Tag: branding

Olympic Sponsorship: Remember the Positives 30th July, 2012

Whilst awareness of Olympic-association is of course growing for official sponsors of the Games, the recent controversy surrounding LOCOG’s increasingly stringent sponsorship policies and the subsequent public outrage is resulting in certain sponsorships becoming dangerously close to having an adverse effect on certain brands – quite a significant problem after investing hundreds of millions with the aim of using the platform to enhance brand perceptions.

Although some sponsors may have demanded a little too much exclusivity i.e. Visa and McDonalds, the latest issues have taken complaints to a new level. The first concerns Coca-Cola and Lord Coe’s comment stating that attendees ‘probably wouldn’t be walking in (to the Olympic Village) with a Pepsi T-shirt’ which is, of course, ridiculous. Despite the off-chance of hundreds of fans herding into the Village wearing Pepsi-branded clothing, this would have miniscule, if any, effect on either brands’ perception or the Olympic campaigns, activations and initiatives executed by Coca-Cola. The second issue is the numerous events proving to be half empty due to ticket allocations not being utilised – this resulting in understandable public outrage however the blame spreads across multiple parties including National Olympic Committees, the IOC and the media in addition to sponsors.

With a negative cloud beginning to descend over the concept of sponsorship in general, I wanted to add to the refreshing comments of Evening Standard Editor, Sarah Sands’ recent article shedding some light on why ‘sponsors are the good guys not the villains’.

On the whole, sponsors are providing vital products and services to the Olympics whilst simultaneously raising awareness of the event in all corners of the world. Acer, the official computing equipment partner of the Games, has been responsible for the installation of an enormous technology infrastructure – no small feat and a significant cost saved for LOCOG. Likewise for GE who have contributed heavily towards key infrastructures across transportation, energy, lighting and medical equipment. Coca-Cola, despite the controversy over branding and health, have invested millions in grass roots sports and vow that 75% of their products consumed at the Games will be sugar-free. With significant value being added by all Olympic partners, the positives of sponsorship significantly outweigh the negatives. (Of course, there is also the added benefit that they provide hundreds of millions of pounds in revenue and in turn lower the cost of the Games to the tax-payer.)

It is important to remember that the art of successful sponsorship is creating a relationship that simultaneously benefits the sponsor, the audience and the rights holder with it ultimately being the responsibility of the latter i.e. LOCOG to get as close to this harmonious balance as possible.

The Olympic Committee is evidently yet to find this balance with certain partners but when weighing up the pros and cons, sponsors cannot be viewed as the bad guys. After all, despite recently sympathising with protesters, Jacques Rogge hits the nail on the head when stating that “Quite simply, staging the Olympic Games would not be possible without our partners.”

More than Cold Hard Cash: How to Get More From Your Brand Sponsors 7th June, 2012

What Else Should Sponsoring Organisations Be Getting Out Of Their Sponsors?


This blog actually comes from a question I received on Twitter last week – always a great source of inspiration for posts.  Although I’ve alluded to the answers throughout our blog, I have never written a blog about what the property rights owner should be getting out of their sponsorship.  The reason being, the most obvious answer is money.  However, a sponsor’s investment should not end there – there’s so much more they can offer to benefit the rights owner.

Brand Awareness

As a rights owner, you tend to focus on issues that are of the most immediate concern. Once all sponsors are on board you’ve then got to focus on ticket sales and the invites (and let’s not forget the small matters of sorting out catering, setting up the venue etc.). Before you know it the event has finished and you are back to square one of renewing the event’s sponsors and the cycle starts again.  Time is needed to integrate departments and partners and typically with the urgency of sales and action during a slow economy, there is little time to do much else.

By integrating the objectives of the sales and marketing departments you can make the cycle much smoother for everyone involved and add value to the sponsors of your events.

Brand sponsors tend to have significantly larger customer databases than the rights owners they sponsor.  As such, it can be a cheaper way to bring brand awareness of the event in question through effective marketing campaigns.  These campaigns can then drive ticket sales without the added costs of advertisements and new creative.  Furthermore sending communications to the sponsor’s database helps the sponsor as they want to bring awareness to their customers of the events that they are involved with – that is why they have got involved in the first place.

Joint communication is just a starting block, but once you start thinking more integrated you can come up with a range of communications that benefit all parties, saving you time and money.

Physical Space

One of the things we have started to really push with our sponsors and rights owners is physical space.  For larger brands, they tend to have an abundance of space with the presence of roof top terraces overlooking the Thames that are rarely used to whole floors that no one is working in.  This presents a fantastic opportunity to integrate the brand and the rights owner.

Venue costs are typically the area where most events fall down on – especially charities.  Charities tend to be very rich in terms of content – with celebrity brand ambassadors and a meaningful cause; however, tend not to be able to put on the events they wish they could based on up-front costs such as venue hire.  We have started working with our sponsors more directly and have hosted a number of events within sponsor buildings instead.  This not only saves the charity (or rights owner) money, but also shows a truly integrated approach to brand partnerships.  Furthermore, this provides the brand an opportunity to showcase their own building, their culture and their internal teams.

People

Another benefit that sponsors can bring to rights owners is actual people.  In terms of staff engagement, this tends to work best in charities and is often a key reason that brands get involved with national causes – to get their teams working together on something greater than the 9 to 5.  It also helps create a team environment even with their staff are based all over the country.  Staff engagement or volunteering for the sponsored charity is a key benefit that charities should try and incorporate within their sponsorship proposal whenever possible.  This not only provides additional volunteers for the charity which is always needed, but also can go a long way in terms of securing internal buy in from the brand itself – future proofing the financial investment.

These are just some of the benefits that sponsors can bring to organisations apart from cold hard cash, but there are many more.  The key is to find the synergies between the rights owner and the brand sponsor – understanding every party’s objective and collaborating with each other to help achieve something that is greater than the sum of its parts is what a true partnership is all about.

Sports Sponsorship: More Than Just Branding 25th January, 2012

Ever since Kettering Town became the first English football club to host a sponsor – Kettering Tyres – across their ‘famous’ red and white shirts, in 1976, corporate sponsors have been obsessed with branding. Every sport, from snowboarding to horse riding, is full of brands trying to get the most prominent position on a racer’s helmet or the best placed advertising board on any given sports field around the world.

The most pertinent example I can find of such blatant logo blasting is FX Pro’s sponsorship of Fulham – signed chiefly so the foreign exchange broker could have its logo streaked across the roof of Fulham’s home ground, which lies directly along the Heathrow flightpath.  A multi million pound deal, just so people flying in from Beijing can see your company emblem.  No message explaining what they do, how they do it or what their company ethos is – JUST the logo.

And for years this type of marketing has worked.

Exposing customers to logos has been a tried and tested formula, creating profit for brands for decades.  But in today’s market, where we are constantly blasted with logos of innumerable brands – many of which we don’t even recognize – is it enough?  And from a sponsor’s perspective, is it even worth it?

In today’s world a simple logo is no longer enough – it does not convey enough about your company to make a positive impression on the consumer.  With marketing budgets being slashed, brands are being forced to ENGAGE with their target audience, to ensure resonance.  Well-executed sponsorship activations can do just this.  They bridge the communication gap, allowing the target audience to experience exactly what the brand has to offer.  For the rights owner, such sponsorship deals offer the opportunity to provide a richer and more complete experience to their audience.

Whilst many sponsor relationships remain stuck in this branding culture (especially within sports sponsorship), some brands and rights owners are leading the way through truly innovating sponsorship campaigns.  One of the most forward thinking approaches is the partnership between Spanish giants Real Madrid and network provider Cisco Systems.  The agreement will see the installation of Cisco’s high-density Wi-Fi system at Madrid’s home stadium – Santiago Bernabeu – allowing fans to:

  1. Access specifically designed applications through their smartphones, encouraging them to engage directly with the Santiago Bernabeau.
  2. Watch Hi-Definition screens throughout the ground that will broadcast replays, highlights and interviews exclusively to those in the stadium.
  3. Utilise social media – encouraging match-goers to share tweets of their match day experience with those at the stadium and those around the world.

Whilst there is an argument from die-hard fans that such technological progressions may detract from the atmosphere on match-days, I actually think it has the potential to enhance it.  I’m not advocating everyone sitting on their iPhones, tweeting for 90 minutes.  Rather, at half-time or during injury stoppages people in the ground can watch a replay of a missed opportunity they couldn’t see clearly; get information about a new player; or even find out the words to a chant they weren’t aware of – meaning they can actively contribute to and thus improve the atmosphere in the ground.

Another interesting approach to sponsorship within the realm of football has been the recent  partnership between Manchester City & EA Sports.  Both partners have fully embraced the relationship, making user-interaction a far more engaging and rewarding experience both at match days and online.  A few examples of the activation have included:

  1. A virtual launch of the club’s kit for the 2011-2012 season, exhibited by a computer generated Manchester City eleven.
  2. Full motion capture of the Manchester City squad, making player movement even more realistic – resulting in Manchester City being the most commonly used team by online FIFA 2012 players around the world.
  3. A proposal to use FIFA statistics to simulate upcoming Manchester City matches.

All interesting stuff, however the innovation of this campaign lies in the way users are directed to the data.  The plan is to deliver the latest software – Sergio Aguero’s new haircut, up-to-date statistics, or the new Manchester City away kit – to users via smartphone, be it using a personalized QR code or the RFID chip on the back of fan’s membership cards.  Once the code is scanned, the fan receives unique FIFA 2012 data, which they can then trade with other consumers.  Friends could swap them via smartphone, match-goers could swap them at a game and online users could swap them over Facebook.  While EA Sports and Manchester City would create the initial software, the fans would be tasked with sharing the data – taking the EA Sports and Manchester City brand into a more social setting.

Although football sponsors have the tendency to simply ‘brand’ everything, Formula 1 sponsors are undoubtedly more culpable: every driver, every car and every available space is awash with corporate sponsors.  Such branding may still be effective to a point, but some companies are realizing that they can get so much more out of their sponsorship.  A perfect example of this realization is the ‘Step Inside the Circuit’ campaign, produced from Johnnie Walker’s sponsorship of the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes racing team.

Viewers are directed to branded content via Johnnie Walker’s Facebook page, where they are then transported to the hustle and bustle of a Formula 1 track.   Users can mingle with the other drivers, check out the last minute adjustments to the cars or take a spin around the track to experience what it’s like for Lewis Hamilton or Sebastien Vettel on race day.  To further personalize the experience, photos are taken from the user’s Facebook, along with webcam input and text-to-speech technology.  The campaign culminates with 20 competition winners being taken to Silverstone for three days of training, finishing with VIP tickets to the Grand Prix itself.

It is still unclear, which of these different sponsorship channels will prevail and prove to be most rewarding for a partnership in the long-term.  Many of these alliances are still in their infancy and it is impossible to tell if anyone has already found a winning formula.  However what is clear is that, if done correctly, there are substantial gains to be made for the sponsors, right owners and fans themselves:

  1. Sponsors better engage with their audience and promote their brand
  2. Rights owners can offer a richer and more varied experience to their brand/event
  3. Fans receive a more interactive and diverse experience.

From what we’ve seen, it is clear that future sponsors cannot rely simply on branding alone.

Premium Car Accessory Leader Thule Teams With What Car? 10th October, 2011

What Car? has signed Thule, the world’s premium leader in sport and utility transportation of car roof racks, bike and car category of the annual motoring Oscars – The What Car? Car of the Year Awards, to be held in January 2012.

Andrew Golby What Car? Publishing Director commented: “We are delighted to be working with Thule, who have joined us as a sponsor of the 2012 What Car? Awards. We spend a great deal of our time assessing family cars, and Thule’s products are an essential part of making big days out and annual holidays safe and enjoyable. It is very apt then, that they are now associated with the family car category of our Awards ceremony. Whichever vehicle wins on the night, there is sure to be a Thule accessory to enhance it even further.”

“Safety is paramount to parents and here at Thule we make it possible to put safety first whilst attaining an active lifestyle with your family in a stylish, easy to use format”, commented Peter Barker, UK General Manager.

The benefits of the What Car? Awards sponsorship deal includes alignment with the most authoritative and trusted brand in motoring. Brand positioning and awareness, extensive PR opportunities, networking and association to the awards via a multi-channel promotional campaign.

The What Car? Car of the year awards and acknowledged by many as the UK Motoring Oscars is the automotive industries best known and most influential awards ceremony and the awards themselves are much coveted by car makers both in the UK and overseas.

The event is attended by more than 1200 leading industry figureheads alongside the most influential motoring correspondents from the wider media.

What Car? reaches almost 3,000,000 consumers every month through the website, magazine or PR activity.

The event is to be held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London on the 12th January with top class entertainment yet to be announced.  Previous headline acts have included Jonathan Ross, Jimmy Carr, Al Murray and Jo Brand.

The sponsorship deal was brokered by Slingshot Sponsorship.

ABOUT What Car?

The What Car? stable includes the long established magazine,  the award-winning website whatcar.com, What Car? TV, What Car? Mobile and What Car? Video – available online or as a video podcast.

Latest National Readership survey results indicate that 797,000 people read What Car? magazine every month. Two million unique consumers consult the What Car? website every month.

Haymarket Magazines is the United Kingdom’s largest independently owned publishing company with a portfolio of more than 150 titles, ranging from specialist consumer magazines to business titles and customer publications, published via wholly owned subsidiaries, joint ventures and under licence worldwide.

ABOUT The Thule Brand

The Thule brand was established in Sweden in 1942. Thule is a premium brand used globally for a wide assortment of products with a focus on solving the problem of how to bring equipment with you when using a car (roof racks, bike and water sport carriers, roof boxes). There are also other product areas such as accessories for recreational vehicles, trailers for active life (horses, boats, etc), snow chains and luggage.

Thule is the largest brand in the Thule Group. With its origins in Sweden, Thule is now a truly global brand.

In 1942, Thule was founded by the Thulin family, when Erik Thulin, a true lover of the outdoors, put the Thule name on a Pike Trap that he designed and began selling to the fisherman of Scandinavia. It wasn’t long before he added other practical things to his company’s portfolio. Business boomed, gaining profitably year after year.

By the 1960s, the company began to concentrate its business on car-related product

The Thulin family sold Thule to the publicly listed company Eldon in 1979. It continued to grow both organically and through acquisitions (trailers and rooftop box manufacturing), and Thule has been in growth mode ever since. New markets have been opened, product categories have been launched and several companies have joined.s, and before long the first roof rack was born. New product categories were added in the 1970s and new markets were opened worldwide (e.g. US, Japan).

In 2004, the Thule Group acquired Italian snow chain manufacturer König. An ensuing close collaboration resulted in a series of Thule branded snow chains for passenger cars. A year later, in 2005, RV Accessories company Omnistor was added to the Thule Group portfolio and integrated with Thule. By acquiring towing systems company Brink in 2006, Thule Group added yet another product range to its portfolio. This integration has resulted in a series of towbars and bike carrier solutions. Since 2007, Case Logic has been part of Thule Group. As a consequence of the collaboration between Thule and business area Carry Solutions, a range of Thule branded luggage, bags and cases was launched in 2010.

Social Media and Sponsorship: Can Facebook & YouTube Ever Become Co-brandable Assets for Brands? 19th May, 2011

I recently was asked to write a guest blog for Content & Motion – a fantastic social PR agency with some great clients.  They wanted some insight into whether or not their area of expertise could be used to create sponsorship opportunities for brands.  It is a question I get posed often and it was a great opportunity to put some thoughts together.  The blog looks at developing online audiences and how access to these audience could be turned into sponsorship rights.  It also looks into specific opportunities that could be built within Facebook and You Tube.

And in the nature of social media – we’ve just launched our Facebook page where you can get a backstage pass (photos, quotes, vox pops, and competitions) for all of the events we are involved with!

Excerpt from the Content & Motion blog:

With brands utilising and recognising the power of Social Media to drive revenue, such as @DellOutlet attributing $3million in sales to its Twitter account, it’s no surprise to learn that brands are trying to monetise the audiences they have built.Although the majority of social platforms already have built in advertising functionality (i.e. the Video Targeting Tool powered by Google Ads on YouTube), there are additional opportunities to create new media assets within your content as long as it is not intrusive to the audience experience…

Check out the full sponsorship & social media blog post here.

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