I’ve recently been involved in a lively discussion on LinkedIn about the value of online sponsorship submission forms. The response has been divided, to say the least.

Some people advocate their use, citing two main reasons:

1. It allows for an apples-to-apples comparison of properties.
2. It is a faster way of vetting sponsorships than going through stacks of unsolicited proposals and request letters.

I am not a fan of these forms in any way, although I can understand why they have appeal. On the surface, it absolutely looks like a time-saver and an objective assessment tool. If you look a bit deeper, however, there are some fatal flaws in this premise.

Sponsorships are not apples

As for making apples-to-apples comparisons, every sponsorship is so different, it would be impossible to compare them unless distilled into the most basic of commodities. How much exposure, tickets, hospitality, etc for how much money? Sponsorship simply isn’t a commodity industry, it’s a creative ideas industry. Imagine if ad agencies had to pitch for business using an online form!

Sponsorship comes in all shapes and sizes, all degrees of engagement and creativity. The huge sponsorship will tens of millions of impressions may look good on a form, but offer very little real value against the objectives of a mature brand. They may be totally disengaged. They may be a nightmare to work with. You can also make enormous returns from small sponsorships that are leveraged creatively, but for a sponsor to see that potential, the property needs to be able to showcase the creative leverage ideas that will create that return. Some of the least “sexy” sponsorships could provide the best return, and vice versa. None of that – positive or negative – will come out in a form.

The value isn’t in what you get, it’s what you do with it

When you invest in sponsorship, you are investing in opportunity. It is leverage (aka “activation”) that provides the results. The best sponsorship seekers are providing those creative ideas for leverage in their proposals, making it very easy for a sponsor to see how they can make it work for their brands.

Old school sponsorship seekers tell sponsors what they’re about, list the benefits, and in effect, say “you figure it out”. That “figuring out” of what’s in it for you takes a long time, but that’s exactly what sponsors set themselves up for when they use sponsorship submission forms.

If you really want to figure out which of those proposals submitted through a form will work for your brand, you need to go through the process of idea development. This takes a lot more time than reviewing the ideas that great properties will provide to you, if you give them the chance. And if a sponsor isn’t prepared to go through the process of “how could we make this work for our brand”, then they are making decisions about who to sponsor or further consider and who not to based on least common denominator mechanisms.

My recommendation: Sponsorship guidelines

Rather than creating walls, how about sponsors  just being more open and specific about your needs. And no, including the line “we only select sponsorships which meet out needs” does not count. You have to tell the sponsorship seekers what you need.

• Create a set of sponsorship guidelines and make it really easy for seekers to get them.
• Put them online, but don’t bury them six links deep on your website.
• Ensure your voicemail says, “if you want to submit a proposal, please understand we only consider properties that meet our needs, as outlined in the sponsorship guidelines you can find xyz”.
• Ensure every point of entry for sponsorship requests has access to electronic copy. This includes brand managers, regional managers, sales managers, and senior executives (who often say “yes” just so they don’t have to say “no” – this gives them an out).
• Ensure your switchboard knows that if someone calls asking to “speak to someone about sponsorship”, they should direct them to your sponsorship guidelines online.
• Finally, make it absolutely clear you’re serious. The first sign a proposal doesn’t comply, send an email telling them that the proposal wasn’t compliant and if they want to be considered, they need to follow your sponsorship guidelines.

Anecdotally, the number of proposals you get will drop by around 60-75% and the quality of those proposals will rise dramatically. They will be more comprehensive, creative, and objective-driven. I get a lot of love letters from sponsors about how sponsorship guidelines have made their lives easier.

Get your free, comprehensive sponsorship guidelines template.

If you use a template as a starting point, creating sponsorship guidelines takes maybe an hour. You will probably have to get sign-off, which can take a bit of time and fine-tuning, but my experience is that you could have them on your website and in the hands of all of your proposal touch points (electronically), such as brand management, local and regional management, senior managements (usually their assistants), and more – within about two weeks.

Even smaller sponsors can benefit from having good sponsorship guidelines. They may not have the massive workload that comes along with hundreds or thousands of proposals a month, but they still want good proposals that are about their needs. I know many smaller and mid-sized companies that are very happy with the reduction in workload, and especially the higher quality of proposals, that they get. I even know of several companies that have guidelines for smaller sponsorships (eg, for investments under $2000) that are not as demanding as their guidelines for larger sponsorships, but still require a degree of strategic benefits and ideas.

What about sponsorship seekers?

My strong advice to sponsorship seekers is to ignore those forms and go straight to the brand manager. Don’t pitch. Contact them having done your homework and seek to fill in the blanks so you can create a customised, creative proposal with great ideas for them to leverage. If they tell you that you have to submit via the form, they have just told you “no” and basically didn’t want to do it themselves. Go ahead and submit, but the ultimate decision will rest with the brand manager, and if s/he’s just given you the flick, it’s highly unlikely to be “yes”.

For more on reading the signs, I recommend my blog, “Six Signs a Sponsor Is Just Not That into You”.

For the whole process of offer development and sales, I suggest my book, The Sponsorship Seeker’s Toolkit 3rd Edition.

The upshot

The upshot for all concerned is that sponsorship submission forms are a false economy. They work only in an environment that rewards old school thinking and constrain the creative process that is part and parcel with gaining the best returns at the least possible spend.

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!

After hundreds of thousands of downloads, I thought it was high time to give my white papers a format that is as professional and well thought-out as I hope the content is. While I was at it, I also did some updates and revisions.

Want to have a look? The download links are below. All are in PDF form and most are around 250kb. “Last Generation Sponsorship” is around 1mb, as it has a lot of diagrams.

You are welcome to share these documents around, but please do not link directly to the PDF download (called “deep linking”) without my permission. You are more than welcome to link to this blog or our Sponsorship Articles and Tools page.

Sponsorship white papers

• “Last Generation Sponsorship” – My blockbuster white paper on best practice sponsorship, downloaded almost 400,000 times, reprinted in many, many industry publications in eight languages. Download it for yourself. Download it for your partners. Download it for your boss, board, or colleague. This article is guaranteed to get anyone thinking more strategically about sponsorship!
• “Sponsorship in a Scary Economy” – A very topical paper with practical skills for both sponsors and sponsorship seekers.
• “Survival Guide for the New Sponsorship” – Practical things you can do to shift your organisation’s approach into best-practice.
• “Don’t Go to Another Sponsorship Conference Until You Read This” – All sponsorship conferences are NOT created equal. This great guide will help you sort the good from the bad (and make organisers of the bad ones really miserable, if you want to).
• “Sponsorship and the Public Sector” – A wake-up call for all government sponsorship seekers.
• “Top Ten Tips for Sponsorship Seekers” – Short and sharp, this is a must read for sponsorship seekers, particularly if you’re new to the game.
• “What Every CMO Needs to Know About Sponsorship” – Aimed at corporate chief marketing officers, this white paper offers advice about the high-level decisions and directives that will impact on sponsorship results.

Sponsorship cheat sheets

• “Cheat Sheet: Questions to Ask Before You Hire a Sponsorship Broker” - This is a compilation of questions that will allow great brokers to shine, expose the shonks, and clarify the weaknesses and strengths of all the brokers in between.
• “Cheat Sheet: Marketing Terms a Sponsorship Seeker Must Know” – This is a list of some of the most common, but confusing, terms that sponsors use when describing their objectives and target markets. If you want to ensure you know what sponsors are talking about, be sure you know all of them!

Please, tell me what you think!

Have you read any of these white papers or cheat sheets? Got a comment? Please, add your comments below. I’d love to see them!

Please note, comments are moderated, but we get through them quite quickly. Spammers just get sneakier and sneakier!

There have been a few great questions on LinkedIn groups lately, particularly the Sponsorship Insights group. I put my two cents in on the discussion boards, but thought other readers might find them useful.

One question I found was about the five key factors sponsors take into account when selecting sponsorship. Great question! The problem is, the factors some sponsors do use for selection are a long way from the factors sponsors should use for selection.

Being a best practice sponsorship zealot, I’ve gone the route of what sponsors should be taking into consideration, and these are my top five:

1.

Did the event/property do any homework before they contacted me? Was the proposal customised? Was it about my brand at all, or simply about their worthiness or need? Customisation is not an absolute requirement, but in the initial stages, will tell you a lot about how professional and astute this potential partner is.

From here on in, they are absolutes…

2.

Is the event/property relevant and meaningful to my target market? Note, I didn’t say “does it reach my target market”. Getting in front of a market is old school thinking, connecting with them in a meaningful way is where it’s at now.

3.

Do we have sufficient lead-time to create and implement a leverage plan? For most major sponsors, we are talking several months, at minimum, and six months to a year or more for major investments.

4.

Do I have buy-in, internally? Sponsorship is no longer supported by huge amounts of incremental support, but is used as a catalyst to make already budgeted activities work harder, or replace less effective existing activities. (Yes, there are exceptions, such as quadrennial events, which are so big as to warrant war-chesting some budget and spending up on extra activity.) The key to using sponsorship in this way – maximising results and minimising incremental spend – is to get buy in and a commitment to leverage before starting negotiations. An extra bonus is that the process of creating that buy-in also creates a brains trust for creativity and troubleshooting.

5.

Can I negotiate the benefits I need, which based on the leverage ideas emanating from my stakeholders, are probably much different that they are offering? Can we get those benefits at a price point that is appropriate and within my budget? If it’s appropriate and desirable, but more that I have to spend, can I access other budgets, offer useful in-kind benefits in lieu of some of the fee, or otherwise get creative without disadvantaging my potential partner?

There are a few more hygiene factors, such as ensuring it doesn’t contravene any category exclusivity you require and that it fits in the context of your whole portfolio, but assuming those areas are in line, those are my top five.

If you want more on sponsorship selection, you can find more specifics in some of my other blogs. I suggest you click on the topics of sponsorship selection and sponsorship leverage.

There are also some good white papers for sponsors, downloadable from the Free Stuff section of this website, http://www.powersponsorship.com/free-stuff.html.

Good luck!

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.