While reviewing my news feeds a week or so ago, I came across an announcement that Qantas had taken up naming rights sponsorship of the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix. It was a short announcement, but the implications are much bigger.

The first consideration is that Qantas is already the official airline partner of the Australian Grand Prix, giving them a credible and appropriate platform around this event. In 2001, they actually downgraded from naming rights to that level.

I believe they’ve got this wrong and should have stayed at the official partner level, as they were in the perfect position to do what is referred to as “ambushing up”. The thinking is similar to ambush marketing, but not the mechanics. In an ambushing-up situation, a sponsor takes their perfectly legitimate sponsorship and leverages it so effectively – creating so much target market connection and meaning – that they get the marketing results you would expect from a much bigger sponsor.

While there are plenty of good reasons to take up naming rights sponsorship, in most situations, it is unnecessary. Being thorough and creative and focusing on the connection with the target market, not the property, can create huge results – much bigger than your typical naming rights sponsor, who concentrates on visibility, not creating real returns for the brand.

Every sponsor can benefit from ambushing up, and the airline category is in the ideal position to do it. They have planes full of bored people reading their magazines and watching their videos. They have lounges, terminals, and gates. They have ongoing relationships with millions of frequent flyers to nurture. They have travel agents and corporate accounts who need fostering. They send millions of emails to their customers and frequent flyers. Their online experience is heavily used, but virtually commoditised, and could do with some interesting, relevant content.

Airlines have so many customer touchpoints – and most of them provide a comparatively lengthy and captive opportunity to enhance the customer experience. They have countless opportunities to create real, meaningful wins for all or most of their target markets, so why aren’t they doing it? Why does Qantas they think having a bigger sponsorship is a better approach than actually… you know… using the one they’ve got?

As a Qantas customer who both flew with them and bought tickets online just last week, I can tell you firsthand that what they are doing is pretty standard, old school stuff. Case in point, if you go to their website – www.qantas.com.au – you’ll notice a that you could “win a trip to the Grand Prix”. Hoo-wee, now there’s some innovation! I get to give them my details for the slim chance of being the one person who wins two economy class tickets to Melbourne to watch the racing for the weekend!! Yawn.

Oh, and any frequent flyer can pay almost $2000 to use the Qantas Skydeck at the race. Any frequent flyer – you don’t have to be loyal or important to Qantas, you don’t have to be invited to participate, and it’s not in any way exclusive. You just have to have $2000 and a frequent flyer number. Their most frequent flyers can’t even cash in any of their millions of points to get a spot.

Seriously, it’s two weeks before a huge international event they’re sponsoring – now at an even higher level – and that’s the best they can do? They should be embarrassed.

Naming rights of an event of this size is a huge financial commitment and provides a commensurately huge platform to leverage. If a sponsor is prepared to fully leverage the opportunity – investing the time, creativity, and resources required – then naming rights is a viable option. On the other hand, if a sponsor can’t be bothered getting a lower level sponsorship right, stepping up is an opportunity wasted.

There is also the issue of timing. The announcement was dated 24 February. The race weekend is 25-28 March. Even if Qantas is justified in spending up for this bigger platform – and I’m not at all convinced that they are – all they’ve done is bought a larger opportunity. Leverage is what turns that opportunity into results for a brand. What kind of leverage program will create a result from a platform of that scope? One that takes a lot longer than a month to plan and implement!

As canvassed in my recent blog, Bad Idea #77: Sponsor the Olympics Three Weeks Before the Games, strong leverage planning takes time to build buy-in and go though the creative process. It also takes time to implement. Does Qantas have time to create in-flight content? A new ad? Create and launch a loyalty promotion? Anything of meaning that is above and beyond what they could have done with the lower level sponsorship, and do it in the space of four weeks? Doubtful.

This leaves the question of why they bumped up the investment, when it was both unnecessary and unworkable, from a marketing point of view. Without being a mind-reader, experience tells me there are three main options:

1. They have let their corporate ego get the best of them
2. They are under the impression that potential inbound passengers (people coming to Australia) are unaware that Qantas exists and that simply seeing the name Qantas ad infinitum during the telecast will somehow magically make people understand why they should choose Qantas for their travels. (It would have to be magic, because reams of research have proven that visibility does not change the perceptions or behaviours around a brand.)
3. They are trying to position themselves in a positive light with state and local government by stepping in with major, white knight funding at the last minute.

I’m very interested in your take on this. Why do you think they’ve done it? Do you think this major sponsorship increase is justifiable and why? Please post your answers below. Comments are moderated, but only because there are some real creeps in this world. Go ahead and fire away!

According to some company that really should know better, Sun Life got $26 million in exposure for their new sponsorship of Dolphins Stadium during the Super Bowl.

What is this, 1992??

Media equivalencies should be banished to wherever Milli Vanilli disappeared to, because as measures of sponsorship success go, it is just as fake and insubstantial.

Where are the measures of changes in perceptions? Where are the measures of behaviour changes? Why did they find it necessary to issue a press release touting a measure that is so roundly condemned as irrelevant? What kind of advice are they getting??

I’m flabbergasted.

This entire blog is full of how to make sponsorship work and alternatives to old school thinking, so I won’t repeat myself here. My only recommendation is for readers to do themselves a favour and ignore this corporate chest-beating. It’s just an ego trip.

Read all about it in Media Week.

It’s early in the year – the time when people wipe the slate, make resolutions, and dedicate themselves to doing better. It’s when people give themselves permission to start over.

What if we applied that thinking to corporate sponsorship? What if sponsors took some time out from dealing with the administration of sponsorship and the improvement of sponsorship, and instead, dedicated themselves to the potential of sponsorship. What if they asked themselves this one question:

If you had the same sponsorship budget, but no commitments,
what would the perfect sponsorship portfolio
for your brand(s) and target markets look like?

I do this for my corporate clients all the time. In its formal iteration, it is called a zero-based audit, and it is often one of the most powerful parts of my recommendation. Strip away the politics, sentiment, history, and headaches, and suddenly my clients can see the true potential of sponsorship. More often than not, a senior decision maker will say, “now, we know what our goal is”. Bingo.

That’s your challenge. Whether your budget is $150,000 or $5 million or $50 million, leave the reality of your portfolio behind, work with your team, and ask yourselves these questions:

• What would you sponsor, if you could sponsor anything?
• At what level? What unique benefits would you want?
• Would you create and own any events or programs?
• Would you create any umbrella programs?
• How would you leverage your investments to meet brand needs?
• How would you integrate your investments across your other marketing and business activities?
• How would you involve your staff and customers in a meaningful way? Create a “win” for the people who are most critical to your success? Make them the heroes?

The process is creative and strategic and fun, but the real moment of truth comes when you compare what you could be doing with your money with what you are doing with your money. Suddenly, settling for improving mediocre sponsorships will seem a lot less appealing, and the ambitious goal of an entire portfolio that operates at peak performance will seem a lot more attainable. Mark my words.

I will say that whether you’re doing a straight audit or a zero-based audit, selling them internally can be a political minefield. Everyone has their pet projects and agendas, and none of them want to hear that their favourite is not the bees knees. You’ve really got two options:

Plan A is to enlist a senior executive (ideally, your head of marketing) in the process, as they will be able to navigate the c-level politics better than you will. If you’ve got that support and a team with even a modicum of creativity, you’re all set.

Plan B is to enlist outside help. For larger, more decentralised companies, as well as those with intractable politics, you are probably better off involving a consultant. A good consultant will bring a lot of expertise and ideas to the table, but one of the biggest bonuses is that some companies trust and accept the objective viewpoint of an outsider more than someone internal. They can deliver unpopular news, out-of-the-box solutions, and by virtue of their role, can present a reinvention on a scale that may be hard to accept if it came from inside.

Zero-based audit – Think clean slate. Think big. You’ll thank me.

Following on from Controversy Central #1: Tiger Loses (Almost) Everyone, this is an interesting case of an ad created to leverage a sponsorship in one region being a disaster in another. Here’s the setup:

Here in Australia, it’s summer, and in summer, our major sport is cricket. This season, we’ve played international series at home against the West Indies and Pakistan. KFC, a long-time sponsor of Australia Cricket, created a series of TV ads, called “Cricket Survival Guide”. On one of them, you have a lone Australian cricket supporter, dressed in the Australian green and gold, sitting amongst the opposition. In this case, it was West Indians wearing red and green and enthusiastically supporting their team, as cricket supporters do. Now that you have the context, here is the ad:

Why was I concerned about the context? Because the ad was made specifically for the Australian audience, referring to a very specific situation, and it made perfect sense down here. When the ad hit YouTube, however, a vocal minority of mainly Americans without benefit of context – or in some forums, not caring about the context – decided to call “racism”. Why is there only one white guy? Why is everyone else black? Why are the black people the only ones acting up? Why does he think fried chicken will fix everything? Why is it an “uncomfortable situation”?

I grew up in America and am a dual citizen, so I do understand the angle. And clearly, if this was an American ad depicting one white American and a bunch of black Americans, it would be terribly offensive. But it’s not. It’s about one Aussie cricket supporter who somehow got a seat in the middle of the West Indian supporters, with no hidden agenda with the chicken. There is no racial sensitivity about fried chicken in Australia or the West Indies – it’s just chicken.

Okay, I’m done defending the ad and ready to talk about the bigger picture…

If a brand is to connect with a target market, you do it by reflecting and respecting the passions, interests, and humour of that culture. You talk about what’s happening and you speak the language, which means it may not make a lot of sense or mean the same thing somewhere else. Context is everything.

This is a global marketplace, but have we really got to the point where every ad and every sponsorship leverage strategy, has to be checked for cultural sensitivities – about race or otherwise – around the world? Do we really have to cater to global sensitivities for regional ads, even though the rest of the world would have to go looking for those ads on the internet in order to be offended by them? Imagine the ads, and how boring they would be.

It’s a slippery, dangerous slope. Would McDonald’s be able to show a burger in an ad, because it may offend some cultures by glorifying the eating of meat? Bikinis and sexual innuendo would be out, as there are any number of cultures that would consider that that to be a case of egregious sexual permissiveness. None of that will happen, of course, so why does an Australian ad about making friends with a West Indian crowd at a cricket match by sharing chicken with them have to conform to American sensitivities?

Apparently, it does, because in an outstanding display of cowardice, KFC pulled the ad from Australian television. It’s an ugly precedent. Very ugly.

What a month in sponsorship controversy! I don’t bill myself as any kind of news service, but every so often, what’s making news just plain needs addressing.

Controversy #1 (and still champion) is the Amazing, Vanishing Tiger Woods and his Amazing, Vanishing Sponsors. As I predicted in my previous blog, “Sponsors in a Tiger Trap”, at last count, he has lost almost all of his major sponsors, except Nike and EA.

In recent days, the three most interesting parts of the sponsorship story are these:

1. TAG Heuer is waffling

It looked like they were going to go, but now it looks like they will stay with Wood with a reduced presence. I’m not sure this is a good idea. Unlike brands appealing directly to golfers (like EA and Nike), it puts them in a position of endorsing Woods as a person. According to the Tag Heuer website:

“With his personality and his results, he is a perfect example of  prestige and performance which are so important to TAG Heuer.”

“Prestige” is not a trait I would currently associate with Woods. And I’m thinking his personality is leaning more toward “sleazy, narcissistic jerk”.

From a very personal perspective, my husband asked if I would like a TAG for our 10^th anniversary. I have always wanted one, but before choosing the specific watch, I saw the reports that TAG were sticking with Woods. I’m not stupid – I know that didn’t change the watch – but for me, it did change the brand. I found myself reconsidering, trawling through the other brands at Duty Free and I still haven’t decided on a watch.

2. “The Decision Was Already Made”

Isn’t it interesting how many of the sponsors who have exited their sponsorships of Woods have claimed, “the decision was made prior to the November accident”?

So apparently, if this scandal would not have happened, Woods would have seen tens of millions of sponsorship dollars walk out the door simultaneously, while he was at the top of his game. I don’t think so. But the number of his former sponsors using this line is bordering on the ridiculous.

3. The $12 Billion Loss… Supposedly

According to an economics professor from US Davis, Woods’ sponsors saw their market capitalisation drop by about US $12 billion after the incident. I’m not an economist, but I do have a couple of observations.

First off, many of the numbers just don’t make sense. For instance, Gillette sponsored Woods, but the stock price shifts were done on mega-parent company, P&G. And Accenture was the company most directly tied with Woods, yet their stock price didn’t drop.

Second, According to a Journal of Advertising Research study in 2002, the market capitalisation rises seen upon Olympic TOP Sponsorship announcements and marquee sportsperson endorsement averaged around 1.5%. Not bad, but one of the conclusions of the study was that these rises were temporary. So, let’s just say for a moment that the scandal did drop the market cap for Woods’ sponsors – although I’m not really buying the whole “causal” thing – common sense would dictate that this drop would also be temporary.

Okay, I’ll stop talking about Tiger Woods. I’m as tired of him as you are.