Tag: marketing

Big Brands Do Small Sponsorship 11th June, 2012

Brands become involved with sponsorship for a variety of reasons – to create awareness, to raise credibility, or to improve people’s perceptions of the brand as a whole. The most notable sponsorship deals grace the front covers of our national papers providing the appearance that global brands only sponsor large properties such as the Olympics, UEFA, and Premier League Football. However, this is not always the case.

Brands such as Adidas and Orange supplement their larger sponsorship properties with community partnerships helping them solidify their positioning and also strengthening the potential for advocacy through closer engagement.

Adidas Women’s 5K Challenge

The Adidas Women’s 5K challenge although still a relatively large event with 20,000 participants is a great example of a smaller partnership intended to raise perceptions of the brand through focusing on the female consumer. Although unisex, Adidas as a sports brand is more readily associated with a male audience particularly because of its association with male-orientated events highly publicised in the news such as UEFA.

For this reason, Adidas’s sponsorship of the Women’s 5K Challenge was a successful sponsorship strategy for the brand for a number of reasons:

The focus on a solely female audience helped position the importance of women as consumers
It created an emotion tie-in, touching on the heart strings of the female audience through the event’s charity support of Breakthrough Breast Cancer
Exclusive naming rights ensured that Adidas stood out from its competitors

Orange Sponsors Swanswell’s Football Kit

Swanswell is a charity that works to help people overcome drug and alcohol addiction. Quite different from sponsoring one of the days a week – Orange Wednesdays – Orange supported the Swanswell five-a-side tournament by sponsoring their football kit for the season.

Trevor Bedford operations manager for Swanswell in Birmingham said:

We’re delighted that Orange has been able to sponsor our new kit, giving people an added incentive to do well and feel well.

Orange’s support for a charity such as Swanswell is beneficial to the brand for various reasons:

Small gesture, but creates association with Orange as a brand that cares about the individual as well as community
Larger issues that are important and relevant to society as a whole through affiliation with the national charity Swanswell
Orange becomes a more approachable brand from a consumer’s perspective – not just focused on targeting a mass audience
Brand differentiation and a change from their typical film sponsorship

Orange and Adidas are a few of many examples of big brands doing small sponsorship well. We hope to see more of it!

Beginner's Guide to Social Media for Small Businesses 27th February, 2012

Social media is a topic we often cover, both with clients and the sponsors we manage. So we thought we’d provide some more insight into the most recognised platforms and more specifically how it relates to small businesses.

From a sponsorship rights holder’s perspective, providing the opportunity for potential sponsors to integrate with you on social media is as important as ensuring that those channels are also engaging the audience. And the same can be said for small businesses.

Small business owners should not expect immediate success throughsocial media. A survey from the Chartered Institute of Marketing has revealed: 34% of 1,500 marketers questioned deemed their social media activity in 2011 was ‘not at all effective’, while only 13% said it was ‘extremely effective’. However, small business owners should take note that the majority of those polled saw it as a tool of engagement (37%), or as support to other channels in a campaign (46%). Having a presence on Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin is unlikely to result in immediate sales. What social media does allow you to do is promote your brand to an audience who is interested in hearing from you.

Engaging with your customers is not going to be easy and it certainly won’t happen overnight. But if you put in an hour a day and approach it correctly you will be rewarded with subscribers, friends, or tweeps who understand who your company is, what it does and potentially why they should engage with it – hopefully leading on to them becoming brand advocates.

Whilst every company can benefit from some form of social media, not every form of social media will fit your company. It is therefore important to choose the platform where your audience is, not the platform that may get the most press. The main platforms small businesses are currently using:

Facebook

Set to hit 1 billion users in August, Facebook is undoubtedly the king of social media. With the average user spending over 15 minutes generally surveying their Facebook terrain, you would think it was the perfect tool for smaller companies to engage with their target audience. Yet a quick look and you’ll find countless business pages with 50 likes and fewer comments. Sarah Orchard, from Orchard Marketing Associates, makes the point that:

‘Facebook is a social space, so users are not as receptive to business-orientated messages. The question you have to ask yourself is: “is my business one that can tap into the emotional side of people’s lives?”

If your business fits this criteria then really try to make your Facebook page an interactive, enlightening and most importantly a worthwhile experience for the user. If you put on an annual music festival, comedy show or quiz night in the local pub, get attendees to sign up to join your Facebook page as they leave. Then, use your page as a hub for anything interesting related to your event to create publicity.

One stand-out example of utilising Facebook and making each visit exciting is one of our newest clients: Croatian-based music festival Outlook. Only 5 years old and Outlook already has 54,000 likes on their Facebook page. With the build-up to festival season already under way, Outlook will continuie to use their Facebook page as an ideal marketing tool hosting DJ competitions, posting reviews of artists scheduled to play and uploading videos from last year to create a buzz around the event.

Linkedin

With much more focus on business networking, Linkedin is a great tool tokeep in touch with former colleagues and find new prospects. The Q&A function is a great way to both highlight what your company does and how it does it, as well as gaining useful advice to better run your own business. Being a member on Linkedin also allows you to start, join and participate in group discussions. If you provide unique insight on a given topic on a consistent basis you will become an authority on your area of interest – (you can even become a Linkedin designated ‘expert’!). A potential client may be looking for information on your area of expertise, stumble across a post of yours that really connects with them and contact you as a direct result.

Pinterest

The site allows users to post images of your company’s product and link themback to your website. It acts as an online catalogue, except that images can be (much like Facebook) commented on and ‘re-pinned’ to other user’s boards. It may be relatively new – the site was launched in 2010 – but Pinterest is already being touted as the most valuable marketing tool for smaller businesses on the web. There are already 7 million registered members on Pinterest with a report from Shareholic claiming that more traffic is driven to company websites and blogs than Linkedin, Google+ and YouTube combined. The major drawback of the site is that if your company’s product or services are not particularly visual, you may struggle to get across exactly what you offer. On the other hand, it gives you a chance to be more creative, using evocative images that intrigue other users into finding out more about your company. Here are 15 of the most popular pictures on Pinterest.

Twitter

Twitter is a great way to keep people interested in your business or project and remind them of what you are doing. Your followers will be able to see your tweets on their ‘twitter-feed’. The great thing about this is that they do not have to consciously go to your page for you to get your message across to them and already have chosen to be receptive to your messages by actively following you. With clear and informative tweets you have the power to reach your client-base and build up a picture of exactly what your company does, which creates brand exposure.

Business Blogs

Business blogs are a no-frills way of sharing your company’s expertise and knowledge with a wider audience. The software is incredibly easy to use (e.g. WordPress, Blogware etc.) and cheap (and in most cases free) to run, meaning you don’t have to learn HTML or spend huge amounts on a web designer. If you post interesting content, people will return to your blog, retweet it or share it on Facebook. A couple of great examples of blogs giving real value to the business are Gizmodo (gadget magazine) and Stony Field Farms (Organic Dairy Products).

And of course do not forget to sign up to the Slingshot Sponsorship blog so you can keep up to date on great tips just like these!

Slingshot Sponsorship Shortlisted at the Highly Anticipated Hollis Sponsorship Awards 16th February, 2012

Slingshot Sponsorship has been shortlisted for their work with the DMA &Equifax at the upcoming Hollis Sponsorship Awards. They will compete with 3 other extremely successful campaigns – London Olympics 2012 & Lloyds, The Prince’s Trust & RBS and GE Capital Triathlon – for the highly coveted Corporate Sponsorship Award.

The Hollis Sponsorship Awards recognise and reward the most creative and effective campaigns to have come out of the sponsorship industry during the last year. Competition has been fierce this year, with entries up by 40% on 2011, meaning the judges have had to be even tougher than in past years.

Jackie Fast, managing director of Slingshot Sponsorship, commented:

I am absolutely thrilled that Slingshot Sponsorship has been shortlisted – especially considering the calibre of the other nominees. To be competing against a campaign as big as London 2012 having only launched less than two years ago is an amazing achievement in itself. It really shows that our unique strategy to creating innovative sponsorship campaigns is making an impact – not only for our clients, but also challenging sponsorship industry traditions.

Now in their 18^th year, The Hollis Sponsorship Awards are the most highly prized sponsorship awards covering all sectors of the sponsorship industry. Emphasis is on excellence in effectiveness ensuring that awards are given out based on result and not marketing budget. The short-listed and winning entries will be celebrated at the industry’s Gala Dinner on March 27^th 2012 at the London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square.

To see a full list of shortlisted campaigns click here.

Experiential: 3 Ways to Maximise Your Assets 20th January, 2012

With the London 2012 Olympics fast approaching we are due an influx of experiential campaigns in 2012. With headline sponsors of P&G, Coke and McDonald’s taking the majority of the London 2012 marketing opportunities – both in sponsorship as well as ramped up advertising campaigns, other brands will be engaging in shorter term experiential marketing to capitalise on this once in a lifetime opportunity.

Experiential marketing at its basics is a live brand marketing campaign allowing consumers to experience the product through their senses. It occurs in real time and is a two way communication between the brand and consumer – creating a lasting connection with the brand, which is then amplified through other marketing channels. Experiential activation offers a great way to showcase a brand’s products, or simply demonstrate what the company can offer with immediate feedback. Some examples of experiential campaigns we’ve run include Tracker’s Photo Booth for the What Car Awards 2012 and the EA Sports’ Game Hub at the London Irish Rugby Club’s St. Patricks Day Party.

Maximising Assets for Experiential Sponsorship Campaigns

1) Brand Positioning

With immediate feedback, experiential activities first need to ensure their audience is the right audience to be receiving feedback from. Ensure that you are very clear who the target audience is first and then decide how best to reach them and more importantly where to reach them.

Being relevant to the right consumers will provide both the correct feedback, but also will enable you to drive the communications further through additional marketing campaigns.

2) Engagement is Essential

You have to be engaging in activity consumers can relate to and want to engage with. The message and positioning should be clear and concise ensuring cut through. Providing people an experience that is on brand for the experiential activation, on brand for the company and also on brand for the sponsorship platform will create a cohesive message with all parties building resonance with the audience.

3) Make it Last

Even if your experiential activity is a one-off campaign, ensure you are making the most of it and that you have resources to support this. If the objective is to create a viral campaign through the experiential activity, do not forget to include a social strategy that will drive this communication forward through user networks and your own company network through user generated content, videos, competitions, etc.

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