This week’s MediaCat Live was — we were told by someone in attendance — only the third event dedicated to sponsorship effectiveness that has ever been hosted.
It’s a niche honour, and one which we have no way to corroborate, but we’ll wear it with pride and no doubt remind people about it if sponsorship continues to be a point a special focus among marketers, which it almost certainly will.
The fragmentation of media has led to a dearth of media environments that attract large groups of people, which makes live events — sports, in particular — one of the few remaining opportunities for brands to build fame and create shared associations.
But that much is already well known.
What we sought to explore at our event last night was how this new dynamic is changing the practice of sponsorship marketing.
Rory Natkiel, the founder of sponsorship effectiveness consultancy Box Count, gave the keynote talk, setting out his manifesto for effective sponsorship, applying established principles of marketing effectiveness — from the likes of Byron Sharp and Les Binet — to the field, and also using new data to show how it differs from other disciplines. For example, early research suggests that sponsorships, unlike other forms of marketing, tend to be most effective when they have more (3), rather than fewer (2), objectives attached to them.
Georgia Dass, Edgewell Personal Care’s head of marketing for the UK, Ireland and the Nordics, offered some of her experience planning sponsorships for Wilkinson Sword and Bulldog, in an on-stage interview with VCCP’s Will Parrish.
Edgewell, said Dass, usually selects partnerships at a European level, in order to build scale, and for three-year terms, to give the brand time to bed in its associations and figure out how to best activate against the property.
In sponsorship, said Dass, giving yourself a longer timeline is key, because you’re working with a third party and you need to learn to work fluently with the rights holder — just slapping a logo on something doesn’t cut it anymore, especially with a sport like Formula 1 (Wilkinson Sword sponsors the Williams team), where brands are everywhere.
But when done right, added Dass, a sponsorship not only injects personality into a brand and reaches audiences at relevant moments, it excites retail partners.
And if you weren’t able to attend this week, we’ve published a free-to-download report, featuring insights from industry veterans, Natkiel’s principles for effective sponsorship, and some best-in-class case studies.
