Welcome to 2012’s first edition of “Distinctive Sponsorship Deals”, a monthly blog post to highlight and summarize some of the most unconventional and thought-provoking sponsorship deals we’ve seen from the previous month.

Below are brief summaries of deals from January that we felt were worth sharing, as well as hyperlinks to more detailed articles if you would like to read more about a topic. Enjoy!

Kia Canada announces official vehicle sponsorship of the 2012 Fulda Challenge

The Fulda Challenge is an annual arctic extreme adventure where competitors from all over the world come together to test their strength, determination and endurance against the harsh arctic landscape. This sponsorship came a mere week before Kia announced a partnership with the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and the renewal of deals with 10 other NBA teams. Clearly a different play than their NBA deals (which include 13 teams and the league itself), the Fulda Challenge sponsorship aims to showcase the abilities of Kia’s Compact Utility Vehicles.

MSG and Duracell Powermat announce new Arena-Integrated Marketing Partnership

A new category in the world of sponsorship, “Official Wireless Charging Partner”, will allow for Duracell Powermat wireless charging systems throughout Madison Square Garden for Knicks and Rangers fans, as well as concert-goers to utilize. It is another step towards MSG achieving their goal of mobile and digital fan experience integration.

Publix Georgia Marathon announces sponsorship deal with Atlanta Hawks

A rare case of a sports property sponsoring another sports property. On-site promotions at Hawks games in January informed attendees of a unique discount for potential registrants of the Publix Georgia Marathon. Registrants received discounts of $9, $3, and $27 on January 17^th, 19^th, and 22^nd respectively based on the Hawks’ margin of victory from the previous night’s game.

Dial for Men becomes presenting sponsor of 2012 Spartan Race Series

Intense outdoor obstacle races are growing in popularity, and this sponsorship deal only reinforces the legitimacy of such properties as the Spartan Race Series and the Tough Mudder Series. The fact that major international brands such as Dial and Dos Equis (Tough Mudder) desire to affiliate their brands with these sports properties is certainly noteworthy.

Please feel free to pass any deals that you find to be outside the norm along to mitch@desperadomarketing.com so they can be posted on our upcoming “Distinctive Sponsorship Deals” blog.

A few weeks ago I led a learning session for sponsorship marketers at the Sponsorship Marketing Council of Canada’s Fundamentals of Sponsorship course held in Toronto.

The SMCC’s Fundamentals of Sponsorship is a two-day course that provides new and seasoned sponsorship practitioners with intensive professional skills development in various aspects of the craft.  In the section I taught, Optimizing a Sponsorship Portfolio for Business Success based on Desperado Marketing’s proprietary process Sponsorship Accelerate™, I covered ways and means for sponsors to get better business results.

As I was preparing for the session the first time (I taught on the same course in early 2011), I was struck by how far we had come since the days sponsorship marketing was a bit of a cowboy enterprise.

My first job in sponsorship was accidental.  During university, I was working for a brewery as a summer beer rep when I was seconded to help support an international sporting event that had gone bankrupt within a few weeks of expecting to welcome athletes from around the world.  My employer was a sponsor of the event.  In order to save face, money and spirit, the Canadian federal government and the event’s sponsors quickly partnered to take over execution of the event.  On the secondment, I reported in to an army lieutenant who became responsible for various logistics aspects of the multi-day event.  I loved the job and I was hooked on sponsorship.

Years later in the early 1990s, during the time when we referred to ourselves as sports marketers and before we realized that arts and cause were sponsor-able as well, little regard was given to sponsorship value and sponsorship ROI was measured mostly by gut feel and by anecdote.  Sponsorship marketing was new as a part of the marketing mix and digital marketing wasn’t so much as a bit or a byte yet.  In the world then dominated by print, radio, OOH and television advertising, credibility for sponsorship was hard earned.  I was young, and looked younger.  I dressed like a banker to help deflect the image of a sponsorship marketer as all show and no go.  Traditional media wasn’t especially measurable, but sponsorships were seen as passion driven pieces of ether that most understood as meaningful, but left few with much ability to explain why.

I grew up at the right time.  I have been fortunate to move through my career as sponsorship marketing has become more sophisticated.  I like to think that I have helped lead the way in advocating for and building the thinking around measurement, property valuation, research and activation planning.  And at that session a few weeks back, I was proud to be able to stand up in front of a group of fellow sponsorship marketers, some dressed like bankers and some not, and speak to sponsorship as an established, measurable and valuable means of reaching consumers, very often with impressive results.  The cowboy days are, thankfully, long past.

Welcome to this month’s edition of “Distinctive Sponsorship Deals”, a monthly blog post to highlight and summarize some of the most unconventional and thought-provoking sponsorship deals we’ve seen from the previous month.

December provided a few noteworthy sponsorship scenarios after November proved to be rather uneventful. Enjoy!

Discover Sponsors Holiday-Themed Social Game by Zynga

The latest game from Zynga was a holiday version of their famous “Farmville”. This latest creation was a collaborative effort between the company and its title sponsor, Discover. In true partnership fashion, the credit card company was involved in the game’s development as it wanted the gameplay and content to specifically benefit its card members.

Qualcomm Stadium Changes Name for Three-Game Period

While it wasn’t a new sponsorship deal per se, the decision by Qualcomm to change the name of the San Diego Chargers’ home stadium for just two weeks has created plenty of buzz in the sponsorship community. Snapdragon, a new Qualcomm product line, was the new and temporary title sponsor of the venue. The move was aimed to generate earned media value for the company’s new brand while the stadium hosted one NFL game and two college football bowl games.

Orange Bowl Agrees to Sponsorship Deal with Cigar Brand, Nixes Deal After Scrutiny

On December 12, a sponsorship deal, focusing mainly on onsite fan activations and luxury hospitality assets, was signed between Miami-based Camacho Cigars and the prestigious Orange Bowl. After significant public scrutiny (due to cigars’ negative health effects) the deal was cancelled by the sports property just 11 days later.

NRG’s Sponsorship of MetLife Stadium to Showcase Solar Technology

NRG’s sponsorship of the major football and concert venue includes the right to build a “Solar Ring” atop the stadium, serving to generate solar power for the stadium and specifically for LED light effects along the ring itself.

Miami Heat Welcomes Tsingtao as Beer Sponsor

A rare North American sponsorship deal involving a Chinese beer brand, this partnership aims to capitalize on China’s ever-growing passion for the sport of basketball and its increased TV presence in China. . There is also a possibility that the deal will see the Miami Heat dancers integrated into Tsingtao’s popular Chinese dance competition TV show.

Please feel free to pass any deals that you find to be outside the norm along to mitch@desperadomarketing.com so they can be posted in our upcoming “Distinctive Sponsorship Deals” blog.

Whether you’re a student, new to sponsorship, or an experienced sponsorship professional, finding the best sources of sponsorship news and insight is not always easy.

Here we highlight some professionals and news providers in the industry who we feel really stand out in terms of the quality of the content they share – whether it be on Twitter, through a blog, or through another medium. Of course, we left our own Twitter account (@DesperadoMKTG) and blog off the list below… however, we are considered a “Sponsorship Thought Leader” by those in the know <wink>.

Twitter Accounts

@cannonjw – A sponsorship professional on the brand side (UPS), JW provides many opinions on the latest sponsorship news in addition to sharing unique news from the worlds of sponsorship, marketing and social media. He is also the co-founder of a weekly sports business chat that adds tremendous value to the online education and collaboration of the sponsorship community.

@SBJSBD – SportsBusiness Journal/Daily’s official twitter account provides breaking news, as well as links to great content on their websites.

@SponsorPark – Sponsor Park is an online sponsorship marketplace, connecting properties and sponsors. On Twitter, they do a great job of sharing the latest in sponsorship news on a daily basis.

@SponsorPitch – Another online sponsorship community and marketplace, Sponsor Pitch’s official Twitter account also shares the latest sponsorship news with its followers.

@BrianGainor – Brian is a sponsorship professional at GMR Marketing, and the founder of the “Partnership Activation” website and monthly newsletter. On Twitter, he shares great examples of how brands activate their sponsorships onsite, in trade channels, and through media.

@david_schwab – David works for Octagon in their “First Call” celebrity acquisition and engagement division. He is a specialist in athlete and celebrity endorsement deals, as well as sponsorship rights in general.

@synergytim – Tim Crowe is the CEO of UK-based sponsorship consulting firm, Synergy. His insights and opinions are those of a seasoned industry veteran, and his experience in the UK and Europe provides a great international flavour.

Blogs

Kim Skildum Reid’s Corporate Sponsorship Blog – An experienced sponsorship professional provides her advice on effective sponsorship portfolio management practices. Kim provides insightful lists of sponsorship do’s and don’ts, and has confident fact-based opinions on sponsorship negotiation, activation, and strategy.

SportsBiz with Darren Rovell – The sports business industry’s top news breaker, Rovell gets the inside scoop and interview access to key sponsorship decision makers. While not all of his blog posts focus on sponsorship, those that do are rarely a disappointment.

Other Online Information Sources

Partnership Activation – Blog & Monthly Newsletter – An up-to-date database of best practices in sponsorship activation from across the globe. An excellent resource to aid in ideation or other research initiatives.

IEG Sponsorship News – Provides updates on major sponsorship deals and related details.

Premium Information Sources – Subscription Required

Sports Business Journal, Sports Business Daily – Tremendous insight regarding sport sponsorship negotiations, strategy, and deal assets/figures. SBJ/SBD often provides reports containing very rare and exclusive information such as sports sponsorship spending dollar amounts and deal specifics.

IEG Sponsorship Report – Features some of the best insight and research reports on the sponsorship landscape. From overall sponsorship spending trends to sponsorship measurement and activation budgets, IEG’s reports provide unparalleled industry insight.

Journal of Sponsorship – Focuses more on sponsorship theories, case studies, and consumer behaviour research. Research papers, written by industry professionals and academics, explain the marketing impact of specific sponsorships and key take-aways from each situation.

Welcome to this month’s  edition of “Distinctive Sponsorship Deals”, a monthly blog post to highlight and summarize some of the most unconventional and thought-provoking sponsorship deals we’ve seen from the previous month.

We will do our best to inform you of sponsorship deals which make you laugh, scratch your head, or scream “Eureka!” at your desk.

Tiger Woods Signs Endorsement Deal with FUSE Science

Tiger Woods makes our Distinctive Sponsorship Deals blog for the second straight month as the golfer tries to rebound off the course while showing signs of improvement on it. FUSE Science has signed Tiger to endorse their innovative health products. The question being asked by many is whether Tiger would have agreed to endorse such a lesser-known brand in his prime – prior to his personal and professional issues.

adidas Outbids Nike for Sponsorship of McDonald’s All-American Game

adidas’ sponsorship of this prestigious game not only indicates that they will not back down from Nike, the dominant basketball brand, but also that Nike may pour even more resources into its Jordan Classic high school all-star game in an attempt to diminish the McDonald’s game’s relevance. Nike had also bid for exclusive rights to the McDonald’s All-American Game.

119 Year-Old Soccer Stadium Gets Name Change in Anticipation of Naming Rights Sponsorship

While no naming rights deal has yet taken place, this tactic by Newcastle United is very interesting. By changing the historic St. James Park’s name in advance of a potential deal, the football club bears some of the negative public backlash that is inevitable when changing such an integral part of local sporting tradition. Undoubtedly, the goal of this manoeuvre is to reduce the amount of backlash aimed at the yet to be determined naming rights sponsor, thereby making the sponsorship opportunity more appealing to prospective brands.

Please feel free to pass any deals that you find to be outside the norm along to mitch@desperadomarketing.com so they can be posted on our upcoming “Distinctive Sponsorship Deals” blog.

Welcome to our second edition of “Distinctive Sponsorship Deals”, a monthly blog post to highlight and summarize some of the most unconventional and thought-provoking sponsorship deals we’ve seen from the previous month.

We will do our best to inform you of sponsorship deals which make you laugh, scratch your head, or scream “Eureka!” at your desk. October was a rather rational month for sponsorship deals, with only two standing out as particularly unusual.

Ford Creates Lego SUV, Driving School for Infants at Legoland in Orlando

Ford has sponsored a driving school for children at the new theme park – where children as young as three can learn the basics of driving. While the initiative will certainly impact the youngsters’ parents as well, it’s quite interesting to see a consumer being targeted over a decade before they make any form of purchase within the category!

Tiger Woods Signs First Major Endorsement Since Downfall

Tiger Woods was dumped by several sponsors, including watch brand Tag Heuer, after his controversial personal life became public in late 2009. Now, Woods has been signed by Rolex, a brand with a major presence in golf. Many experts believe this new deal is likely incentive-laiden.

Please feel free to pass any deals that you find to be outside the norm along to mitch@desperadomarketing.com so they can be posted on our upcoming “Distinctive Sponsorship Deals” blog.

A large part of what keeps us busy each day at Desperado Marketing is reviewing, evaluating and negotiating sponsorship rights on behalf of our partner clients.

Surprisingly, some of the largest, most sophisticated, most professional of those rights holders look at sponsorship as purely a revenue generating proposition for their organizations.

We often explain to these properties, sometimes in blunt terms, that, on our clients’ behalf, we buy value in the form of sponsorship rights.  We do not buy budget line items on a property’s profit and loss statement.

Occasionally, some unwitting rights seller will even tell one of our associates that the rights holder has determined their rights fee ask simply by dividing a sponsorship revenue target by a set number of sponsors.

Clear Talk

As a sponsor of your event, league, festival or venue – our client will partner with you and enhance your audience’s experience.  Our client may provide you with access to their marketing communication channels, something you likely could never afford to buy.  My client will give you credibility with not only your audience but with other potential sponsors.   Our client can help you build your brand.

If we are looking at your property as a vehicle for addressing our client’s business and brand objectives, we will have calculated to the dollar, Euro, Pound or Yen what the basket of sponsorship assets you are offering is worth.

We will have projected the return on investment that our clients spend with you on rights fees, their spend on broadcast rights and their spend on property activation will bring to their business.  In fact, we will have monetized it.

While Desperado Marketing has been a leader in the drive towards more sophisticated and more accountable sponsorship valuation and sponsorship measurement, we are not alone.  If you are a property rights holder you are likely to encounter more and more sponsors, and their agencies, that have at least some protocol for placing value on the rights you are selling.

Shift Thinking

If you represent a property and you don’t fundamentally understand that your sponsors can be critical partners in building your brand and growing your business, than you are losing out.

If you price your assets without any inclination towards value, you’re reducing your chances of serious engagement discussion with prospective sponsors and you’re sending a message that your organization lacks grounded focus.

Change.

We’re starting a monthly blog post to highlight and summarize some of the most unconventional and thought-provoking sponsorship deals we’ve seen from the previous month.

We will do our best to inform you of sponsorship deals which make you laugh, scratch your head, or scream “Eureka!” at your desk.

Please feel free to pass any such deals along to mitch@desperadomarketing.com so they can be posted on our upcoming “Distinctive Sponsorship Deals” blog.

September:

New York Islanders’ Deal Creates a New Sponsorship Category: Official Tattoo Shop

The New York Islanders signed Tattoo Lou’s to a sponsorship deal which makes them the official tattoo shop of the NHL team. A Tattoo Lou’s tattooing and body-piercing station will be set up on the concourse at 10 Islanders games at Nassau Coliseum during the 2011-12 season.

Subway Rewards Bills Fans When Bills Score 20+ 

One day into the 2011 NFL season, the Buffalo Bills announced a partnership with Subway. As part of the agreement, Subway is to receive spots on the Bills All-Access Television show, preseason television ads, print collateral and Bills website advertising.

But the interesting part of this deal lies in a coupon distributed to each fan at Bills’ home games for a free six-inch sub when the Bills score 20 or more points. This may prove to be more expensive than Subway anticipated, as the Bills (who were projected to struggle this season) sit 4^th in the NFL in points per game through Week 4 (33.3 point average), and scored 38 and 34 points in their two home wins this season.

.ORG Registry Joins Go Daddy in NASCAR sponsorship 

Jamie McMurray’s No. 7 car featured .ORG marks during a September 4^th race in Atlanta, as well as during a race on October 2^nd in Dover, Delaware.

The Public Interest Registry (PIR) hopes that this increased exposure will encourage individuals, companies and organizations to register a .ORG domain to share their interest, passion or cause.

Local Pizza Chain Acquires Naming Rights to Minor League Hockey Team Arena

The Dayton Gems of the minor-league CHL, signed a sponsorship agreement with a local pizza chain, Cassano’s, which gives the sponsor naming rights to the team’s home arena. “Cassano’s Italian Ice” is the facility’s new name.

Aston Martin Becomes Main Sponsor for German Soccer Team 

The deal includes the Aston Martin logo on 1860 Munchen’s game jerseys. The uniqueness in this deal lies in the fact that it is the very first soccer sponsorship for the 98 year old luxury automotive brand!

No matter what industry you’re working in, most organizations have spent the last ten plus years driving costs out of the system with fervour. Whether it’s in logistics, production, supply chain, or another functional area, everyone across the enterprise has been tasked to do more with less.

During the same period, the marketing mix has become much more complex and effectively reaching your target audience has become net-net, more expensive.

As a result, there is increased scrutiny on the marketing function.  There is a demand for greater efficiency and as marketers, we’re being challenged to prove-out investments like never before. The only marketing initiatives worth investing in are those which prove to move the needle on key business indicators.

Moving forward, what gets measured will get funded.

It’s where business is going.

Sponsorship return on investment (ROI) measurement is a matter of understanding the benefits of a sponsorship property in terms of its contributions towards your specific business and brand objectives. The metrics that are used to measure progress towards such objectives usually vary from industry to industry, and from company to company.

For example, within the auto industry it would make sense for a company to track the number of test drives generated at a sponsored event. A financial services brand, on the other hand, would focus on incremental credit card usage or the number of customers redeeming a special offer, both tracked back to the sponsorship. A packaged goods company will often measure the benefits of a sponsorship at retail in terms of shelf-space that could be leveraged, sales, or the number of incremental displays. And a business-to-business brand will often include measurement around hospitality – i.e., the number of key clients entertained and the follow-up business that was gained. These are just a few examples of sponsorship metrics, but the key observation is that the metrics are customized based on what generates a business benefit for the sponsor as the result a particular sponsorship.

Sponsorship ROI and Valuation

Ideally, these unique marketing metrics are translatable to dollars, thus completing the connection between property valuation[O1]  and property ROI measurement. Property valuation is a complex process which is very important for sponsorship negotiation guidance as well as overall sponsorship portfolio management. Valuing a property before choosing to invest is always done in dollars, as rights fees are paid for in dollars. Therefore, if ROI metrics can be translated to dollars, a better comparison between what was invested and what was “earned” can take place.

ROI measurement allows you to prove investments’ worth to upper management, and make the best decisions about what sponsorships deserve your company’s continued investment and which should be revisited[O2] . In this sense, it is easy to see how valuation processes and ROI measurement work hand in hand when it comes to sponsorship portfolio management. ROI measurement tells you what properties and assets within your portfolio to renew, and a proper valuation allows you to renew them in a smart and financially efficient manner.

Sponsorship ROI and Activation

While measurement can help to evaluate if a property’s assets are worth reinvestment, how a brand leverages their sponsorship through activation is often just as, if not more, important to overall sponsorship success. Measuring the effectiveness of activation practices allows a sponsor to recognize which supplemental marketing initiatives surrounding a sponsorship achieve results and which initiatives do not. These conclusions can be particularly useful for planning sponsorship activation in the future – not only for the property being analyzed, but for other properties too.

Assessing both sponsorship assets and sponsorship activation through measurement protocols must take place in order to make informed sponsorship portfolio management decisions.

Easier Said than Done

It should come as no surprise that making the investment in sponsorship ROI measurement is not viewed as an attractive spend amongst many marketers. Such an investment does not always produce immediate results, and it certainly doesn’t win advertising awards. But if the goal is to achieve marketing objectives – measurement is a must.

Effective sponsorship ROI practices involve instilling a system of measurement, data submission and analysis. Over time, benchmarks are developed for various property types and metrics. Over time, properties, assets, and activation initiatives that do not show results are cut from the sponsorship portfolio and those which demonstrate success are targeted for growth and emulation. The result is a sponsorship portfolio consisting only of effective properties and effective activation initiatives.

True ROI^TM

Desperado Marketing’s proprietary sponsorship measurement protocol, True ROI^TM, ensures that our clients only undertake effective and efficient sponsorship practices. Our process of organizing, analyzing, and prioritizing key metrics leads to confident decision-making and increased ROI performance.

If you wish discuss the topic of Sponsorship ROI Measurement in more detail, please get in touch by email (mitch@desperadomarketing.com) or through Desperado’s twitter account: @DesperadoMKTG.

Earlier this year, we conducted our second bi-annual Desperado Marketing Canadian Sponsorship Survey.

The 2011 Desperado Marketing Canadian Sponsorship Survey received input from 131 respondents representing sponsors from a wide range of industries. Neither agencies nor properties were involved in the survey, sponsors only.

The survey looked at the relative importance of sponsorship within the respondents’ organizations going into 2011 and on their organizations’ approach to sponsorship measurement. Survey respondents included senior management, marketing/brand managers and sponsorship managers.

Although sports properties (teams/leagues/events) dominate many portfolios, other types of sponsorships continue to gain share of the overall sponsorship spend in Canada year over year.

Planned sponsorship activation spending as a ratio to rights fee spending was down going into 2011 from our last survey, conducted in late 2008 and going into 2009.

It can be a challenge to track your sponsorship portfolio’s activation to rights fee ratio against a Canadian norm as many factors will influence what benchmark is right for your organization. In fact, brand to brand, property to property, target audience to target audience, market to market – the optimal ratio may vary even within your own portfolio. It takes insight and understanding to find the optimal activation to rights fee spend ratio or ratios.

That said, if you’re not spending at least a one to one activation to rights fee ratio, its possible that you have too many properties in your portfolio and you’re not activating them enough. Don’t spend out your budget on rights fees. Sponsor less, activate more.

Perception of sponsorship’s ability to deliver strong return on investment metrics relative to other areas of the marketing mix’s ability to do the same is high with survey respondents and has increased. What this would suggest is that companies are likely to continue to invest in sponsorship, subject to good measurement protocol validating this perception.

Seventy one percent of survey respondents are conducting some form of formal or informal measurement against their sponsorship investments, up considerably from our last study.

That over fifty three percent of respondents are either neutral or dissatisfied with their own organization’s sponsorship measurement protocol indicates that sponsors continue to work towards better measurement methodologies. It also indicates that they need help in developing better methodologies for measuring and assessing return on investment (ROI).

Sponsorship is clearly seen as a vehicle that has the potential to deliver great returns. However, in an era of increasing accountability and reduced risk-taking, this potential may not be fully realized in the absence of improved systems of measurement and without ultimately demonstrating a measurable ROI.

If you’re interested in receiving a copy of the full results report, please email Mitch Thompson -mitch@desperadomarketing.com.