Stress-Testing Your Sponsorship: Are You Advancing a Movement or Marketing in Circles?
Posted: 7/20/2010 8:51:49 AM by
Diane Knoepke | with 0 comments
The “movement” is the thing for sponsorship heavy-hitters these days. Moving people to action—causing measurable behavior change—is the highly evolved, holy grail of return on sponsorship measurement. But instead of just counting coupons redeemed or pages “liked,” sponsors and properties are building real relationships, tracking long-term behaviors, and making changes in their businesses using the audiences, information and people-power they gather.
My working definition of “movement” (in this context) is a multi-faceted marketing and/or CSR program that invites and then persuades a consumer to invest at least two of her personal currencies—money, time, passion, network connections, information—to advance the core idea/effort of the program. While there are no rules about origins, movements are often initiated by companies that may involve one or more properties, and they are often started by properties that may involve one or more companies.
Though this idea is often and increasingly associated with causes—LIVESTRONG, The Heart Truth, Go Red for Women, Earth Hour, and Komen’s “[XYZ] for the Cure” come to mind—this is not an exclusive birthright of the non-profit world. A decade or two ago, many NASCAR teams and their sponsors began building extraordinary fan movements around drivers; and we see clever sports teams and events using these bigger-game techniques to turn casual fans into those who “bleed” their team’s colors. It works in every world.
So, no matter what the space you’re working in, how do you know if you’re creating a “movement” that has a shot at living up to the name?
- Be bigger than the players. Aspects of the movement must authentically serve the greater mission in a way that is beyond the goals of any one of the players. Certainly sponsors will aim to drive business; a property will aim to attract friends, followers, fans or funders. But consumers need to see something that serves the movement—something that is in many cases outside the direct aim of the originators—to let down their guard and participate. I wrote a post awhile back about the Women’s Running Magazine Women’s Half Marathon (now a series) and how Women’s Running Magazine (event organizer and title sponsor) has strategically chosen to take a backseat in the branding of the event to advance its women’s running movement. Where many title sponsors of events are looking for places to make their names and logos bigger, the folks at the Women’s Half Marathon series announced this week that they had redesigned their race medals based on participant feedback (with the founder unveiling the design on Facebook, of course).
- Let it grow organically, but keep tending and pruning. Just as you’ve read in a thousand social media articles, you must realize that once you launch a movement it’s not yours anymore. You need to let it take on a life of its own . . . and yet you need to help it grow in a positive direction. Whether you are a sponsor or property, you need to fix or sunset the things people don’t like and help them build more of what they do.
- Provide multiple points of participation. As in my definition above, you must have opportunities for people to invest pieces of themselves. You are not just campaigning for dollars or business, you are allowing ways to support and advance their movement. The more and higher quality ways consumers have to get involved, the more invested they will be.
- Have a hub. It will likely be a microsite or social network page, but it could also be at/via retail or at property sites. The movement—and its movers—need an active, lively home where they can meet and build momentum.
- Give it a brand. The brand should be compatible with, but distinct from, each of its backers. Like the examples I mentioned above, the best movements may use attributes of company and/or property brands, yet are not just duplicates. Take the Home Farming Movement, sponsored by Triscuit and built in collaboration with Urban Farming. While Triscuit and Urban Farming are front and center, the Movement has its own name, brand attributes and brand extensions. A litmus test for the branding is to think about whether merchandising the Movement brand would make sense. In some cases, merchandising is at the core of it—think LIVESTRONG on a global scale or the longstanding “THE SHIRT” tradition at Notre Dame on a more regional one—does the movement brand have the potential to be worn? Because while a lot of us wouldn’t carry a reusable Triscuit bag to the grocery store or farmer’s market, we would proudly tote a Home Farming one.
- Make it mediagenic. The flip side to all that branding is to make sure there is real information and real credibility here and that we are not just hawking merchandise. The property or properties involved are a centerpiece to the news and information portion of most movements, but the best ones go beyond that. Think celebrities and experts and authentic testimonials. Think resources and toolkits and community-building tools. Think milestones and goals and unveilings and announcements. None of this can be artificial, but it absolutely needs to be planned. Note: don’t take this to mean movements need to be national or global—they just need to be mediagenic within the market or network that is meaningful to the movement.
Have you seen or found other attributes to be important in creating a successful movement? There are definitely additional markers of success in this business; I would love to hear your ideas and experiences.
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Filed under: digital media, how to get sponsorship, NASCAR, nonprofit, sponsorship ROI, sports, cause marketing