Proud Sponsor of…- Steven Falk

You can’t get away from it. Wherever you look, someone is ‘Proudly Supporting’ something.

Great you may think. Here’s proof of the dominant success of sponsorship as a marketing tool. That in a world increasingly dominated by the internet, email and compelling website content, sponsorship remains the channel of choice for businesses wishing to promote their brand and engage their customers.

But you couldn’t be more wrong. And here’s why.

Sports sponsorship certainly has the potential to deliver positive results with the best return on investment available from any other promotional method. And it can deliver global reach at a fraction of the overall outlay necessary to access other channels like media advertising. Here lies the attraction to international brands and local businesses alike.

In addition, an effective sponsorship deal often delivers seductive soft benefits such as a seat in the directors’ box and the chance for senior executives to mingle with their playing heroes. This winning combination of wide exposure; low cost delivery; and close association with glamorous sporting icons makes a compelling package. For many marketing directors, persuading the CEO to sign a sponsorship contract is a case of ‘job done and where’s my bonus’.

But there’s an enormous difference between sports sponsorship and effective sports sponsorship. To gain value from the relationship, the brand contemplating entry to this arena must first address some key issues:-

– why am I doing this?

– have I got access to the right promotional inventory?

– what is my activation strategy?

– how will I evaluate success?

If the answer to these questions is a campaign based on the phrase ‘Proud Sponsor of…’ then you need to go back to the drawing board and hire a new marketing team. These lazy, weasel words imply no one has given much thought to the real motivation and mechanics of the relationship and that in the absence of any strategic thought, the best anyone can come up with is a bland statement of chest beating ‘pride in association’.

So the next time you notice the words ‘Proud to Sponsor’ endorsing a promotional campaign, ask yourself if pride is a justifiable reason for entering into a commercial relationship or if in the context of sports sponsorship, it’s just something that comes before a fall.

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Steven Falk is director of Star Sports Marketing a consultancy providing advice on sponsorship activation, CRM, brand and affinity marketing. You can follow him on Twitter @steven_falk

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