which resonate with certain target brands.

Once all assets have been uncovered, the goal then becomes ensuring these are effectively and aesthetically communicated in the best way possible to potential sponsors – and at the right price.

Disruption? Stop it. 28th November, 2016

Those who know me well know that I am easily swayed out of the office with the promise of good wine and sponsorship chat. Not only am I geeky like that (I could quite literally talk about sponsorship for days), I think it’s a crucial part of working in an industry that is shifting so quickly – you really need to know what is going on, how other people are navigating through what they deem is engagement with their clients, what challenges they have and how they are overcoming them. I find these chats both motivating and relatable.

Except when it comes to disruption.

Don’t get me wrong, we all love Uber. And yes, we all wish we came up with the Stratosphere idea. But to continue waxing lyrical with the ‘disrupt or die’ mentality is not progressive, nor very helpful. Equally when you consider Uber was just an idea to solve a problem – and not generated from a think tank. To expect entire organisations to fundamentally stop their day jobs to begin to disrupt is not feasible. To expect entire organisations to fully fund external consultants to come into their business to figure out how to disrupt them without an understanding of how that disruption will drive their bottom line is even more ridiculous.

I do believe in the value of disruption – but disruption with a purpose, and within the constraints of real life challenges.

Furthermore, in order to disrupt and have the mental capacity to begin to think about disrupting there needs to be space, time and most importantly a motivation. I often say that innovation is borne out of necessity, but to innovate before it becomes necessary is the holy grail. In order to achieve this, I believe that inspiration and capacity building through a shift in mind-set in stages is much more realistic and practical. Empowering and collaborating in small areas of the business and building from there. This isn’t typically how most people identify or recognise disruption. However, I think if you looked a little harder, you’d find it is happening – even in industries as stagnant as sport sponsorship.

The Rise of Corporate Sponsorships 14th November, 2016

Corporate sponsorships of charity events are often seen in a negative light. The common concerns revolve around a perceived lack of influence on the event, or a worry that it might not align with their sponsorship activities. Admittedly, there is some substance to this thought, however, there are a number of unique benefits to these partnerships.

The abundance of ‘moments’ charity partnerships offer (something brands chase their tail for) is clear to everyone. However, brands always struggle with how to integrate this content without having the direct influence they might enjoy with other partnerships. Perhaps the content is too specific to the charity or the production partner didn’t catch the right images to deliver the brand story.

However, rights holders are now able to edit, re-edit, super-impose, dub, fuse, and do whatever a brand might want to this content. The freedom this creates for brands is unprecedented. They are now able to integrate these ‘moments’ with their brand story to not only demonstrate their support for charitable causes, but most importantly to create an authenticity that is hard to find.

The new and exciting forms of charity events now allow them to be seen as an entertainment events in their own right. For example, Music In The Wild is an event involving ten celebrities climbing one of the new seven wonders of world – Machu Picchu – with an intimate concert at the summit from a multi-award winning artist. An event like this is the sort that brands would ordinarily want to be involved in regardless of the charitable element. It merges music, adventure and charity, meaning a brands story can be told in a variety of ways that trump traditional corporate partnerships.

Equally, being part of such an exciting project is a great opportunity to engage and galvanise a workforce. Rather than the fairly mundane rewards a company might offer, a brand can instead reward their employees with truly once in a lifetime experiences. For example, instead of the hospitality treatment for employees, events that challenge employees combined with charity elements have an emotional long lasting impression on employees. The power this has change their outlook and unite a workforce behind one cause is a huge. The knock on effect of this is more money being raised for the chosen charity which is yet another thing for a brand to shout about.

The rise of celebrity ambassadors and the increasing endorsements or associations they have with charities mean corporate partnerships are now a huge opportunity to increase reach. For instance, sponsors of the BT Red Nose Climb had a huge success off the back of association with celebrities such as Cheryl Cole and Gary Barlow. These associations will almost always come at a lower cost than an ambassador partnership and with a much more authentic message. It’s a no brainer – more reach with a more credible and emotive story.

With charities now starting to invest in commercial planning, they are finding out that there is more than meets the eye than the obvious CSR benefits. The opportunities to integrate a brands story, unprecedented events and sheer reach of celebrity associations offer endless opportunities. Once brands become smarter to the benefits of these charity events the real value of corporate partnerships will begin to be realised.

The future of consumer experience is changing, are you changing with it? 1st November, 2016

I’ve recently had the pleasure of attending a number of futurologist discussions around AI, wearables, VR and much more. As a bit of a geek, I find the evolution of technology to drive more humanistic behaviours fascinating – especially with my sponsorship hat on. The capability for us to communicate, influence and make choices is exponentially growing, providing us completely unique capacities to build audiences and experiences. While it is easy for us as individuals to get excited about the data gathered from our FitBit, it’s more enticing when understanding this in a macro marketing viewpoint.
As experiences become richer and easier to access, harnessing this insatiable appetite provides brands power they have never had previously. The capability to answer customer complaints before they happen through data modelling, providing an instore experience in the comfort of your home, and individually tapping into consumer preferences through diversified marketing campaigns supports a journey that both consumers and brands are evolving through.
Underpinning this evolution remains passion points. The key to why sponsorship is so effective, and arguably more so in this ever-changing landscape. However, the majority of brands and rights-holders are only really just getting to grips on how to effectively monetise social media. The overreliance on passion points is potentially hindering the sponsorship industry’s ability to integrate and truly make use of the data that is now available to everyone. But by doing so, combining the deep knowledge and experience of sport/music/art within the wider context of changing consumer behaviour, the sponsorship industry would be unstoppable.

Are we too scared to learn? 3rd October, 2016

I recently spoke at the Social Travel Summit in Inverness, which was a completely new experience – I’m used to speaking at sponsorship conferences. I arrived in the middle of a session where they had split industry (Trivago, VisitBritain, etc) and travel bloggers into breakout rooms before lunch. So as not to disturb, I peeked my head into the bloggers session to find a packed room. As I crept down the hall to peek into the industry room, expecting to see only a handful of people, I was surprised to see that industry actually filled up a bigger room than the bloggers!

I was shocked. In all of my experience and with all discussions about sponsorship events, brands avoid conferences like the plague and rights holders only attend to hit up the brands that are speaking. I assumed this would be the same. It turns out that it is (bloggers definitely are hitting up the industry for work), but after querying a couple of people in industry, it turns out that they don’t mind and “really understand the need for bloggers to help them build authenticity and create a genuine conversation with their customers”.

I have always been a big fan of events – not least for the after parties, but it makes me question whether the sponsorship industry’s gut reaction to avoid being bombarded is hindering our potential. Rather than creating special events that brands feel comfortable in, we should be creating compelling content in an environment that encourages and nurtures partnerships.

And don’t we all believe in a partnership at the end of the day?

The Strategy Behind Sport 10th August, 2016

Sports teams are built and developed – crafted over years of training, coaching, and trading. Ironically the same strategic perspective is not invested off the pitch. Although sport sponsorship is responsible for over 70% of the total industry, it still lacks the necessary expertise to execute a sustainable and robust rights holder commercial strategy. With so much sponsor churn, the sport sponsorship industry reflects a transactional method of sales with the highest bidder taking ownership of sponsorship rights that are often not fully utilised, supporting marketing strategies that are often never realised. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been an issue for most rights holders with sponsorship rights fees on the whole increasing. Why fix something that isn’t broken? Why undersell rights when you can oversell them? And why, if money is all that you are after, not align yourself to a brand that has no relation or even tenuous link to the sport.

The answer is that now you have to.

It’s not only more imperative for sports sponsorship sales teams to start thinking more creatively about how a sponsorship activation will support an overall sponsor’s strategy, it’s also becoming crucial for fan engagement. If sport supports brand messaging by harnessing people’s passions, then brands who aren’t contributing to the fan experience or advocacy fail to gain the cut-through they once had through logo badging. Brands have needed to become more creative with how sponsorship is utilised; however, the sports rights still fail to recognise this shift in value. Sports teams and organisers tend to complain about the lack of activation on behalf of a brand. However, if the sponsorship rights package is skewed towards how many impressions they will get on broadcast then it’s impossible to deliver an activation that will resonate.

It starts with creating the right assets.

By strategically understanding the value in a sports sponsorship package beyond that of perimeter boards and logos on kits, rights holders will begin to build the foundation for a partnership that truly works for everyone – including the fans. By offering the same sponsor benefits as everyone else, sports rights holders not only run the risk of relying on team performance to generate ROI for their sponsors, but also fail to differentiate from every other team. The assumption that the way things have always been will work in today’s fragmented media landscape is naïve. However, this ever shifting environment can create unique opportunities for rights holders to develop their assets and audience (social media) – making it a new playing field.

From a sport sponsorship sales perspective, the pace of change is extraordinary – and sponsor gains are being made everywhere. Be a rights holder who recognises the brand requirement to be part of the experience by creating assets that brands can use. Be relevant by understanding what assets drive your partnership opportunities – rather than where you can put a logo.

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