Creating Sponsorship Programs Where There Previously Where None
Posted: 11/24/2009 10:28:40 AM by
Carrie Urban Kapraun | with 0 comments
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.
Watkins is a one man sponsorship show (in addition to his numerous other roles) creating and implementing sponsorship programs where there previously were none. He believes that he has an advantage over people that have been in the sponsorship business for a long time. He said, “I have no preconceived ideas of what sponsorship is; I have been able to approach and absorb and not over analyze.” In addition to the Festival, his responsibilities recently expanded to include managing year-round, city-wide partnerships, including obtaining an official beverage sponsor. Again, he is forging new ground for the City of Mesquite.
Watkins said that with the current economy he is finding that “A lot of sponsorships aren’t programmatic, but more philanthropic.” He said he has found success aligning with nonprofit organizations such as the Mesquite ISD Education Foundation. He states that these partnerships provide greater activation opportunities, increased PR and access to budgets outside of marketing spending.
To date, Watkins most successful sponsorship activation program has been the Real. Texas. Food Drive. Attendees bring non-perishable food items and receive $5 off admission. Watkins said, “For a family of four that translates into real savings.”
The food drive is a partnership with a local hospital. He believes that part of the program’s success is that the hospital has really taken ownership of the program and handles all of the logistics. The hospital is able to bring a nutritionist and distributes hospital materials on-site. Last year 3,200 pounds of food were donated. Because of the success of the program he hopes to expand it in 2010.
However, Watkins has also had a few mishaps along the way. A few years ago he tied a local retail partner in to a program around free admission for children. The first year that it was implemented the Festival gave out coupons to school kids. The coupons were copied and did not specify an age limit for the free admission. Watkins said that his ticket folks were overwhelmed and the program didn’t work the way he planned. Fortunately, he was able to revamp the program for subsequent years so that all kids 12 and under receive free admission and the local retailer is still involved with the program.
When asked about his challenges related to sponsorship sales, Watkins said he is comfortable with prospecting sponsors, but he has not found a way to follow up with potential sponsors. After his initial contact with a sponsor he may not find time to follow up for a week or more. Additionally, Watkins has learned from experience that he can’t wait too long for a sponsor. At one point he lost a major sponsorship because he was expecting a sponsor to renew and at the last minute the sponsor decided not to renew. By that time, it was too late for him to try to obtain a new sponsor. He realized that he had to give sponsors a firm negotiating period and start approaching other sponsors earlier.
Some of the other challenges he faces are finding the time to network with sponsorship professionals-although he has networked extensively with other special event coordinators; finding ways to improve on sponsor programs that have been successful; providing turnkey sponsorship activation programs; finding a balance between incorporating sponsors in a meaningful way, without over branding the Festival; and protecting sponsors from ambush.
Watkins shared an ambush situation that occurred during the early years of Festival. The rodeo that the Festival partners with obtained a smokeless tobacco sponsor and allowed the sponsorship to extend beyond the rodeo to the Festival. Unfortunately, the Festival had also signed a smokeless tobacco sponsor, so there were two smokeless tobacco sponsors on-site. The rodeo had to renege on its sponsorship agreement with the smokeless tobacco company and was not able to collect the sponsorship rights fee. From that experience, there has been an increased focus on communication between the Festival and the rodeo.
Otherwise, Watkins philosophies are that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel, research and adapt stuff that works to your situation; get input from partners, especially media partners; provide sponsors with a sense of ownership; and give them access to content.
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Filed under: entertainment, events, local, nonprofit, research, activation