Fresh Insights from IEG

Wheels Up: Airport Sponsors Can Win Favor by Elevating the Total Travel Experience

Earlier this month, Property Consulting Group (PCG) gained “the sponsorship and experiential marketing rights” to Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway Airports. Brad Jersey, President of Airport Marketing Income (PCG is working through AMI), said in the press announcement that they plan to “bring additional revenue to the airports and enhance the passenger experience.”

As I write this post I am on a plane from Washington National to O’Hare, thinking of what might enhance my fellow travelers’ experiences at O’Hare and Midway (or any other airport), and how we travelers might reward successful sponsors with our business.

Many of us are grateful for the Samsung charging stations in a half-dozen US airports (relationship is with JCDecaux), and we notice the Rolex-branded clocks at the Las Vegas (a clock in Vegas!) airport and others around the globe. While appreciated, these are becoming ordinary and expected marketing activities. What will the next generation of sponsor-provided amenities be, and how will they speak to that stressed-out traveler who looks an awful lot like their customer?

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Filed under: government/municipal, destination/tourism

Hospitals as Sponsors: Time for a Second Opinion?

Last week I blogged that hospitals “are deciding whether they want to continue to sponsor sports teams and community events.” This got a few raised eyebrows from my colleagues, who know that hospitals and medical facilities are active sponsoring categories. You could even argue they are increasingly active—a quick search of our database turned up over 500 current U.S. deals where hospitals and medical centers are official sponsors.

My observation that we need to keep a close eye on decisions within this sponsoring category stems from the chatter I hear from hospital industry executives and what I can glean from the trade press. I am hearing that these expenditures are under increased scrutiny and slipping in priority as bigger issues may grab the attention and resources once used for sponsorships (and potentially marketing overall). The bigger issues—health care quality and patient safety, non-profit executive pay and charity care, to name a few—are real, yet they are inextricably tied to slippery factors like public perception and legislative agenda.

You’ve heard it before: anything that cannot be measured is discretionary. And any expenditure—including sponsorship—not shown to have a demonstrable impact on patient care could be vulnerable to the hospital budget axe. Certainly these sponsorships can and should be measured, and if they are the right kinds of sponsorship, they can and will have an appropriate and positive impact in the hospitals’ efforts to build substantive relationships with patients and communities. The failure to make those measurable connections is where this sponsorship activity is at risk.

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Filed under: nonprofit, hospitals and healthcare

What Do We Want to Be When We Grow Up?

I listen to so much discourse about the evolution of sponsorship and how it has—and has not—come into its own. From a [official] status symbol to an agent of [financial, societal, experiential] change, the medium continues to mature to reflect the thinking of a new day.

Yet, in years, sponsorship is a relatively immature medium, so what do we want sponsorship to be when it grows up? Should we worry that it will lose its youthful energy? Or do we look forward to the day when it puts away childish things, such as those elements that allow sponsor and property a moment of shared swagger but drive no value for the audience?

I am working with groups and companies in a number of sponsorship sectors right now that are actively, vocally trying to figure out what's next.

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Filed under: government/municipal, hospitals and healthcare, malls/developments, medical societies, nonprofit, what is sponsorship, cause marketing

Sponsorship Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry

Despite the fact—or perhaps because—it’s one of the chickier chick flicks out there, Love Story is among my movie favorites. So it did not surprise me when the most famous line (“love means never having to say you’re sorry”) in its Oscar-nominated script flashed across my mind’s ear the other day.  It did surprise me when it came to me in a sponsorship context.

I was in Kansas City, where I had the pleasure of participating in the Missouri Assn. of Convention & Visitor Bureaus (MACVB) Annual Meeting. One of my fellow presenters was Doug Price from DMAI (Destination Marketing Assn. Int’l), who spoke about trends and the future of destination marketing. Toward the end of his talk, Doug mentioned the advocacy efforts undertaken by the Seattle CVB and other cities (Indianapolis, etc.) to make the case for tourism—not just to prospective tourists, but specifically to local residents. I checked it out, and I found Seattle’s “Why Tourism Matters” campaign (www.whytourismmatters.org) to be an aspirational model for the case organizations need to make in support of—rather than in defense of—their marketing efforts.

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Filed under: cause marketing, destination/tourism, nonprofit, associations

Why Don’t Malls and Developments Get a Bigger Piece of the Sponsorship Pie?

We don’t play favorites here at IEG – we believe that whatever property has the best ROI-driving solution for a sponsor is the one that should get the deal. But on about a quarterly basis, an IEGer will scratch her head and ask, “but really now, why don’t shopping malls and developments get a bigger piece of the sponsorship pie?” It’s my turn.

When you look at the tangible aspects of mall sponsorship—the foot traffic (I visited a mall in Hong Kong last year that gets millions of visitors every week), the media and signage, the sampling opportunities—malls stack up very well to sports and other entertainment opportunities.

So what about the intangibles? That’s what it’s all about, right? The passion points probably are not there, at least not in the diehard-fan way we associate with causes and sports. But the ability to activate and the commercial-friendliness of the environment certainly make them more than competitive. With last month’s talk of Permission Marketing’s (Godin) 10th anniversary in mind, aren’t malls valuable real estate? Shoppers have opted in for a browsing/buying experience, all sponsors have to do is make their offering worth their attention.

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Filed under: selling, malls/developments

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

Big Leaps, Big Returns: Watchmaker Hublot’s Approach To Sponsorship
I was in Switzerland last week meeting with Jean-Claude Biver about his keynote at Leap, IEG’s 2012 Sponsorship Conference next month.

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Filed under: cause marketing, endorsements, IEG conference, international, motorsports, sports, activation

Komen Controversy's Lessons For Sponsors
Having enjoyed many years of a productive partnership with Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the organization’s corporate partners are no doubt feeling blindsided by this week’s firestorm over SGK’s decision to no longer provide funding to Planned Parenthood.

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Filed under: cause marketing, nonprofit, social media, backlash

Sponsorship and Return on Innovation
Speakers at IEG’s 2012 Sponsorship Conference are bringing unprecedented levels of innovation to the sponsorship space.

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Filed under: arts, events, festivals, IEG conference, non-traditional categories, activation

Paterno’s Legacy And The Big Question For Sports And Sports Marketers
My family and I moved to the suburbs of Pittsburgh when I was nine and Joe Paterno was already many years into becoming a football and Pennsylvania legend.

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Filed under: college sports, pro sports, sports, backlash

Despite Many Questions, Tebow Is A Prime Sponsorship Candidate
It may seem odd that I wrote the headline to this post during the third quarter of Saturday’s night playoff game, at the exact moment Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow was getting sacked with his team down 42-7 to Tom Brady and the Patriots.

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Filed under: pro sports, endorsements

Procter & Gamble Understands The Value Of Cause Marketing Better Than Anyone
Jerry Welsh introduced the term cause related marketing—a strategy he created while EVP of worldwide marketing at American Express—at the second annual IEG Sponsorship Conference in 1985.

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Filed under: IEG conference, trends, cause marketing

Will Short-term And Shared Deals Be The Death Of Sponsorship?
In the beginning, stadium naming rights agreements were largely 20-year commitments, with a few 10-year exceptions. The bulk of NASCAR team sponsorships were for a full season, and marketers signed on to sponsor every stop of a concert tour.

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Filed under: what is sponsorship, sponsorship measurement

Measuring TV Exposure Does Not Capture Sponsorship ROI
There is much more to measuring the ROI of a sponsorship than accounting for the value of brand exposure during TV broadcasts, yet I continue to hear stories of sponsors that put nearly all of their measurement emphasis on that

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Filed under: sponsorship measurement, sponsorship ROI, international

Heineken’s Smart Approach To Sponsorship Activation
While in Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago, I dropped in on Hans Erik Tuijt, global manager of activation for Heineken and a speaker at IEG’s 2012 sponsorship conference.

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Filed under: beer, branded content, digital media, events, festivals, IEG conference, international, music, new media, research, sponsored content, sponsorship measurement, sponsorship ROI, activation

What Does Pujols Deal Mean For L.A. Angels’ Sponsorship Revenue?
While Angels fans start planning World Series celebrations and Cardinals fans assess their club’s fortunes in the wake of Albert Pujols’ departing St. Louis for Anaheim, others are looking at the impact the slugger’s arrival will have on his new team’s bottom line.

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Filed under: pro sports, selling, endorsements