Opinion
Assertions
12/7/09: Is
Wikipedia a
sponsorable property? As a nonprofit, can it be a
cause marketing or
strategic philanthropy platform? Those are the questions a
task force looking at the long-term financial sustainability of the online giant currently is trying to answer. In true wiki fashion,
anyone is invited to join the task force. Wikipedia has quite a number of issues to work out if it decides to seek sponsorship, not the least of which is
potential backlash for “
selling out.” As one task force member put it: “The real challenge we face is working with advertisers and sponsors in a way that doesn’t compromise the
radically non-commercial ideals of the project, though no one is quite sure exactly where along the wiki way this anti-corporate vibe sprang from.” If you’re interested in participating, go to
strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Financial_Sustainability.
We continue to be
amazed at the
lack of creativity on behalf of most
energy drink brands when it comes to their
choice of properties to sponsor–with
Red Bull being the extremely notable
exception and being among the most innovative and ahead-of-the-curve event marketers in any category. Two years ago, we saw some
signs of life, with certain brands breaking out of the action sports and rock music mold and moving into
fashion and other
non-traditional areas for the category, but it seems most of the efforts were
short-lived and brands have gone back to doing the same things they and all their competitors have always done.
I don’t know the people behind the
Scout MVP technology that the
Carolina Hurricanes are using as a
servicing and
sales tool–to good effect according to the team’s
Mike Hurley–and I cannot speak to their system’s speed, accuracy, functionality, etc., but I am a big fan of
properties making it easy for sponsors to track deliverables, check inventory and network virtually with each other. I said as much nearly three years ago when the
Minnesota Timberwolves first shared with us information about the system they were then trying out and which has become Scout MVP. However, I do have an
issue with the public portion of the site–the area that
prospective sponsors are
directed to for more information on demographics, assets, benefits, activation programs, etc. As was the case with the original Timberwolves site, I’m surprised that the
information is not downloadable. If a prospect wants to capture and store any of the information for
easy reference or
sharing, he or she would have to copy and paste each page of the site into another document. Why make a potential buyer
work for information you definitely want them to have?
Apparently we at IEG can
take a little credit for
introducing the Hurricanes to the technology. Seems Mike Hurley had his curiosity piqued when he heard
Ethan Casson, the Timberwolves’ senior vice president of corporate sales and services, speak about the original system in a workshop at our
annual sponsorship conference in ’08. Speaking of that event, you should be receiving the hard copy
brochure for Unbound, our 27th annual conference, in the mail any day now. You’ll notice we
changed the format of the brochure this year to provide the essential highlights and information, with all of the
detailed session descriptions and other valuable background information now
online (and continually updated) at
IEG2010.com.
Jim Andrews