Opinion
Paid, Owned And Earned: Sponsorship Delivers All Types Of Media
2/2/10: During a meeting with folks from the media buying world last week in New York, I was introduced to the idea of categorizing media into one of three buckets: paid, owned and earned.
While those descriptors are fairly self-explanatory, Forrester Research has developed
definitions for each that are very helpful to those who want to explore the idea in greater depth.
What struck me is how well sponsorship is positioned to deliver across these three media buckets. Although often—and mistakenly—not considered as part of “media planning,” sponsorship is unarguably connected to paid, owned and earned media.
Certainly, sponsorship offers corporate marketers direct access to paid media through the property and related media partners. It also provides a compelling idea, theme and focal point for advertising and promotional media that a sponsor is purchasing.
Sponsorship’s ability to provide corporate partners with access to content that targeted audiences care about gives an incredible boost to a company’s owned media, whether a Web site, You Tube channel or other vehicle.
And in the case of media that is the most difficult to control—earned—the association with properties, organizations, teams, bands, etc. that people love and identify with can do more than anything else to positively impact the conversation around products, brands and companies.
There was a time when sponsorship professionals were wise to not associate their initiatives with the old-school media world of spots and dots, recognizing that sponsorship offered so much more in forging relevant and deep connections with consumers and other targeted groups.
Now that media has come to embrace a much broader perspective of the different channels available for interacting with audiences, it is time for sponsorship to claim its place at the heart of this new landscape.
Jim Andrews