| Every month within the Open Doors section, you will find
us sounding off about issues that we feel are interesting, topical
and relevant. We’d be interested in your views, so please feel
free to click the link at the end to email us. This
month….maximising your commercial partnerships.
“There’s a perception of a great divide in sport between
the ‘haves’ – the major global brands which indulge
in high profile sponsorship, particularly of large national or international
events – and the ‘have nots’, brands which frequently
don’t consider sport to be a viable vehicle for them because
they anticipate the costs to be too high and the ability to evaluate
return on investment to be too difficult.
But that’s not necessarily the case. There’s a growing
move within the sports industry to create socially responsible sponsorship
opportunities, particularly at grassroots level, which make a positive
impact on the life of the consumer but also deliver value and return
to the brand. You just have to find them or create them from scratch
as new properties but either way they require a fairly expansive
approach to fully exploit the opportunity.
Sponsorship works best where you can make a difference or have
an impact on the life of the consumer - and the consumer recognises
it. By localising & personalising sponsorship spend you can
be highly effective in reinforcing macro brand messages at a micro
level. This is something Coca Cola are doing particularly well,
combining sponsorship of global events such as the Olympic Games,
the FIFA World Cup and the Rugby World Cup with grassroots sponsorship
of youth rugby in Wales and the Under 13s English Schools Football
Cup.
But you don’t have to be a Coca Cola. Socially responsible
marketing isn’t only accessible to the larger brands. Identify
either the ultimate target audience – or a secondary target
audience that will act as a more effective conduit – and create
an opportunity to engage and create affinity. Like all relationships,
it should be two-way to work best.
When evaluating opportunities, we encourage clients to resist the
temptation to focus solely on the media exposure but to also look
for more subtle benefits – advocacy programmes, high level
networking, direct response opportunities, all of which underpin
the benefit of the media coverage and are more likely to give the
brand an affinity with the consumer and an enduring relationship
with the sport.
Tell us what you think.
Email us at info@earlydoors.com
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