kim skildum-reid's
corporate sponsorship blog

The Super Bowl is over and the Saints won. As a Vikings fan, I’m not super happy about that, although I am happy for the people of New Orleans, who deserve some good news. At least Brett Favre will be delighted, as he has now relinquished the title of “Most Heartbreaking Interception in the Playoffs” title to Peyton Manning. He’ll be sending a gift basket tomorrow.

I know it’s a bit off topic, but I wanted to share my favourite Super Bowl ads. I’m leaving comments open, so please let me know what your favourites were.

Want to see them all and vote? Check out www.adbowl.com.

Google “Parisian Love”

I can’t tell you how much I love this ad. This is in my top three ads of all time. Seriously.

Audi “Green Police”

Okay, I’m a tree-hugging. composting greenie and I love this ad. The only thing they’re missing is a hotline so I can turn in my neighbour who burns trash in the backyard.

KGB “Sumo

Never heard of KGB before, but I like this ad!

E*Trade “Girlfriend”

I didn’t really like the other E*Trade ads, but this was good.

Snickers “You’re Not You”

Put Betty White in an ad and you’re onto a winner!

Honourable mentions

Hyundai “Old Brett Favre”

I’m a Vikings fan and will someday forgive Brett Favre for that pass.

Flo TV “My Generation”

Love it. Great cause-related hook at the end. Too bad The Who didn’t sound like that at halftime.

Doritos “Underdog”

I thought the Doritos ads were just okay, but this one made me really crack up. A juvenile moment, perhaps.

Volkswagen “Punch Dub”

Entertaining. Maybe VW could sponsor a new division of the MMA.

Dove Men

I liked this ad, but I don’t know why. Maybe just because it wasn’t bad.

The also-rans

There were a lot of other ads that fell into the category of, “this is the best you can do for the Super Bowl??”. Why a company would pay for a Super Bowl ad and not bring their A-game is beyond me.

• Bridgestone – Yawn.
• Bud Light/Budweiser – Perhaps they should have bought just one ad and actually… you know… put some effort into it.
• A-B/Budweiser “Fences” – Beautifully shot and sweet, but a bit half-baked and preachy.
• Careerbuilder.com – Another Yawn
• Census – Why is the census even advertising on the Super Bowl? Isn’t there a better use for those millions of taxpayer dollars?
• Coca-Cola – Pepsi finally lets go of the Super Bowl and this is the best they can come up with?
• Diamond Foods – Not “awesomer”. Try “stupider”.
• Dockers – Strange. I understand the “free pants” website crashed.
• Dodge – I’m pretty sure there is not a woman alive who likes this ad.
• Dr Pepper – Meh.
• E*trade – How many times can I say “yawn”?
• EA – Good music, good tagline, that’s about it.
• Focus on the Family (AKA “the Tebow ad”) – After all the hoo-ha, the ad itself didn’t say very much. Good plan to push the polarising stuff to the website, although given people already know the rest of the story from all the media coverage, they’re probably preaching to the converted.
• Gatorade – Gorgeous, glorious ad, but it’s been done before.
• Go Daddy – Scantily clad women still go with football, apparently. Like Danica Patrick, though.
• HomeAway – Again… yawn.
• Honda – The ad would be much better without that bum-ugly car in it.
• Intel – Cute, not great.
• Kia – My daughter would love this. She’s five.
• McDonald’s – Just bring back the Jordan/Bird ad!
• Michelob Ultra – Every sport-themed ad cliche rolled into one.
• Monster.com – Every fiddling beaver should use it.
• Motorola – Going through all these ads again, I am convinced that there are only three storyboards in all of adland.
• Papa Johns – Following in the footsteps of every pit crew ad ever made.
• Round Up – What a waste of an ad.
• Select 55 – “The World’s Lightest Beer” is floating in the air… groundbreaking!
• Sketchers Shape Ups – Boring, but I bet it sells a lot of shoes.
• Sprint Nextel – This was just embarrassing.
• Taco Bell – Before that ad, Charles Barkley was cool.
• Teleflora – They made their point. That’s all I want to say about that.
• TruTV – I don’t get it.
• Vizio – A one-minute ad showing how many things your TV can do. I didn’t know Apple licensed their ads.

Did anyone else notice I got meaner as I went through this list? Bad marketing makes me cranky.

Almost a decade ago, when our event was brand new, we really struggled for sponsorship. One sponsor really stepped in with some much-needed cash. The problem is that we are now doing well and have grown a lot – in size, revenues, and sophistication – but this original sponsor hasn’t grown with us. They are now one of our smaller sponsors, never leverage, and keep exercising their right of first refusal, which includes category exclusivity. We could get a lot more money and find a much better sponsor in this category if they were gone. We have had two of enquiries from their competitors in the past couple of years. How do we get rid of this sponsor?

Quick primer on “first right of refusal”: This is a right that is often provided as a benefit of sponsorship and means that the sponsor has the first right to say “yes” or “no” to a similar contract at the end of the current agreement.

Many sponsees seem to believe that offering first right of refusal to a sponsor obligates you to offer them a similar contract at the end of the current one. Not so! All it does is prevent you from offering a similar contract to another sponsor without giving them a chance to say “yes” first. So, if your sponsor isn’t getting it, it’s time to raise the bar and see if they jump.

Create a brand new, more comprehensive, five-star proposal. Make it all about their target markets and objectives. Include lots of fantastic ideas for leverage. Make the package realistic, but commensurate with the type of sponsorship you should have in that category. Present it to them as a rethink and a great opportunity. Tell them that you want to continue to work with them, but it is inappropriate to continue with the relationship, as it currently stands. Do not back down if they want to renew the old contract instead. Make it clear that is not an option.

This is important: Be sure to go through this process in good faith. You never know, they may rise to the occasion and let’s hope they do.

Equally important: In case they don’t rise to the occasion, be sure to go through this process with a lot of lead time. There is no guarantee one of your prospects will say “yes” straightaway, so you may need time to sell to another sponsor in the category. Plus, they will need time to plan and implement a leverage plan.

I love sponsorship, I really do. I’ve been doing this for give-or-take about 25 years and can’t imagine being in any other industry. I’m not sure why, but this weekend, I’ve been thinking about how I got into this crazy business. If you’re not interested in a goofy, personal, back story, feel free to click away now!

When I was in high school, my mum started an advertiser for horse people. There were two issues – in the Upper Midwest (I grew up in Minnesota) and California. I worked for The Stable Sheet through high school and uni. Part of my job was keying in all 120,000 names and addresses of the subscribers, which was boring, but turned me into a blistering fast typist. The other part of my job started when I turned 16 and got my drivers license, at which time my 14 year-old sister and I hit the road and represented The Stable Sheet at major horse shows and horse expos we sponsored across several states. We also got up to a lot of no good, but I won’t go into details. My mum reads this blog.

I started uni when I was just 16 and studied what I was good at – maths and physics – but hated it and I got up to even more no good. I already knew I loved marketing (not knowing specifically what that meant), sports, and writing. I dropped out short of graduating and tried to figure out what I was going to do that mixed marketing, sports, and writing. Hmm… let me think…

One stop-gap job later – insurance, what was I thinking??? – and I was interviewing with a start-up sponsorship group while sitting on the ground helping them get a mailing out the door. I beat hundreds to that job, and spent the next few years working nonstop (for a pittance!) to make our clients’ sponsorship activations happen.

I went to more huge sporting events and stadiums than I can count, but mostly only saw them from behind the scenes and ended up with a crazy resume of experiences. I’ve been chased around by baseball players. I had to take over for the person who fainted inside the Pillsbury Doughboy costume. I nearly fell into the Twins outfield trying to hang a banner from the AV rack in the way-off-the-ground commentator box. I crashed a sponsor’s blimp into a high power line and nearly blacked out the Houston Astrodome during a nationally televised Oilers game. It was crazy. It was fun. I had hardly any sleep or money, but I didn’t care. What emerged early on was that, as much fun as the “doing” is, what I really loved was the strategy – analysing the sponsor’s needs and figuring out creative ways to meet those needs. I’ve been doing that ever since.

Fast forward to 1992, and I was ready to make my move overseas. Not sure why, but I always knew I was going to spend my life overseas. I landed in Australia and have been here ever since. It was the best decision I ever made – personally or professionally. I love it here and have built a business with clients on six continents. If I would have stayed in America, I’m sure I would have been successful, but would I have worked around the world?? Not so sure.

I’m an idealist and a perfectionist to the point of being annoying. Given that, you’d think the whole “doyenne of best practice sponsorship” thing would have been the goal all along, but no. I fell into that track quite by accident!

First, there was the world’s worst conference. It was so bad, I spoke up at the end and the 30 people remaining had a revolt, scaring the young woman organising the thing to bits. We formed the Australasian Sponsorship Marketing Association on the spot, deciding there and then that best practice sponsorship was too important to entrust to a bunch of canned conference companies.

I was appointed, then elected, president for four years until I retired. During that time, I was also the editor of the newsletter and one of the people organising the annual conference Given how the association started, it would have been hypocritical to allow anything less than best-practice into what we did. Seeking out that information and those people was amazing, and the start of my love affair with best practice sponsorship. It was also the start of my mission to raise the bar for the industry, and I haven’t wavered from that mission ever since. Yeah, I know… it’s my own personally windmill for tilting!

The second big watershed was when a partner and I started doing workshops. Our biggest competition planted someone in our second ever workshop, grabbed our materials, and promptly accused us of plagiarism. It was a pile of hooey. I wrote our materials and had never read his stuff nor been to his workshop. We gathered the background material, defended ourselves admirably, and then realised, “hey, we do this differently than anyone else”. Within two months, we had a publishing deal and The Sponsorship Seeker’s Toolkit was born, followed by The Sponsor’s Toolkit and The Ambush Marketing Toolkit. The Corporate Sponsorship Toolkit is my newest book, and is getting ready to go to editing right now.

Best practice sponsorship is my thing. I love it. I love the analysis and the strategy and the case studies. Kudos to all of you sponsorship folks covering sponsorship news. I love reading your stuff, but that’s just not where my heart is. It’s the possibilities that turn me on – for me, my clients, and the whole industry.

The upshot is that I have the best job in the world. I get to work with big sponsors, sorting out their major portfolios, and when I’m done, I move on to someone else. I get to write books and blogs and white papers. I get to do workshops and keynotes around the world and special programs for charities. I get to call some of the most talented, creative people I know “my peers”. Seriously, I am happy, happy, happy.

How about you? How did you get into sponsorship? Why do you love it? Any crazy stories to share? I’d love to hear all about it!!

I’m almost done with The Corporate Sponsorship Toolkit. The book deal is done. The editor is waiting. The cover is underway. Woo-hoo!

Before it goes out for editing, I’d really love your input. I’m going to be previewing the book on Google Wave, Google’s new email-busting collaborative workspace. Google Wave is still in early beta, and there are a lot of features that aren’t working yet, but it will be perfect for sharing the book and allowing you to provide your comments and input.

This is what you need to do to participate:

• Get a Gmail account (if you don’t have one)
• Get a Google Wave account. You can sign up at http://wave.google.com. If they don’t have any accounts on offer, email me at admin@powersponsorship.com. I have around 20 invitations that I’m happy to provide to people who want to participate in the preview.
• Start a wave and include me – kimskildumreid@googlewave.com – so I can get you onto my contacts list and the group that will be participating. Note: That looks like an email address, but it’s not. It’s just for Google Wave.

I’ll let you know when the book is ready for previewing. It will be tidy, but not edited. The graphics will be rough drafts, and the cover will not be on it yet, but all of the content will be there.

Today is 22 January. The Vancouver Olympics start on 12 February – three weeks from today – and yet, apparently the Vancouver Organizing Committee plan to sell another major sponsorship before the Games, and possibly more. Reports are that they already have a sponsor in mind.

This is just ridiculous. Committing to major sponsorship of an Olympic Games three weeks before it starts is just about the fastest way to waste money I can think of. Okay, maybe Vegas would be faster, but at least you would have the chance of a win. This new sponsor? No way.

When you invest in sponsorship, you are investing in opportunity. It is leverage that provides the results. It is the strategic activity you do with the sponsorship to achieve your goals that will provide the ROI, not the sponsorship itself. Planning and implementing these strategies takes time, and time is exactly what they don’t have.

• What sponsor could integrate this sponsorship across all of their activities – which is what you have to do when you’re spending tens of millions on one event – in three weeks?
• What sponsor could create a media campaign worthy of an Olympic sponsorship and launch it in three weeks? Are appropriate advertising slots even available at this point?
• What sponsor could create a hospitality program of the appropriate calibre in three weeks? Are there any decent hotel rooms or venues still available? Are clients even going to be available? Or have all the big clients been invited to the Games by someone else?
• What sponsor can plan and implement a staff program in three weeks?
• What sponsor could get a social media plan up and running in three weeks? I know social media is fast-moving, but creating something worth paying attention to often isn’t.

No sponsor could do that in three weeks, but that is what it would take to turn this sponsorship from a massive opportunity into any result at all.

So what is driving the interest in sponsoring now, given that sponsorships have been on the market for years? Only three options come to mind: Corporate ego, blinding ignorance, or politics. Of these, only politics could possibly, possibly justify the investment, as I can see where a company that made the investment that put VANOC over their target might be seen favourably by the various levels of Government. That would be an extreme long-shot.

Through all of this, VANOC is being pretty cocky – telling major media that they anticipate signing at least one more sponsor before the Games. Good for them. Unfortunately, not good for the sponsor.

In case you’re interested, here is a list of all of the Worldwide and Vancouver Olympic Sponsors.