Latest Thinking from IEG

What is EA Thinking?

Anyone out there a fan of the Sims games? I have been a long time fan and have wasted hours and hours playing the games. I’ve purchased all the versions of the Sims and a lot of the expansion packs. I recently purchased Sims 3 for the Mac and love the game.

While playing Sims 3 I wondered why EA didn’t incorporate advertising or sponsorship into the game. It seems like a natural fit because part of the point of the game is to obtain various objects as a virtual consumer. If you go to the Sims Exchange online, where users create objects to be downloaded, some of the user-created objects have been branded by users. Additionally, players can go to the Sims Store and purchase objects for the game. The Sims Store is a perfect fit for branded stuff.

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Filed under: nonprofit, guidelines

Takeaways: When and How to Include Sponsors in Social Media

In conversations over the last week—with an association client or two, a group of zoos and aquarium sellers, and a financial services sponsor—the appropriate use of social networks for sponsorship activation has been a hot topic. How do we take sponsorships—those that live primarily off-line and those that have a foot firmly in both worlds—to the social nets?

In keeping with the old mantra of “if one person has the question, probably a lot of people have the question”—here are a few takeaways from those conversations.

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Filed under: contracts, digital media, guidelines, negotiating, packaging, selling, servicing, activation

In Times of Economic Recession, Only Way To “Party On!” Is With Authenticity
Anyone who blogs on a regular basis knows that some days you need a little blog-spiration (yep, I’m coining that one). So, I took to my social networks to find out what the masses (e.g., my posse of LinkedIn, Twitter and facebook peeps) wanted to hear me weigh in on. And the results – drum roll please...

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Filed under: digital media, entertainment, government/municipal, guidelines, how to get sponsorship, branded entertainment

The Importance of an Integrated Sponsorship Selection Strategy

I’ve said in this space before that sponsors can’t be all things to all people—particularly when it comes to hot-button political issues. But this story about Verizon Wireless left me shaking my head.

The long and short of it is that a local Verizon Wireless office has paid $1,000 for the opportunity to sell phones at the Friends of America Rally in West Virginia. The event appears designed to promote the coal industry and to stir opposition against current environmental measures making their way through Congress.

Verizon Wireless is taking a beating for its involvement—which doesn’t represent an endorsement of the event’s message, but still doesn’t look good for a company that touts its green credentials.

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Filed under: events, guidelines, local, backlash

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

The Answer Lies Within — Not Without (Our Letter to the JAMA Editor)

Per a recent request of a couple of medical society CEOs, I am posting the letter we submitted to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Editor back in April 2009. JAMA did not publish it, and I’ve been asked to make it available to the community. Would love to hear your thoughts.

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Filed under: guidelines, hospitals and healthcare, medical societies, nonprofit, associations

Should Sponsor ID Be Placed on a Zoo Animal?

Let me be clear. Sponsor names and logos should NOT be placed on a zoo animal! But the question reflects how heated this discussion can become within a zoo or any other cultural institution. My career has included several years as director of sponsorship at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, as well as working with many zoos, aquariums and museums in my position here at IEG.

Time and again in my work there has been healthy debate and disagreement within cultural institutions about where sponsor ID can be placed, or the appropriate size of the logo. Every department within the institution wants and needs the revenue that comes from corporate sponsorship, but they don’t all want to recognize the sponsor with appropriate logo recognition.

In this instance, the word “appropriate” is the key to the solution. Every corporate sponsor and sponsorship professional realizes that a zoo is not the same kind of venues as a sports stadium or NASCAR. With sponsorship comes a need to provide logo recognition to the sponsor, and consumers are accustomed to this in most, if not all, venue types. Museums and aquariums do not need to provide the size and type of recognition seen at the football stadium. However, if sponsorship revenue is important to the institution, some type of logo recognition is a must, and don’t make the consumer have to bring a magnifying glass to see the logo!

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Filed under: negotiating, guidelines