Opinion
Assertions
7/13/09: Apart from adhering to a
cause marketing best practice by committing its own funds and not placing a low cap on its donation, the decision by
Mott’s to let its
Feeding America phone call promotion run until it
reaches its goal of one million meals/$134,000 looks to be a smart one. If the promotion had been cut off last week after its
first four months, it would only have accounted for roughly 27,000 meals–assuming the brand’s online counter is accurate–or about
$3,600. Given that pace, it looks like Mott’s might want to
increase promotion of the program, unless it wants to wait more than
12 years to announce it has met its goal.
Interesting
research from the
U.K., commissioned by London agency Target Media: Of 2,000
music festival attendees surveyed,
41 percent had
positive feelings toward brands that sponsored such events.
Thirty-nine percent said sponsor ads
fit better with the festival experience than ads elsewhere, while only
19 percent said they were
annoyed by sponsor ID at festivals. Additionally,
75 percent of attendees said they could recall
beer, wine or sprits sponsors at music festivals, with
77 percent believing such adult beverages “
work best” as festival sponsors.
Although IEG SR’s responsibility to
identify categories primed to
increase sponsorship budgets has been a
challenging one this past year, we have scoped out new activity and are heartened by reports of
new deals that support our conclusions. For example, we reported in the spring that
prepaid wireless services were good candidates for a wider variety of properties than they previously had been involved with. Now we hear from longtime subscriber
Peter Hansen of the
New Jersey Performing Arts Center that he has concluded a deal for
Boost Mobile to sponsor the Newark venue’s Sounds of the City summer series of free Thursday evening outdoor performances. Boost Mobile was attracted to the series’ demographics–core age group of
25-to-32-year-olds,
75 percent African-American,
15 percent Latino–and the opportunity for face-to-face interaction with nearly 3,000 attendees at each performance. The provider plans to activate through
geo-texting and
social media applications; NJPAC also could provide artist content for Boost Mobile to offer through its phones and Web site.
Similarly, we recently profiled
foreign tourism councils in
Mexico and
Bermuda who were signing new deals to help persuade U.S. residents to travel to their countries.
Armand Milanesi, founder of Precision Sports Entertainment, tells us he just signed the
Jamaica Tourist Board as a first-time partner for this month’s
Nautica New York City Triathlon presented by Toyota. The deal affords title of the event’s entertainment zone during race weekend, which now will highlight Jamaican music and culture. The JTB also will
cross-promote with cosponsor
JetBlue Airways, which launched service from New York City to Montego Bay in May.
We’re not quite ready to identify
public libraries as an emerging category, but interesting to note the
Chicago Public Library has partnered with
four local properties this summer, including the Bucktown Arts Fest and Pitchfork Music Festival, seeking to promote the benefits of
membership and
drive traffic. The library is leveraging Pitchfork by hosting a ticket sweepstakes; to enter, consumers must search
ChiPubLib.org for the answer to a clue. It also is hosting a
Library Lounge at each event.
Jim Andrews