Sounds like new brands are experimenting with experiential marketing this summer. See if any align with your events.
A couple interesting points worth noting:
New York Times reporter calls experiential marketing a "popular trend," as if this idea were new. It's not, but it's still great to see one of the most powerful marketing media finally receive some positive recognition, particularly since 3 short years ago, politicians, consumers, and the media bemoaned the evils of sponsorship.
Two interesting quotes in the article:
“'In these days of digital, high-tech, social media, we can’t forget how important the one-to-one is,'” said George F. Schweitzer, president of the CBS Marketing Group division of the CBS Corporation."
and
“'We think of this as a different way to work with advertisers,'” said Chris McLoughlin, publisher at Men’s Journal, owned by Wenner Media, helping brands stand out amid “'a clogged freeway of marketing.'”
Indeed our "clogged freeway" has become a constant deluge of information that we want nothing more than to shut off. The one-on-one interaction that sponsors and others engaging in experiential and event marketing are investing in represents high quality interactions –– the ability to make eye contact, shake hands, have a conversation, build relationships. It allows a brand the opportunity to communicate and connect through tactile and three-dimensional experiences.
How is your brand connecting through experiential marketing this summer?
Seth Godin wrote an interesting post last week, predicting a deterioration of the quality of marketing – a "coarsening," he calls it – as marketers increasingly prefer direct response advertising, clickable and measurable.
"Coarse" is a great term to describe the Kraft strategy I described in the previous post, "Big is not a strategy." No nuances, no subtlety, no human touch. Just a big noodle. A big hot dog.
Some sponsors skip over activation entirely, which is like buying a TV or radio spot and not giving the station the spot. In other words, it's a waste of money.
Some marketers bemoan the measurability of sponsorship, expecting instant results from a qualitative medium, when perhaps they are unsure what to look for.
Setting up a jumbo noodle in a park is like the equivalent of speaking louder when having a discussion with a person who speaks a different language. It doesn't mean you're getting through.
Godin ends the post by saying, "Measurable isn't always the only thing that matters." True for sponsorship, too.
In a matter of months, Netflix went from beloved to beaten up.
Netflix customers have long raved about how easy it is to use its streaming and DVD services, and business leaders view its operations as a great model of a customer-centric approach to operations. (A client of mine, for example, recently referrenced Netflix in describing how she needed me to help her design and create a new initiative for her organization.)
This summer, however, Netflix made a series of missteps and bungled decisions, surely with all the best of intentions, that some (about a million) customers disliked. Really disliked. OK. Hated. It increased its pricing by 60 percent, separated its streaming video from its DVD shipping services, and then, the final wallup, announced a whole separate company for the DVD services, under the much maligned name, Qwikster. However, on Monday, the company hit the rewind button (except for the pricing changes), killed Qwikster, and announced to customers:
Dear Gail:
It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.
This means no change: one website, one account, one password…in other words, no Qwikster.
While the July price change was necessary, we are now done with price changes.
We're constantly improving our streaming selection. We've recently added hundreds of movies from Paramount, Sony, Universal, Fox, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, MGM and Miramax. Plus, in the last couple of weeks alone, we've added over 3,500 TV episodes from ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, USA, E!, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, ABC Family, Discovery Channel, TLC, SyFy, A&E, History, and PBS.
We value you as a member, and we are committed to making Netflix the best place to get your movies & TV shows.
Respectfully,
The Netflix Team
Clunky, awkward, uncomfortable, and very public, Netflix attempted to expand its services in ways it thought it was being valuable to customers. And it backfired. However, their reversal means they can begin again, regain customer confidence, and move forward.
Though no business wants to make mistakes so publicly, the Netflix case study is actually a great example of what hundreds of CMOs and CEOs are saying is "crucial" to their successes in the 21st century: "customer intimacy." That's according to a new study by IBM.
"The most proactive CMOs are trying to understand individuals as well as markets. Customer intimacy is crucial – and CEOs know it. In our last CEO study, we learned CEOs regard getting closer to customers as one of the three prerequisities for success in the twenty-first century. This sits squarely in the CMO's domain."
--IBM's From Stretched to Strenthened: Insights from the Global Chief Marketing Officer Study
Yes, of course, these leaders surely aspire to smoother, even more pleasant feelings of intimacy than this, but let's not forget, sometimes intimacy can be messy. Netflix deserves a lot of credit for putting its collective ego aside and responding to what its customers are saying. Er, screaming.
Let's also not forget another leader who encountered a similar situation: Steve Jobs and Apple. When the second iteration of the iPhone came out, customers who had most recently bought the first version received a $100 store credit for being early adopters of the new technology that had dropped in price by half. Mr. Jobs issued an open apology and made the correction.
Intimacy requires an openness, receptivity, back and forth. And this openness is a requirement that all businesses – even nonprofits – must grow more comfortable with. Its an exchange that corporate sponsorship is an ideal medium for fostering.
In contrast, intimacy is not about rebuffing customers. Unfortunately, that's what I read in a quote by a spokesperson for a breast cancer organization in an AP article this morning about whether painting October pink, in support of breast cancer awareness month, had run its course. I (and others) have been saying that it has for years. But more importantly some women who have battled breast cancer hate the reminder. One woman in the article is quoted as saying the pink "drives her nuts." Yet the organizational spokesperson remains, "unapologetic." Not exactly openness.
The shifts we're facing in how we market to customers affects all of us. Learn from the Netflix and Apple examples. Foster a sense of openness and dialogue with your communities. And if you goof, respond. Don't rebuff.
If you're a small business owner looking for a way to build brand awareness, drive traffic to your store or web site, increase sales, entertain clients, or fulfill a host of other business objectives, consider corporate sponsorship.
The ultimate social medium, corporate sponsorship is distinct from other marketing vehicles because it provides you with an experiential component to allow potential and existing customers to interact with your brand, product or service, face-to-face and heart-to-heart.
If you sell sponsorship for a nonprofit, event, festival, or other entity, consider small and medium-sized businesses as potential partners for your events and sponsorable programs, a suggestion I wrote about in my book How to Jump-start Your Sponsorship Strategy in Tough Times. Be sure that you provide value to this market and can make a difference in a business owners' bottom line. Also be prepared to educate smaller business owners who may not have considered the medium on how sponsorship works. In fact you might send them to these resources.
If I can answer questions for you as sponsorship buyer or seller, feel free to contact me or submit a question through the comment section.
The hype, hyperbole, and overly protective cautionary warnings (yes, that's purposely redundant) in our culture are over the top. If you're marketing your business, nonprofit, event, service, product, or program in a way that competes with these messages, I shudder to think about what we're going to be reading and seeing in the media in 10 and 20 years.
Three examples:
Grand Canyon. Three years ago, we went to the Grand Canyon on vacation, a place where we'd never hiked. If you've been there and you hike, you know you have two hiking options: an easy-breezy walk around the rim, partly on a paved sidewalk (hardly hiking) or straight down into the mouth of the Canyon (hiking with an extra helping of thigh-master on the way down and cardio on the way up). Typical for our hiking expeditions, we spent time learning about the options and how to prepare before we left.
The official information included grave warnings about hiking and water intake, complete with stories of an experienced marathon runner who DIED because she only brought one bottle of water on her hike. The dire warnings penetrated and so we took a very conservative (read: safe) approach to our hike. We packed enough water and food to last us for 3 days (yup, there's some hyperbole) and decided only to hike down to the first level, not knowing what to expect. Our hike lasted about an hour, and we looked at each other and said, "That was it?" We could easily have hiked farther (and did), and we barely dented the provisions. We took the Park Service's warnings to heart and later realized the messages are intended for the sedentary, were written by the lawyers, or the communications team is overly protective.
Hurricane Irene. While there was suffering and great loss for many people as a result of Hurricane Irene, loss that I do not minimize, most of us experienced a heavy rainstorm. The media hype was out of control. CNN and the Weather Channel, for whom every weather condition is a catastrophe in waiting, covered the storm non-stop, amplifying every wind gust and rain drop, as if the East Coast was somehow going to land in Kansas.
I'm no meterologist, but I have recorded in my brain the pattern that when a hurricane hits land, one of two things can happen: it immediately becomes less powerful, or it turns and goes out to sea. Irene hit land in North Carolina and instantly became a Category 1. As it traveled north, with 50-60 mph gusts, that's no hurricane. It was a tropical storm. Yet governors and mayors went into hyperalert declaring states of emergencies, evacuating, and taking major precautions.
My building's property manager sent emails with hurricane instructions, accompanied by Red Cross instructions. Friends around the country called me. And my city newspaper's headline type sizes for four days were the same sizes they used when Pearl Harbor was bombed. In fact on the day of the storm, the front page was not news, but rather predictions: what could happen. Have we lost common sense? Are we so out of touch with nature that we don't know what to do about it? Or are we still so freaked out by Hurricane Katrina and the failures of the man-made levies and by 9/11 that our new state of emergency readiness is panic and pull out of the stops?
Simple checks. Today I'm paying bills, and I just cracked open a new box of checks that I just ordered from Intuit, a third-party check manufacturer tied in with products like Quicken and Quickbooks. Imagine me, aghast, to see a blue banner across the top of my ordinarily clean and simply designed checks with the following message
WARNING [sic]: DO NOT CASH THIS INTUIT® CheckLock(TM) SECURE CHECK IF ANY FEATURES LISTED ON BACK INDICATE TAMPERING OR COPYING.
OMG! Is The Weather Channel advising check printers now? And when did I agree to have Intuit sponsor my checks?
Of course I called customer service. Short of refunding my money, there's nothing to be done except pass along my (and many other customers') objections to this ridiculous banner, poor design, and extreme cautionary language, mandated by the U.S. government, that basically puts potential fraudulent acts with my checks in the hands of my bank, who will surely find another way to charge me some new $2 fee.
People, what is wrong with us? Do authorities think regular citizens have become such idiots that we need this sort of parenting? Has our litigiousness run amok? Does no one remember Aesop's famous fable about the boy who cried wolf? Are we all so tone deaf that marketers and communicators have to scream at us?
I feel like Howard Beale in Network: I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!
Let's all tone down the language. Stop pouring it on so thick. Lawyers, relax. Government officials, you need not get involved in every little thing. We're grown-ups; we can figure things out. Newscasters, go on a retreat with the video of yourselves over the weekend; anything you can do differently? Maybe incorporate some other programming into the day so we don't have to watch 24/7 hurricane potentialities?
Marketers – both nonprofit and for-profit – how can you not contribute to this insanity?
In 2004, shortly after seeing Morgan Spurlock's first film, Supersize Me, his cinematic experiment eating nothing but McDonald's three meals a day for 30 days, I headed off to New Orleans to the Essence Music Festival. I served as managing director for the daytime activities at the New Orleans Convention Center of the festival, the "Purpose" part of the "Party with a Purpose."
McDonald's was a major sponsor (and still is) and that year focused its activation on promoting its new healthier menu options. According to news reports at the time, McDonald's new menu had nothing to do with the film, and the company's history notes the introduction of Premium Fresh Salads to its menu in 2003. Still, I imagine not even company spokespeople could deny the synchronistic timing.
The vague trepidation I felt heading off to the 2004 Festival, wondering what impact the film might have for the Festival and its sponsor – would people rally? would festivalgoers protest? would there be a firestorm of media condemnation? – returned for me Thursday night when I went to see Spurlock's newest film, POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. What would Spurlock say about marketing and sponsorship, the fields I'm in? What impact would it have?
In both cases, my trepidation was unfounded. No one protested McDonald's or the Essence Music Festival, and whether the film had any influence or not on McDonald's menu, who cares? The film raised excellent points; McDonald's has evolved its menu; and we each, as individuals, still must take responsibility for our own eating and nutritional information-gathering habits.
The new film is hilarious. Every industry has absurdities about it, and marketing is right up there. Spurlock pokes fun at it all – including at himself. POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is the story of Spurlock's attempts to secure sponsors for the film while bringing us a glimpse behind the scenes of the sophistication of modern day marketing and uncovering the dark side.
What a different film this would have been in the hands of another filmmaker, like Michael Moore, for example. Consistent with his own branding profile, Spurlock is equal parts "mindful" and "playful" about the story and issues, right down to the musical score. Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, about the hunter and the hunted, couldn't be a more perfect composition. Take a look at the trailer.
The film takes us through the whole process of sponsorship development, though in this case in the form of "brand integration," modern lingo for product placement, a tactic used by major brands to have their products embedded into the storylines of films and television shows. (Seinfeld was a master at this. Can you name all the brands, from Rice Krispies to Junior Mints, woven into the storylines? Sometimes the scripts read just like the press releases, making it even funnier.)
Throughout the sponsorship sales and execution process, Spurlock shares with us, the viewers, and his advisors his concerns, especially where to draw the line between selling out and not. Of course Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader portend a dreadful future of Corporatized Morgan Spurlock, imploring him to rise above. With a mischievous sparkle in his eyes, Spurlock counters by hawking his sponsored shoes, Merrell's, to Nader. (Film tip: don't leave before the credits end for a great interaction with Nader.)
Spurlock keeps it light and defines the line quite clearly for his own work. In a post-screening discussion on Thursday, the closing film for Philadelphia's Cinefest, Spurlock said he pushed back on sponsor requests to approve the film before it opened and to see a financial return.
"Being in the film" was the sponsors' return, he said. Exactly!
Overall, I found the film thoroughly enjoyable, laugh-out-loud funny, with plenty to learn for both sponsorship buyers and sellers, as well as life-long students of marketing. It opens next weekend, and I urge you to see it.
I will say, however, that one critique I have is also where Spurlock did sell out. Or rather, enabled someone else's sell out. One of the more serious threads in the film is about marketing messages in places where maybe they don't belong – public schools.
"Schools should be sacred," a Broward County school representative says, while she discusses with Spurlock the challenges of balancing a decreasing budget with demands for new programs. Banner advertising on the school fence line and truck fleet and in school buses is one solution. By the end of the film, POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold joins the ranks of the district's advertisers by purchasing all three vehicles.
(It also bought the naming rights to the city of Altoona, Pa., home to another sponsor, Sheetz. The filmmakers reportedly purchased the rights for $25,000, and for 60 days, a drive through Pennsylvania, 130 miles west of Harrisburg and about 40 miles southwest of State College, will take you to POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Pa. As the New York Times reports: “Clearly, the people of Altoona have a sense of humor,” Bill Schirf, the mayor, said in a statement, “and an asking price.”)
Apparently Google doesn't know about Altoona's temporary name change; as of this writing, you can still find Altoona. View Larger Map
By advertising through the school's banner and bus billboard program, the filmmakers stepped on those sacred grounds at the same time they exposed the problem. Wouldn't it have been better for the film to simply have made a contribution to the school system, even an anonymous one? Or developed a cause marketing campaign?
Perhaps this seems like a minor infraction in an overall enjoyable film, but a donation or cause marketing campaign would have been more aligned with the point of the film's social side.
POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold opens next weekend. Go see it, have fun, and feel free to share your thoughts by clicking on "comments" below to let me know what you think!
[In honor of transparency: I paid full price for movie tickets for my friend and me, and I own several pairs of Merrell's that I paid for on my own. I have drunk POM Wonderful I paid for, eaten foods from Amy's I bought, have been in the airport on Aruba enroute to Granada on business, never worn Ban (that I'm aware of), don't own Carrera's, never shopped at Solstice, never heard of Get It for Free Online till now, have paid for my own rooms at Hyatt, don't live in a city served by jetBlue, never purchased a KDF car wrap, never purchased Mane 'n Tail (nor do I have a kid or Shetland pony to try it on), have purchased a few items at Old Navy, have never shopped at Petland, have purchased my own Seventh Generation products, have purchased my own gas and snacks at Sheetz, own no clothing by Ted Baker, may have dabbed at teenage blemishes with Thayer's Witch Hazel purchased by my mother, and was not influenced by any of these film sponsors while writing this blog. I did just enjoy mentioning them all however!]
About 10 years ago, I took up ceramics. The first class I took at one of the country's premier institutions, Philadelphia's The Clay Studio, host to the upcoming NCECA conference, was a hand-building course. I learned all sorts of techniques for creating pots, and the one I loved the most was using slabs of clay. Eventually, I began making tiles.
To make a slab, you flatten a chunk of clay to a desired thickness, using either a slab roller or a rolling pin, the same type more commonly used in kitchens to make dough. Because I'd done some woodworking earlier in my life, I gravitated to slabs because it's possible to create similar kinds of pieces using both media. However, the trickiest thing for me about slabs was reminding myself that this smooth, evenly thick material wasn't wood. It was not solid, it had memory, and it became more fragile as it dried. On the other hand, because it was malleable, it was often more forgiving, allowing me to repair mistakes or change course when I had new ideas. I had to learn new skills appropriate for my new medium.
When you take up a new hobby, learn a new skill, or launch a new initiative, you're bound to uncover new techniques and new ways of doing things that are necessary for your success. When we insist on approaching this new initiative using our old skills, probably we're not going to be successful. If I insisted that drying clay not be delicate, I'd have had lots of frustrating moments at The Clay Studio.
What does this have to do with sponsorship?
In the last week, I've read two articles about government officials attempting to launch sponsorship using old techniques. Colorado Springs has introduced a sponsorship program to "help bail the city out," and the New Jersey Department of Transportation is considering naming rights to its Turnpike stops "to help Gov. Christie overcome an $11 billion budget deficit."
The old skill? Bidding. Both government entities are looking at putting their sponsorship opportunities up for bid. Sounds like one part wishful thinking and a major part not understanding the nature of corporate sponsorship development. Wouldn't it be great if it were that easy?
Nonprofit organizations often get stuck in an old skill set, too. They try to sell sponsorship using the tactics of the annual appeal: mail out a bunch of letters and wait for the checks to come sailing back in. Unfortunately that's not how it works either.
If your organization or governmental office plans to launch a sponsorship program as a way of generating new revenue, and you're clear that you have great value to offer the corporate sector, you're going to need to learn new skills. Sales skills.
You're also going to have to develop a better strategy and more compelling marketing messages than the bailout, deficit recovery messages of Colorado Springs and NJDOT.
After a couple blizzards, trudging around in snow, pretty at first, gets tiresome. This week, I headed to the famed Philadelphia International Flower Show to remind myself that spring indeed will arrive.
The beautiful show did not disappoint, even if some of the displays reminded visitors of the cold. Walking into a fantasy land of flowers, I can't wait for warm weather.
Another reason I attended the show was to check out the sponsorship activation. The Flower Show is one of the best sponsorship developers in Philadelphia, and I always appreciate the obvious guidance and hard work of their staff.
If you're in Philadelphia or plan to be here for this closing weekend of the show, I'd love to hear your thoughts about how the show's sponsors took advantage of their opportunity to partner with one of the top flower shows in the U.S. Here are some thoughts I had.
PNC gets a round of applause from me for their dedication to Philadelphia's arts & cultural scene. The financial institution whole-heartedly supports important arts organizations and invests philanthropic dollars to nurture the passions of future arts and culture lovers. At the Flower Show, they benefitted from a strong association through their presenting status and did a good job tying philanthropic messages and business goals.
At PNC Park, you could stock up on green. PNC tied a different green message into a floral and waterfall display, next to which event-goers could enter their votes for the People's Choice Award, plus get a free tote-bag.
Knowing banks, I imagine (and hope) PNC is hosting customers with tickets to the show. Their display may have benefitted by more of a human touch, besides two young women handing out tote bags. The banking and financial industry still faces a cynical, distrustful consumer world out there. Banks would benefit from a human-centric approach to their marketing these days. However, all in all, a nice effort from PNC.
Subaru, also a major sponsor, was right in the middle of all the action and used the opportunity to promote another flower angle: their sponsorship of the Cherry Blossoms Festival here.
I overheard a snippet of this Subaru representative's conversation with this woman, telling her about Subaru's VIP program. Wise car salespeople love sponsorship because customers want to talk to them.
I've long admired Discover Ireland's sponsorship strategy – to support golf and gardening events, to attract lovers of key attractions in Ireland – having worked with them at a PGA Merchandise Show where they sponsored an international travel area by PGA Magazine. I was disappointed at the Flower Show, however, to see what a missed opportunity their investment was.
Discover Ireland sponsors a garden display, to promote their gardens and has a large booth, with vast real estate. But what do you notice?
Need a closer look?
Where's their staff? Why is no one taking advantage of this great opportunity to tell International Flower Show enthusiasts about a country with great gardens?
Corporate readers of Sponsorship Strategist, take note. Corporate sponsorship is all about the experience, the face-to-face opportunity your brand, your product, your staff, your service gets to have with audiences of the event or opportunity you partner with.
Why spend all the money to invest in the sponsorship, to build a booth, create promotional value, and then not follow through? It would be like an Olympic skier getting all the way down the 2-mile run and slowing down at the finish line. Seize every moment of the sponsorship opportunity. Make it work for you. Don't waste your money. And definitely don't complain that your sponsorship investment "didn't work."
The surprising Best of Show to me was Acme. I haven't visited Acme's retail locations yet to see how they activated in-store. At the Show, Acme had a simple but attractive booth where they sold flowers. Simple, right? But wait. There's more.
Among the bouquets Acme sold was the Official Flower Show Bouquet, with a portion of the proceeds benefitting the Philadelphia Horticulture Society and its programs – which, by the way, benefit all Philadelphians.
The Unsung Hero of the Show is EB Henry. They, like many other businesses, could benefit from greater knowledge about how to really leverage sponsorship.
EB Henry donated 3 truck-loads of hardscaping to the show, creating beautiful displays everywhere.
All around the show, you experienced their products and handiwork.
When I asked the EB Henry representative about their participation in the event, he quickly acknowledged valuing the partnership. All the materials are incorporated into gardens the Horticulture Society creates with partnering organizations throughout the city after the Flower Show. What a great story.
However, I wondered if EB Henry maximizes their participation. The young man said they "hope people will start thinking about their gardens." With all the snow we've had, surely people are thinking about their gardens, I thought. But he didn't seem to have a strategy to engage Flower Show attendees, to track related sales, to encourage them to visit their showroom. At least he was there, eager and enthusiastic to talk about their products and humbly share a great story.
Corporate sponsorship is a powerful medium. If your corporate brand is only using it to stick a logo on a banner or brochure, you're wasting your money. Take full advantage of every opportunity, and make sure you're doing your part in achieving a return on your investment.
If you need assistance developing your brand's corporate sponsorship strategy, corporate sponsorship consultant Gail Bower can help.
Even if you can't, you'll have to get used to the new handle. City officials yesterday announced that Wawa Inc. is the new title sponsor of the July Fourth festival, replacing Sunoco Inc., which had been associated with the multi-day event since the mid-1990s.
Congratulations to Welcome America! and Wawa on a new partnership for Philadelphia's 4th of July festivities. You can read all about it at this link.
Take particular note of Sunoco's comments. It's not unusual for corporations to take a different approach with their marketing dollars, especially in times of changing market conditions, which the oil industry has definitely encountered in the last 5+ years. Sunoco's current interests make sense, and I look forward to seeing how they invest those funds.
What concerns me is the confusion around "community resources" and marketing dollars. From what I could see, Welcome America! provided Sunoco with considerable marketing exposure, yet Sunoco seems to have considered these dollars "community resources," subject to new philanthropic direction.
I'm wondering about a few questions. Has Sunoco valued the marketing opportunity it has had? Has Sunoco's marketing team really seized the partnership and integrated it fully throughout its business units?
Why does Sunoco feel that sponsoring one of the country's biggest US birthday bashes is mutually exclusive from its new philanthropic interest? After all, Mayor Nutter has made a commitment to being a green city, and the festival touches a broad base of Philadelphians, who contribute to or benefit from enhanced educational and workforce development efforts.
Corporate support of nonprofits should not remain in one corporate silo. Indeed successful corporate sponsorship execution involves integrating and fully leveraging the sponsorship through multiple business units. (A great example of this McDonald's and their ties to the Olympics.)
To nonprofits and corporations: you co-create your partnership. Think big, collaborate, and incorporate multiple strategic interests.
Yesterday, navigating my way through the snowy, slushy streets, I got some free instant coffee. Across the street from Starbucks.
Nescafé is taking on Starbucks and its new instant coffee. Starbucks' instant coffee took on Nescafé when it introduced its instant product, causing Nescafé to modernize its product. Interesting.
Inside these envelopes from the Nescafé Team (as they preferred to be identified) are six different blends and flavors, making a substantial sample.
Guerilla marketing for guerilla product development? Maybe. Or maybe just healthy competition.
Either way, Nescafé and Starbucks (perhaps undergoing a midlife crisis?) might benefit from your corporate sponsorship opportunity, if you let them conduct their sampling. Perfect for a conference or business meeting or a food event, where you can set up a pot of hot water.
Gail Bower is president of Bower & Co. Consulting LLC, a firm that specializes in dramatically raising the visibility, revenue, and impact of non-profit organizations. She’s a professional consultant, writer, and speaker, with more than 20 years of experience managing some of the country’s most important events, festivals and sponsorships and implementing marketing programs for clients. Launched in 1987, today Bower & Co. improves the effectiveness and results of clients’ marketing, events, and corporate sponsorship programs.
Does the recent economic upheaval that sent seismic shifts through our culture have you wondering what to do next with your sponsorship development efforts? Marketing and sponsorship specialist Gail Bower wrote this short guidebook for you. Get the confidence, perspective, and techniques you need to jump-start your sponsorship strategy today.
“A professional GPS system to keep you on a successful track.”
- Steven Wood Schmader, CFEE,
President & CEO
International Festivals & Events Association (IFEA
World)
