Why Sponsorship Works

Category: Blog - July 01, 2009

I recently had the privilege of listening to Jack Birch's 'Why Sponsorship Works' presentation at the Minnesota Wild (NHL) sports marketing summit. A former managing director at Octagon and current consultant to pro sports franchises and leagues, he told stories of brands that have activated their sponsorship well throughout the years, and those who have crashed and burned. (I won't name names.) Here are some key learnings and takeaways from his presentation.

There are five questions we need to be prepared to answer for our clients when considering a sponsorship:

1. Does it work?
2. If so, what should I sponsor?
3. How much do I pay?
4. How do I leverage it?
5. Can you measure it? PROVE IT (especially for the c-suite)

Companies have two goals.

1. Create a customer through marketing and innovation
2. Sales. Sell, sell, sell.

Create an emotion with your brand.

"Find the emotion that your brand portrays and connect that emotion with the consumer through your sponsorship. By doing so, you stimulate demand and create a customer." - Jack Birch

The seven principles that make a successful sponsorship.

1. Authentication
2. Integration
3. Sales
4. Loyalty
5. Amplification
6. Transference
7. Exclusivity

BE AUTHENTIC - consumers today are too smart not to know. If you're not Coke, don't try and be Coke.

Be DEFENDABLE - if you're always late, don't claim you're the"on-time" guy.

Hammer home your brand positioning - ALWAYS.

The storyteller of commerce -

What you see/hear = story you tell yourself = the emotion you get = the action you take

Let sponsorship be the storyteller of your brand.

Sponsorship amplifies your programs/tactics. It's the appetizer.

Pro sports teams have two things.

1. The biggest stage
2. The attention of thousands of attendees

You need to take advantage of these two things to amplify your sponsorship through as many avenues as possible (POS, internet, direct mail, in-arena, community relations, public relations, employee recognition, cause marketing, etc.).

Associate your brand with the right properties. Do you care who your children hang out with?
The difference between marketing and sales.

Marketing = have what people want (that emotion, that loyalty, that association)
Sales = getting rid of what you have.

Not only did these learnings serve as good insight and a reminder to those of us in the sponsorship marketing and activation business, but they can be used to educate and inform colleagues of the role sponsorship can play and be integrated within larger marketing plans.

Matt Hansen
Account Supervisor

Tags: measurement, sports, branding, sponsorship, communication channels

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