Latest Thinking from IEG

Missed Opportunity for McDonald’s
You would think the marketing team at McDonald’s USA would have learned something from the backlash the Golden Arches suffered from its sponsorship presence at last summer’s London Olympic Games.

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Filed under: backlash, pro sports, restaurant, sponsorship strategy, sports, activation

A Good Time to Reflect: Takeaways for Sponsors from the 2012 Olympic Games
Some three months after the closing ceremonies of London’s Summer Olympic Games we are still being asked what lessons there are for sponsors. Below are my talking points; I would love to hear yours.

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Filed under: London 2012, olympics, activation

Louis Vuitton Connects The Dots By Leveraging Artist Collaboration
The partnership between Louis Vuitton and Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama shows that the arts are every bit as exploitable as sport. It just takes creativity.

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Filed under: arts, digital media, fashion, international, museums/zoos/aquariums, retail, activation

Designer “Haute-Eliers” And Their Brand Partnerships
Over the last decade, upscale fashion brands found on New York City’s Madison Avenue, Paris’s Avenue Montaigne and London’s Sloane Street have extended well beyond apparel and accessories into housewares, sheets and textiles, lighting and furniture.

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Filed under: international, trends, venues, fashion

What If The Sponsor/Property Model Is Not Sustainable?
This is one of those topics that maybe I shouldn’t even be raising, as I can hear colleagues and readers shouting, “Are you trying to kill the golden goose?”

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Filed under: servicing, trends, selling

Italian Cultural Partnerships Bear Watching
As oil is the Middle East’s natural resource, culture is Italy’s. The country is home to more UNESCO World Heritage sites, museums and archeological sites than any other in the world.

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Filed under: backlash, cause marketing, destination/tourism, fashion, government/municipal, international, museums/zoos/aquariums, arts

Getting Meaningful Marketing Right
In the new strategy paper from IEG Consulting, we make the case for a new and important trend impacting the relationship between nonprofits and their corporate partners.

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Filed under: nonprofit, strategic philanthropy, trends, cause marketing

Non-Sponsors Take On The Olympics To Align Their Brands With Fair Play
The extreme approach taken by the London Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) to enforcing IOC marketing rules has not only not protected official sponsors, I’d argue it has hurt them. Each time the brand police tape over the logo of a non-sponsor, or warn the public about wearing a Pepsi T-shirt to the Games, or insist policemen carry their snacks in unbranded plastic bags, they drag down the brands of the sponsors.

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Filed under: backlash, London 2012, olympics, ambush marketing

Ambush Marketing At London 2012
Non-sponsors during the Olympic Games got noticed through a variety of tactics, including making news around related topics (Nike, Specsavers, Tetley Tea), championing human-interest stories (Red Bull, Virgin Media, Beats), sponsored Tweets (Nike), and pop-up venues in London (Puma, Mizuno, Karl Lagerfeld, Opening Ceremony).

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Filed under: London 2012, olympics, ambush marketing

Visa and the Olympics: Sponsorship In Need of an Update
Visa’s first Olympic sponsorship, signed in 1986 and launched with Calgary 1988, featured the iconic campaign: “Bring your Visa card, because the Olympics don’t take American Express.” This set in motion Visa’s ascension from number three to number one in the credit card category.

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Filed under: backlash, financial services, London 2012, olympics, activation