Fresh Insights from IEG

Creating Sponsorship Programs Where There Previously Where None

Last week I had a conversation with a colleague, Daren Watkins. I wanted to share some of our conversation because I think some of his challenges and hopefully his successes may be relevant to a lot of properties.

Watkins is the special events coordinator for the Real. Texas. Festival. in Mesquite, TX. His sponsorship career started four years ago with the first Real. Texas. Festival. Watkins has been with the Festival from the beginning and is responsible for the establishment and success of the Festival. Watkins secured 17 sponsors the first year of the Festival, including a presenting sponsor. His sponsorship program has since grown to more than 20 sponsors.

The Festival is a two-day event in April that features live entertainment, a car show and a rodeo. The Festival now attracts close to 25,000 attendees.

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Filed under: entertainment, events, local, nonprofit, research, activation

Evian Roller Skating Baby Video-A Marketing Gimmick

Marketing gimmicks are alive and well and appear to be working for some brands. In Lesa’s recent blog covering the ANA Annual Conference, Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO of Google, spoke about Evian’s commercial/video featuring babies on roller skates.

He stated that on YouTube.com, the videos had received 30 million views. The campaign does make great use of the web and online content includes interviews with the babies, clips from casting for the video and Facebook pages for the babies. The campaign has certainly caught on and reportedly has delivered business results for Evian. The video is insanely cute and very viral, but at its core, it is a gimmick.

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Filed under: entertainment, events, activation

From the AFP Conference–Customer Lifetime Value, Customer Retention and Value Segments

I attended the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ Midwest Conference on Philanthropy yesterday and although the content of the conference was not sponsorship focused, there were some insights that were very relevant to sponsorship.

The opening session was led by Adrian Sargeant, the Robert F. Hartsook Professor of Fundraising at Indiana University. Even though the content of the session was focused on driving donor loyalty, there were several topics covered that are pertinent, and three that I would like to highlight. The concepts of retention and defection, lifetime value, and value segments all have a place in sponsorship. Because of the limited information available on some of these topics within fundraising, during his research Sargeant turned to insights developed on the consumer side.

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Filed under: nonprofit, research, selling, sponsorship ROI, activation

Carrie’s Top Ten (Mostly Sponsorship Related) List

There were some pretty big sponsorship news stories during the past week or two and since everyone else seems to have a top ten list, I wanted to do one too. Plus, doing a top ten list pretty much guarantees at least some people will be interested. Personally, I always turn to the top ten lists in magazines first and click on any news stories that say “Top Ten”. Maybe this will be the beginning of a series…hmm…enjoy!

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Filed under: entertainment, events, music, nonprofit, research, selling, activation

Sponsorship Getting to Know You Questions

Since I do most of the talking (writing) in this blog, I thought it might be nice to give everyone else a chance to do some writing.

Every so often, either via email or on Facebook, I receive one of those getting to know you questionnaires. Where it asks questions like “What is your favorite color?”, “Who was your first boyfriend/girlfriend?” or “What annoys you the most?” I don’t know why, but I always end up filling it out and forwarding it on. So in that spirit, I thought I would create a few sponsorship getting to know you questions. There are no correct answers; I am just looking for your opinions, thoughts and perspectives. It is mostly just for fun, kind of an experiment. It is obviously not a hard hitting sponsorship blog. Anyway, I hope someone will respond, otherwise this will be a pretty boring blog post. Feel free to add your own question if it relates to sponsorship.

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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

Sponsorship Makes The Cut
Observations, learnings and provocations from October’s ANA Masters of Marketing conference.

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Filed under: research, sponsorship measurement, sponsorship ROI, telecommunications, trends, endorsements