Latest Thinking from IEG

Central Intelligence: Cultural Considerations for Sponsorship Buyers

In my last post, I shared my observations on how culture impacts—and should impact—the way sponsorship sellers create their strategies. In this post, I’m taking a look at the buyers, for whom culture is a much different thing.

Buyers
To once again oversimplify, a company’s sponsorship selection (to buy or not to buy) and sponsorship evaluation (to renew or not to renew) strategy is a process that screens each opportunity against a set of criteria. Those criteria are built to measure a given opportunity’s likelihood to help the company meet its objectives. This includes opportunities where the company instigates the conversation and/or the property cold calls.

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Filed under: contracts, evaluation, guidelines, how to get sponsorship, negotiating, packaging, research, selling, spending, sponsorship measurement, sponsorship ROI, activation

Coming Clean: Cultural Considerations for Sponsorship Sellers

I get a fair number of questions about “sponsorship models”—as in, which sponsorship model will work for my organization or company?

Frankly, I bristle at this, as it is the strategic equivalent to handing out oversized oven mitts to do the dishes, when only custom-sized rubber gloves will do.

Thus, in this post, I’m speaking to how each property’s unique culture impacts strategy creation. In my next post, I’ll speak to how culture comes in to play for sponsors’ buying strategies.

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Filed under: guidelines, hospitals and healthcare, how to get sponsorship, medical societies, negotiating, nonprofit, packaging, selling, government/municipal

Props To Proprietary Programs

Properties looking for a good way to whet the interest of potential sponsors should consider offering proprietary platforms that give companies “ownership” of part of an event.

That ownership can come in many forms, ranging from title of a cooking area at a food festival to naming rights to an entrance at a sports complex, state fair, or community festival.

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Filed under: events, how to get sponsorship, packaging, sports, activation

When it Comes to Municipal Marketing, What’s in a Name?

With huge apologies to Bill Shakespeare, many muni marketing commentators out there seem to be saying: a road by any other name would sell a street.

Increasingly, the municipal marketing commentary I’m reading focuses on naming rights. Certainly some of that focus is warranted given the high-profile deals on the table right now (e.g., Barclays and New York’s MTA). Yet some of that concentration is because it makes a compellingly controversial image in readers’ minds to talk about “plastering” corporate names on public property—roads, parks, monuments, venues and public transportation.

We hear the inevitable NASCAR comparisons and the gasp-worthy insinuation that the very pavement of Main Street is for sale.

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Filed under: local, packaging, sponsorship measurement, sponsorship ROI, government/municipal

Support Local Heroes, Gain New Sponsorship Inventory

While Independence Day celebrations and other types of community events have long honored veterans, policemen and other first responders, we’re seeing a growing number of properties use those efforts to secure new corporate partners.

Traverse City, Mich.’s National Cherry Festival this year will host its inaugural Heroes’ Day to celebrate veterans and other local heroes. The festival, which kicks off July 4, created the program in part to drive traffic on Monday, a day when attendance typically dips. The festival will recognize vets, policemen and others with a hero medallion that provides free access to a concert as well as discounts at concession stands, local merchants and hotels.

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Filed under: cause marketing, packaging, activation

Taking a Cue from the Design World

I am a firm believer in the concept of form before function. This belief predates my obsession with Sex and the City that taught me it is imperative you risk your podiatric well-being in order to look fabulous walking down a city street in five-inch stilettos. No, this goes all the way back to the days of trick-or-treating when I begged my mother to allow me to wear my ballet recital costume – without a coat – on a particularly chilly Midwest Halloween night. I can admit my vanity, and say I will forego the practical in just about every instance in favor of the fabulous.

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Filed under: packaging, selling, how to get sponsorship

The Digital Achilles Heel

Ever found yourself in a relationship where the person you’re seeing has a wonderful quality you adore and over time you come to find that very same quality is what drives you insane about them? Well this seems to be the song and dance digital media properties and sponsors find themselves in when trying to strike common ground and get a deal done.

Those of us digital nerds who keep up with the trials and tribulations of the digital frontier know that monetization models are lagging well behind the technological developments of this space. What we see more often than not is a digital property trying to communicate its value out in the marketplace with little more than media equivalencies to rely on. That said, when a digital property tries to sell “sponsorship” of its platform, the story becomes even more convoluted as sponsors don’t know entirely how to view the opportunity. The drill usually goes something like this:

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Filed under: new media, packaging, selling, valuation, digital media

The Difference is Sponsorability

While Bud Light is banking on its “drinkability” to sell beer, it seems that many properties are trading on their sponsorability (a word I’m pretty sure we IEGers made up, along with “ambushability”) to sell sponsorships.

Considerable chatter around IEG this past week has centered on this question: How do organizations, venues and events make sure they’re in a sponsor’s line of sight when the sponsor starts looking?

We put salability of packages, strength of proposals and sales cycles aside for a minute and talked about the steps that come before the sale, where 26% of sponsorship deals are initiated by sponsors and their agencies (according to IEG’s 2008 property survey).

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Filed under: hospitals and healthcare, how to get sponsorship, IEG, packaging, selling, agency

Insights from Tom Dewar, JA Worldwide

What does the Ronco Veg-O-Matic have to do with sponsorship?

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Filed under: how to get sponsorship, IEG conference, nonprofit, packaging, selling, cause marketing