Sponsorship: A Word From Our Sponsor

Simply sponsoring an event is no longer enough to get your name noticed. To maximise returns, you need to offer something extra, writes Annie Gurton

There was a time when sponsorship was seen as good value marketing. It offers a visible but subliminal association with an activity with attributes which the sponsoring company would like to be seen to have, such as modernity, speed, flexibility and success. But there has been an increasing spiral of disillusionment and cost which looks set to end sponsorship?s image as a sought-after marketing tool.

There is always the risk that an association can go sour or the individual or company being sponsored can lose, or get bad reviews. But there have always been companies willing to pay high annual fees for little more than associated advertising or high-risk spurious links. Now, however, marketing managers are increasingly evaluating the results of sponsorship and deciding that it rarely delivers its economies and beneficial exposure. Sponsorship, from being the darling of the promotional deck, is declining in popularity.

There has always been a league table of sports, artistic events and other activities in which some activities, such as Wimbledon and Formula One car racing, attract high revenue and deliver reasonable value. At the other end of the scale are expensive deals without evaluation mechanisms and questionable awareness-raising among potential customers.

There has always been a lot of confusion about sponsorship ? its value, role and cost ? and now many managing directors are asking questions about the whole idea. As David Bridson of marketing consultancy Bridson & Bridson points out: ?Any proposition which involves two and a half million quid and puts planning outside your control, and asks you to risk the ?wrong type? of publicity on the outcome of a single event, isn?t worth touching with a barge-pole.?

Sponsorship often means marketing budgets being spent on a whim. Decisions are frequently influenced by senior management and their individual interests rather than commercial logic. Depending on the interests of the managing director or marketing director, valuable marketing funds can be squandered on dubious associations without any measurable returns. Some may say that there is nothing wrong with instinctive marketing, but some hunch decisions can prove extremely costly without any research of relative cost, opportunities-to-see or effectiveness analysis. Sponsorship decisions can change as one marketing manager supersedes another, despite the fact that, like any brand awareness, sponsorship needs to be continued over many years for full effect.

Measuring the effectiveness of sponsorship is always a tricky area, but without efficacy tracking there is no point. The effect of sponsorship can rarely be isolated from other marketing activity, especially advertising. Tools must be used to measure brand awareness and recognition, image change, sales effectiveness, guest feedback. This means continuous tracking and ad hoc ?dipsticking?, both before and after events. Marketers also have to quantify the halo effect where consumer feelings are transferred on to the sponsoring brand.

Sponsorship is also beginning to suffer from overexposure. There is nothing new in sponsoring a racing event or a sporting team or individual, and there is increasing doubt whether audiences acknowledge or remember the name of the sponsor. This was brought home to Martin Sexton, vice president of corporate communications with Unisys, when he did a survey of guests who had accepted hospitality at a Unisys-sponsored golfing event.

?They said that we did everything very well and they had really enjoyed themselves, but pointed out that everyone does golfing sponsorship and they found it hard to remember later whose event they had been to,? Sexton explains. ?Sponsoring companies have to differentiate themselves these days. It?s not enough just to give money and look for the TV exposure and take advantage of corporate hospitality.?

Unisys now offers something extra to guests who go along to events, to make it more memorable. ?At the golfing events, for example, we get a golfing pro to come and talk to our lunch guests, or a TV presenter to come and have a chat, and then perhaps offer our guests the chance to go around the TV facilities. At Wavendon Music Festival, an event we sponsor that is dedicated to musical excellence, Johnny Dankworth and Cleo Lane come and meet our guests for cocktails.

?We get hundreds of requests for sponsorship, but apply fairly strict guidelines about the sponsorship opportunity to help us decide whether we want to do it or not.?

The question first and foremost is whether a particular event is relevant. ?If it is, then I ask whether it is a world-class event, does it offer first-class hospitality and does it offer high-profile visibility,? says Sexton.

Opportunities for sponsorship generally fall into three categories. There are those which are industry-related, the arts, and sports. Sexton says that Unisys has sponsorship in all three groups, and applies strict measurement techniques to make sure that the benefits are worthwhile. ?We pulled out of our sponsorship of British athletics, because unfortunately our trend-tracking showed a decline in interest in field and track sports, and it was not the kind of decline that we wanted to be associated with.?

Tracking and analysis of sponsorship is key, says Sexton. ?Our objective is to raise our profile, both generally and with our target market, and there is no doubt that it works, but the spend has to be closely controlled and monitored.?

Unisys is currently involved with projects including the British Computer Society Awards, the Management Today Service Excellence Awards, the Information Strategy Knowledge Management Awards, the Royal Albert Hall, London Marathon, the Professional Golfing Association, and several rugby events. ?If we are involved with providing the IT systems to an event, we are far more likely to want to sponsor it,? says Sexton.

The balance to be achieved is between an obvious technologically based association and the need to appeal to a broader non-technical audience, says Nick Barley, director of marketing at Oracle. ?The opportunities for corporate hospitality are important to us,? he says. ?It is necessary to have a vision of where the company is going and select sponsorship opportunities that follow that vision.?

Barley says Oracle?s investment in sponsorship is relatively small compared with the overall marketing and promotional budget, but he feels that the company gets good value and returns from sponsorship. ?We have a major investment in Richmond Rugby Club, and we are very pleased with the way that is working out.?

But he says it is necessary to do more than throw money at a sponsored organisation. ?Richmond is very much part of our overall marketing strategy, and we include them in our general advertising, and help promote them in other ways.? Several of the London taxis in Oracle?s livery have been repainted to promote Richmond Rugby Club, with the Oracle connection in small letters.

?You have to have a good reason to sponsor anything, which means that it has to be thought through and a tactical decision. As part of a strategy, sponsorship can be very valuable,? says Barley, who sees no reason to doubt the potential and historic success of giving funds to help the sports and arts.

?We are very happy with our sponsorship activity, but in the final analysis of whether it increases awareness and improves sales, it is virtually impossible to separate out from other marketing and promotional activity, including advertising.?