It’s Valentine’s Day – that one day a year we set aside for acknowledging our love. I’ve written the cards, my daughter has decided that we’re celebrating by making a chocolate mud cake tonight, and I certainly love her. But, I have another love… sponsorship.

I have a love and passion for this business that borders on the absurd. I’ve spent my entire adult life in this industry and, honestly, can’t imagine doing anything else. If I hit the lottery tomorrow, I know that I’d still be sitting in this chair the day after, trying to make a difference to my clients and the industry.

This industry tends to do that to people. We get sucked in and fall in love, and I have been love-struck for over 26 years. I wanted to tell you a few of the reasons why…

It has both-brain appeal

To work well, sponsorship requires the analysis and rigour often associated with left-brain thinkers, but equally important is the creativity and resourcefulness associated with right-brain thinkers. For people who favour one type of thinking over the other, sponsorship allows you to exercise your less-favoured thinking skills while still firing up your strong side.

If you are a balanced thinker – not favouring either side strongly – as I am, finding sponsorship can be a real halleluiah experience. When I started in sponsorship, it was the first time I felt like I was firing on all mental cylinders at once, and it was a revelation. (To clarify, it was the first time I felt like that, in a productive way. I know it’s hard to believe, but I had been a bit of a troublemaker.)

Even if you’re firmly on one side of the analytical-creative divide, the collaborative nature of sponsorship means you will participate in teams where, as a whole, all of those skills are required and used. That, in itself, is rewarding.

I’m an idealist

Yeah, yeah… I should tell you something you don’t already know! What I’m referring to, in this case, isn’t that I aspire to a world where everyone does sponsorship perfectly (which I do). Instead, it’s how sponsorship, as a medium, appeals to my larger ideals.

Let’s think about this for a second. When sponsors figure out how to gain a commercial return – change people’s perceptions and/or behaviours – through sponsoring grassroots, community programs and charities, more corporate money flows into those programs.

When sponsors create partnerships with initiatives in the developing world, and then engender loyalty and advocacy by making their customers and staff the heroes, more people get clean water, more girls get an education, and more children get the medical care they need.

When Northern Ireland’s Nambarrie Tea put breast self-exam instructions inside the lid of their boxes, women who would ordinarily not seek out that information suddenly had it in the privacy of their homes. There is no question, that initiative saved lives.

We should be proud of the fact that, by doing our jobs exceptionally well, we can actually achieve marketing goals while doing something meaningful to the betterment of the world. That’s big. Not many other corporate marketers can say that.

The “cool” factor

On the opposite end of the spectrum from idealism is the “cool” factor. Our jobs are cool. We work with inherently exciting events, amazing charities, much-loved sporting organisations, and the like. We get invited places and offered ticket to stuff all the time. We travel, we meet superstars. If many of us bullet-pointed our careers, we would look pretty damned sexy.

I am the first to admit that much of that is more perception than reality, and we spend a lot more time in offices slaving over strategy and putting out fires than anything else. And anyone who does travel a lot, knows that it gets old quick – especially if all you see is the airport, a cab, your hotel, and some office building or venue.

I’d still rather have my job, with those regular “wow, this is amazing” moments, than one with none of those moments at all.

What’s your take? Do you love this industry, or is it more of a love/hate relationship? Why? Comments are open.