Sponsorship Strategist

On the Road to Experiential Marketing - NYTimes.com

MADISON AVENUE wants to get its act together this summer and take it on the road. via www.nytimes.com 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:... Read more →

Aesthetics matter

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... Read more →

Respond or rebuff: what's your approach to customer input?

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.... Read more →

Resources for small businesses that sponsor and those who sell to them

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. Two resources to help you learn more are: a recent article on the Fox Small Business Center, entitled What Every Small Business Needs to Know About... Read more →

As a culture, have we gone mad?

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,... Read more →

The Greatest Sponsorship Film I've Ever Seen: Morgan Spurlock's "POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold"

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... Read more →

Sponsorship sales: Out with the consultative approach and in with bidding?

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... Read more →

Spring & Corporate Sponsorship at the Flower Show

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.... Read more →

Wondering why corporate sponsorship for your nonprofit is confusing?

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. via www.philly.com 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... Read more →

Coffee talk: Nescafé takes on Starbucks

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... Read more →