Tag: European Sponsorship Association

Slingshot Sponsorship Wins European Sponsorship Association Rights Holder Award 2016 10th February, 2017

Slingshot Sponsorship has won the Rights Holder Award for the second consecutive year, at the 2016 European Sponsorship Awards for their work with Snowboxx Music Festival. The category celebrates the rights holder that has gone out of their way to support sponsoring brands, offering innovative solutions and opportunities.

With Snowboxx confirming the relocation of the festival to a substantially larger site in 2016, Slingshot were appointed to complete a strategic analysis of the property in order to utilise sponsorship (both funds and contra) to ensure an effective and profitable transition.

Since the launch of the event in 2012, the event had only ever secured 1 sponsorship from a brand. Within 3 months, Slingshot and the Snowboxx managed to secure crucial additional revenue and support from 3 global brand partnerships with Coors Light, Rockstar Energy Drink & Jungfrau, which ultimately contributed towards a sold out festival and through integrating bespoke brand activity the festival experience was enormously enhanced.

Slingshot approached Coors Light with an integrated proposition to support the brand message of #DammeCold and the positioning as the ultimate in ice cold refreshment. Coors Light signed as the ‘Official Beer Partner’ of Snowboxx Festival 2016. Utilising the natural synergies through the shared passions of music and the cold nature of the event Coors Light developed a sponsorship campaign focused on digitally amplifying onsite content & activity to the wider UK audience.

Slingshot also brokered the partnership between Snowboxx and Rockstar Energy Drink the ‘Official Energy Drink’ for Snowboxx Festival 2016. Rockstar Energy Drink has always had a close connection with music and winter action sports and as such the partnership was a natural fit. Rockstar Energy Drink were granted use of use of a range of Snowboxx imagery and assets as well as the support of VIP competitions to offer attendees the opportunity to experience Snowboxx 2016 as a true Rockstar.

Jackie Fast, MD of Slingshot Sponsorship was absolutely thrilled to win the award, commenting:

“Absolutely delighted to win this prestigious ESA award for the second year in a row, thank you to ESA for supporting the work that Slingshot does with rights holders. We are so happy to have helped Snowboxx enhance their event and look forward to seeing this event continue to flourish in years to come.”

The winners of the European Sponsorship Association Awards were announced at the awards ceremony in London on Thursday, 9th February 2017.

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Slingshot Sponsorship is an innovative strategic sponsorship agency based in Central London with offices around the world. Slingshot works across all industry sectors to help organisations identify, create and optimise assets so they become engaging marketing opportunities for brands to partner with. Clients include diverse verticals such as publishing, events, music artist rights, award programmes, music festivals, and charities – all with a desire of pushing the boundaries in traditional sponsorship.

For comments and information, please contact Kieran Morris:

Telephone: +44 (0)207 226 7839

Email: [email protected]

Jackie Fast re-elected to the board of European Sponsorship Association 11th July, 2016

The European Sponsorship Association (ESA) announced last week that Jackie Fast, MD and Founder of Slingshot Sponsorship has been re-elected to the board for her second tenure.

ESA is the membership body which represents sponsorship professionals across Europe.

Jackie Fast was originally elected to the ESA board in 2013 and has been re-elected to the 15-strong board alongside Toby Hester from Sponsorship Coach who was also re-elected.

New members on the board were announced as Matthew Leopold from British Gas, Sophie Morris from Millharbour Marketing and Matt Stevenson from EE.
It was also announced that three current members are stepping down, they are Rob Mitchell of Wasps/Ricoh Arena, Gary Carey of Diageo and Helen Lamb of ESA.

The remit of the ESA board is to develop a strategy to ensure that the Association remains in the best position to represent the industry and to provide its members with valuable and usable benefits.

Jackie Fast will continue to develop The ESA Excellence Awards which are growing year on year and are widely regarded as the highest example of sponsorship achievement across all industry disciplines.

Jackie commented, “I’m pleased to have been re-elected to the board of the European Sponsorship Association where great work is being done to promote and celebrate the fabulous campaigns being run within our industry through the Excellence Awards. I am keen to continue to work with ESA on strategy to ensure that we are representing the interests of the industry as a whole and continuing to grow the best practice sponsorship throughout Europe.”

Driving the Future of the Sponsorship Industry – ESA Appoints one of its Youngest ever Board Directors 29th May, 2013

Jackie Fast, Managing Director, Slingshot Sponsorship, was announced this morning as one of the youngest ever individuals to be elected as a Board Director of the European Sponsorship Association. Jackie will now sit alongside fourteen other Directors; setting the standard for the sponsorship industry for coming years.

In the wake of the success of this year’s ESA Sponsorship Summit, which addressed significant shifts within the industry, ESA is set to further develop itself alongside its new Board Directors. Jackie’s appointment highlights ESA’s continued drive to enhance the industry – seeking to challenge the ethos and make significant contribition to its progression.

ESA was formed ten years ago with the premise to unify, strengthen and advance the business of sponsorship throughout Europe. The industry itself, once predominantly focused upon sport and large corporates, has profoundly shifted in this time. The body’s appointment of Jackie Fast to the Board conveys its recognition of the changing market, and the need for the industry to adapt with it – further promoting its role to inspire and innovate.

With the sponsorship industry worth €26.5 billion, the European Sponsorship Association will have a vital role in its growth and development into the future. The key issues identified by ESA include:

Proving Sponsorship’s Business Value
Providing value to members
Creating stronger links with brands and rights holders
Technology – the way in which sponsorship can best icnorporate its benefits
Thought-leadership

Jackie commented, “It is an honour to have been elected to the Board of ESA. I have admired ESA as an organisation since its creation; to have the opportunity to develop and contribute to its decision making process is a humbling prospect for me. I am looking forward to really developing ESA into a body that is not only vital and leading the entire sponsorship industry, but reflective and influential in the marketing industry.”

At the age of only 29, Jackie is forging a path for aspiring young sponsorship professionals to follow.

Should Alcohol Sponsorship be Banned? 26th November, 2012

The level of irresponsible drinking amongst young people in the UK is an area of constant concern for many with statistics reporting 945,000 hospital admissions a year related to alcohol abuse or injury. Following the ban of tobacco sponsorship in 2005 arose the debate as to whether alcohol sponsorship should follow suit and whether partnerships between alcohol brands and sports events influence young people to drink in excess.

At the Think!Sponsorship Conference on Wednesday 14^th November leading sponsorship professionals and representatives from alcohol brands considered the increasingly important topic of whether the alcohol sponsorship ban should be bought into place within the UK. With alcohol sponsorship banned in France, this prompted me to consider whether the UK will be next to follow suit and what impact this could have for the sponsorship industry.

The Argument

There is little doubt that sporting events have a strong association with alcohol. Sports such as rugby and football in particular lead people to view alcohol consumption in a negative light with fans often rowdy and drunk. Alcohol sponsorship could be said to reinforce the association of alcohol with events that are often considered family days out whilst watching sport for many comes hand in hand with enjoying a drink. With this connection already firmly in place it is argued that alcohol sponsorship only encourages young people to view alcohol brands and excessive consumption of their products in a positive light.

However, the opposing argument is that the problem with binge drinking amongst young people in particular at sporting events is as a result of cheap drinks deals and the traditional macho sporting culture rather than the presence of alcohol sponsorship. Furthermore, alcohol sponsors place a strong emphasis on drinking responsibly. The European Sponsorship Association has put numerous guidelines in place to introduce a notion of best practise with alcohol brands, for example, rights holders are advised to only allow sponsorship from alcohol brands if the audience are assumed to be older than the legal alcohol purchase age.

How Would the Alcohol Ban Affect Sponsorship in the Future?

It is estimated that £800 million a year is spent by alcohol brands on sponsorship, if this money was no longer channelled towards sponsorship what would this mean for the sponsorship industry as a whole? Sponsorship agencies could lose key clients and rights-holders would lose a vast amount of revenue and the ability to hold events to the scale and quality they currently are at.

However, through dynamic and creative thinking this could also be an opportunity for new brands to get involved with sport sponsorship.

Whatever the future holds for alcohol brands, I believe the sponsorship industry will have no problem continuing to thrive as seen previously when we encountered the ban of tobacco sponsorship. If anything it will only force sponsorship professionals to continue to drive innovation forward.