kim leikinn-reid's
sameiginlegur sponsorship blog

� me�an rifja upp minn fr�ttir f��a a vika e�a svo fyrir, �G �lfaldi yfir ��kve�inn greinir � ensku tilkynning �essi Qantas had taka upp naming r�ttindi sponsorship af the �stral�ub�i Uppskrift 1 Mikilfenglegur Prix. �a� var a stuttur tilkynning, en the bendlun ert mikill allst�r.

The fyrstur �hugun er �essi Qantas er �egar the opinber starfsma�ur flugf�lag f�lagi af the �stral�ub�i Mikilfenglegur Prix, giving �� a tr�ver�ugur og vi�eigandi pallur � kring this atbur�ur. � 2001, �eir raunverulega l�kka � tign fr� naming r�ttindi til �essi l�r�ttur fl�tur.

�G tr�a �eir’ got this rangur og �xl hafa dv�l � the opinber starfsma�ur f�lagi l�r�ttur fl�tur, eins og �eir var�lfur � the fullkominn sta�a til gera hva�a er tilv�sun til eins og “ambushing up”. The er l�kur til launs�tur marka�ssetning, en ekki the aflfr��i. � ��kve�inn greinir � ensku launs�tur- upp �stand, a styrktara�ili tekur �eirra fullkomlega l�gm�tur sponsorship og vogarafl �a� svo � �hrifar�kan h�tt – kreat�n svo mikill skotmark marka�ur tengsl og merking – �essi �eir f� the marka�ssetning aflei�ing �� vildi b�ast vi� fr� a mikill allst�r styrktara�ili.

� me�an there ert kappn�gur af g��ur �st��a til taka upp naming r�ttindi sponsorship, � �stand, �a� er �st��ulaus. Tilvera �tarlegur og skapandi og brennidepill � the tengsl me� the skotmark marka�ur, ekki the eign, geta skapa gr��arst�r aflei�ing – mikill allst�r en �inn d�miger�ur naming r�ttindi styrktara�ili, hver safna � skyggni, ekki kreat�n raunverulegur koma aftur fyrir the v�rumerki.

S�rhver styrktara�ili geta hagur fr� launs�tur upp, og the flugf�lag flokkur er � the hugsj�n sta�a til hafa samfarir. �eir hafa flugv�l fullur af lei�indi f�lk lestur �eirra t�marit og horfa � �eirra v�de�. �eir hafa setustofa, umfer�ami�st��, og hli�. �eir hafa yfirstandandi samband me� millj�n af t��ur flugma�ur til uppf�strun. �eir hafa fer�ast umbo�sma�ur og sameiginlegur reikningur hver ��rf f�stur-. �eir senda millj�n af emails til �eirra vi�skiptavinur og t��ur flugma�ur. �eirra online reynsla er �unglega nota�ur, en n�nast commoditised, og ) komast af me� sumir �hugaver�ur, sem skiptir m�li innihald.

Flugf�lag hafa svo margir vi�skiptavinur touchpoints – og af �� afla a hlutfallslega langur og fangi t�kif�ri til auka the vi�skiptavinur reynsla. �eir hafa �teljandi t�kif�ri til skapa raunverulegur, ���ingarmikill a�la�andi fyrir allur e�a af �eirra skotmark marka�ur, svo hvers vegna aren’t �eir a�ger� �a�? Hvers vegna hjartarskinn Qantas �eir hugsa having a allst�r sponsorship er a betri a�koma en raunverulega �� vita using the einn they’ve got?

Eins og a Qantas vi�skiptavinur hver b��ir flew me� �� og - buy a�g�ngumi�i online r�ttl�tur s��astur vika, �G geta segja �� millili�alaus �essi hva�a �eir ert a�ger� er laglegur sta�all, gamli sk�li efni. Tilfelli � benda, ef �� h�tta �eirra website – www.qantas.com.au – you’ll taka eftir a �essi �� ) “win a fer�alag til the Mikilfenglegur Prix”. Hoo- pissa, n� there’s sumir n�jung! �G f� til gefa �� minn sm�atri�i fyrir the grannur t�kif�ri af tilvera the einn manneskja hver a�la�andi tveir hagkerfi tegund a�g�ngumi�i til Melbourne til horfa � the kapprei�ar fyrir the helgi!! Geispa.

N�ll, og allir t��ur flugma�ur geta borga n�stum $2000 til nota the Qantas Skydeck � the kapp. Allir t��ur flugma�ur – �� don’t ver�a a� vera drottinhollur e�a mikilv�gur til Qantas, �� don’t ver�a a� vera bj��a til taka ��tt, og it’s ekki � allir vegur einkavi�tal. �� r�ttl�tur ver�a a� hafa $2000 og a t��ur flugma�ur tala. �eirra t��ur flugma�ur can’t jafnvel rei�uf� � allir af �eirra millj�n af benda til f� a blettur.

Alvarlega, it’s tveir vika ��ur a gr��arst�r al�j��legur atbur�ur they’re styrktara�ili – n� � ��kve�inn greinir � ensku jafnvel yfirma�ur l�r�ttur fl�tur – og that’s the bestur �eir geta gera? �eir �xl vera vandr��alegur.

Naming r�ttindi af ��kve�inn greinir � ensku atbur�ur af this st�r� er a gr��arst�r fj�rhagslegur skuldbinding og afla a jafn gr��arst�r pallur til vogarafl. Ef a styrktara�ili er tilb�inn til fullkomlega vogarafl the t�kif�ri – rannsaka the t�mi, sk�punarg�fa, og au�lindir �urfa – �� naming r�ttindi er a hagkv�mur valkostur. � the annar h�nd, ef a styrktara�ili sk�halli’ vera �mak getting a l�gri l�r�ttur fl�tur sponsorship r�ttur, stepping upp er ��kve�inn greinir � ensku t�kif�ri s�a.

There er einnig the t�lubla� af t�masetning. The tilkynning var dagsettur 24 Febr�ar. The kapp helgi er 25-28 Herganga. Jafnvel ef Qantas er justified � ey�a upp fyrir this allst�r pallur – og I’m ekki yfirleitt sannf�ra �essi �eir ert – allur they’ve er - buy a st�r t�kif�ri. Vogarafl er hva�a skr�fj�rn �essi t�kif�ri inn � aflei�ing fyrir a v�rumerki. Hva�a g��ur af vogarafl program vilja skapa a stafa af a pallur af �essi umfang? Einn �essi tekur a einhver fj�ldi langl�fi en a m�nu�ur til ��tlun og �hald!

Eins og atkv��asm�lun � minn n�legur blog, Sl�mur Hugmynd #77: Styrktara�ili the �lymp�uleikar �r�r Vika ��ur the Leikur, sterkur vogarafl ��tlanager� tekur t�mi til byggja kaupa- � og fara �� the skapandi a�fer�. �a� einnig tekur t�mi til �hald. Hjartarskinn Qantas hafa t�mi til skapa �- flug innihald? A n�r ad? Skapa og sj�setja a hollusta 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!

This was a question I came across in the blogosphere this week. To be fair, the person who asked wasn’t that blunt, but had definitely seen a lot of headaches from sponsors who didn’t pay their fees, didn’t do what they had promised, and generally bullied the event. After a nightmare like that, it seems perfectly a perfectly logical question to ask!

In that situation, the answer is a simple: Those sponsors were not worth the headaches.

Why seek sponsorship?

Before looking at counting the cost of having sponsors, it’s probably worth going through why you would want sponsorship in the first place.

The downside to having sponsorship is that raising and servicing it is a lot of work and some sponsors can be real headaches (thankfully, rare). The upside is that most sponsors are great, and what they bring to properties is multifaceted and well worth the effort to seek sponsorship and do it well:

• Increase in revenue
• Enhancement of the event experience to your audience through sponsor leverage activities
• Ability to achieve your own marketing goals through strong sponsor leverage
• Introduction of your event to the sponsor’s target market, which may be larger than your own reach (or what your marketing budget will cover)
• Provision of infrastructure, expertise, merchandise, and services that will help you run your event

There is plenty more that a sponsor can bring to the table. The key is knowing how to structure it so it’s win-win-win – you win, the sponsor wins, the target market wins. There’s plenty more on win-win-win all over this blog.

Has it been worth it?

If you’re in the run-up to your event, or maybe it’s just happened, and you are feeling used and abused by your sponsors, that’s not good. The thing is, sponsorship is hard work, so feeling some degree of sponsor fatigue is normal and will pass once you’ve had a chance to decompress. On the other hand, some sponsors really are users and abusers. The trick is, figuring out which category you’re in.

To find out whether a given sponsor – or your whole sponsorship program – has been worth having or is just a toxic drain, you should ask yourself these questions:

Contract

• Did you have a contract or comprehensive letter agreement in place, signed by both parties and outlining all rights, responsibilities, and payments?
• Did the sponsor pay the full contracted fee, with all instalments paid reasonably on time?
• Did the sponsor comply with guidelines you set forth regarding the use of your intellectual property or benefits, or their conduct on-site?
• If the sponsor was denied permission to carry out an activity, did they comply?

Behaviour

• Did the sponsor behave in a professional, respectful manner toward you and your colleagues at all times?
• Did the sponsor make unreasonable demands? For instance, they demanded that you change your event or program in a way that suited them, but disadvantaged your organisation or audience?
• Did the sponsor have entitlement issues? For instance, they were constantly requesting more benefits than contracted?
• Did the sponsor try to bully you into doing something you were not obliged, nor were compelled, to do?

Cost

• Did the cost of servicing exceed 10% of the contracted fee?

The cost of servicing is not the cost of delivering contracted benefits, but the cost of providing added value benefits and support to the sponsor, for which you should budget 10% and build it into the price.

Revenue

• Did the cost of delivering the contracted and added value benefits exceed one-third of the fee charged? One-half?

As a rule of thumb, you should endeavour to build sponsorship packages that are worth to the sponsor at least three times what it costs to deliver and service them. This is NOT the exact amount you should charge, but a baseline you can use as a starting point to ensure a sponsorship is going to be worth the time and effort put in. If you start at that baseline, and whether through negotiation or other market factors, the price falls to only twice the cost of delivery – so half of your revenue is going toward making the sponsorship itself happen – you are at the point where even the perfect sponsor may not be worth having.

Sponsor added value

• Did the sponsor undertake any leverage activities that extended your marketing plan? An example would be using your event in their advertising, promotions, or other marketing in the lead-up to the event.

It’s not looking good… Now what?

Some of these are not drop-dead deal-breakers – it is possible to have a great sponsor who doesn’t extend your marketing plan, for instance. But as you go through this list, a clear picture of the real value of a sponsor or sponsorship program should appear. If the picture is bad, I’ve got a few tips.

Have a contract

If everything goes pear-shaped and you never see a cent from a sponsor, will you miss the money? If so, you need either a comprehensive letter agreement or a contract in place, and it needs to be done by a lawyer. This not only protects all parties, it outlines expectations in black and white. Gray areas are the enemy of sponsorship. (Concerned about the cost? You will find an agreement pro forma in The Sponsorship Seeker’s Toolkit 3^rd Edition that will make the process much easier and cheaper.)

Hold up your end of the bargain

Before you can improve your sponsorship situation, you need to ensure you are delivering absolutely everything that your sponsors are entitled to. Making sponsors abide by a contract will not work if you’re breaching it, too.

Take a stand

Do not ever let a sponsor bully or take advantage of you. Ever. If a sponsor is out of line and (important) you have delivered everything you’ve promised, they don’t have a leg to stand on. Just tell them “no”. If they try to bully you – and some will – you need to be prepared to get a lawyer involved.

This is particularly important if you have more than one sponsor taking advantage. Make an example of the first one that does the wrong thing. Chances are, they will pull their heads in before you get far into the process, and it shows all of your sponsors that you do indeed have a spine.

Dealing with nightmare sponsors is never fun, but as those self-help gurus seem so fond of saying, you teach people how to treat you. If you let your sponsors push you around, pay months late, or treat you disrespectfully, many of them will.

You are peers – equals – and what you are offering has real value to their brands. If they can’t see that, dump them. Life is too short for that crap.

I’m delighted to announce that I’m doing Sponsorship School again in 2010 – yay!!

This intensive, six-month program of corporate sponsorship training, coaching, and peer support was first run in 2003 for twelve people from six Sydney-based charities. It was very successful for the participants and their organisations, but I wanted to go bigger.

Finally, technology has made it possible to do Sponsorship School on a global scale!

A select number of charitable organisations will be chosen from the applicant pool to participate in this groundbreaking program, designed specifically to build capacity in the area of corporate sponsorship. It kicks of at the end of April and runs through September.

Want more information? You can…

• Download the Sponsorship School 2010 Information and Guidelines (PDF)
• Visit the Sponsorship School 2010 page
• Check out the Sponsorship School 2010 Application Form

Don’t delay. Applications close 19 March 2010.

Drop me a line with any questions on this: school@powersponsorship.com.

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!

The Winter Olympics are in full swing and the organisers are busy implementing draconian “anti-ambush” laws. Too bad they won’t work.

Anti-ambush legislation is mainly about tightening existing IP laws, bolting on a few proximity laws, and trying to control old-school communication channels. It is pedantic to the point of restricting freedom of expression – just ask the people of Vancouver – but still doesn’t stop ambush marketing.

Rather than “we’ve got you covered” platitudes, major events should front up with some home truths. They won’t, however, so I will. There are three major things that a sponsor can do to protect themselves.

Ensure your brand is a natural match

The first thing you need to do, before you commit to any major sponsorship, is to ensure that your brand is a natural match to the sponsorship – better than your competitors. One exercise for determining the fit (and your competitors’) goes like this:

First, make a list of all of your brand’s attributes and values. Describe your brand really thoroughly. Then do the same for your key competitors. Go through the lists and cross out any attributes and values that you share with your competitors, because they don’t count. Now, you’re left with the ways in which you are different. Compare these lists with a list of all of the attributes and values of the event you’re considering to determine which brand is the best match.

If your brand is clearly the best fit, it will be hard work for any of your competitors to create a strategic ambush. On the other hand, if one or more of your competitors is a better natural match than your brand, don’t invest. You will be a sitting duck for ambush. Even if they don’t do any overt ambush activity, people will tend to assume they’re the sponsor. That’s what is referred to as a “natural ambush”.

Think outside the event

Major events cost a lot of money, so it’s easy to think that’s where the value lays and concentrate your leverage on the event itself. Bad idea.

Of course, you should leverage the event itself, but do not ignore the larger event experience. There is a whole world of event experience outside of the major event you’re sponsoring. Just ask the people of Vancouver whether they’re having an event experience. I’ll be having an event experience watching those nuts on luges on TV at the pub. All the chatter in social media is part of the event experience. The real value is in the personal experiences, the stories, of the people you are targeting. That isn’t controlled by the event and laws can’t control it either. The winner in the sponsor vs ambusher competition is the one who leverages the entire event experience.

Add value

The question is then, how do you leverage that entire event experience. Do you try to “own” the experience? Turn your message up to eleven? Again, that’s a bad idea.

First off, it won’t work, because the whole point of the larger experience is that it is owned and controlled by the people, making it the most authentic forum around the event. Disrespect that – try to “own” it – at your own peril.

Instead, concentrate on adding value to that event experience. Improve the not-great stuff and amplify the best stuff, with the goal being to provide small, meaningful benefits that will demonstrate your understanding of your target markets, enhance their experience, and make your brand a welcome and appreciated part of it. If you don’t, an ambusher will.

A good example of this in Vancouver is the Bell Ice Cube, hosted by Bell (Canada). They have created a purpose-built venue that will operate as a free live site and host a live show every afternoon with Olympians. Yes, they will certainly be showcasing their products, but they are also creating an epicentre where people who may not have got tickets to the events can meet Olympians and immerse themselves in the Olympic experience. A number of Games sponsors are doing live sites, some are embarking on great social media campaigns – the key for them, and for you, is to think outside the event.

Ambush prevention really isn’t that tough, but it’s not the law or the event that will save you. In fact, ambush prevention has very little to do with defence and everything to do with your choices, your creativity, and your thoroughness. Sponsor well and there is no room for ambush.