Sport Sponsorship

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Sport Sponsorship
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Sponsorships

• Are cash or in-kind fees paid to a sport entity
  for access to the associated commercial potential
  
• Sponsorship benefits
• Right to use name, symbol, logo, or mark in
  association with a sporting event or product
• Designation as official sponsor, official
  supplier, official product, or presented by
• Right of service (use of product at event)
• Right to conduct promotional activities in
  conjunction with sponsorship
• Exclusivity within a product or service category
  (if purchased)

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Desired Outcomes of Sponsorships

• Promote its products to increase sales and market
  share
• Increase public awareness
• Alter perceptions to gain an improved image of
  the company or product and especially any unique
  product features or technologies
• Obtain access and exposure to target audiences
  via the media
• Gain advantages and market share relative to
  competitors
• Gain goodwill or positive perceptions among
  decision makers

• Establish exclusivity
• Secure entitlement or naming rights
• Product positioning in specific market segments
• Becoming involved with community or charity
• Raise employee morale
• Gain hospitality opportunities with clients or
  prospective clients

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Sponsors want

• To co-brand with sports with more synergistic and
  relational benefits
• Good fit
• Legitimacy
• Congruence
• Relatedness
• Signage, tickets, hospitality tents, and suite
  access
• Access to players, coaches, and practices

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Evaluating the Effectiveness of SponsorshipsWhat
Is the Return on Investment (ROI)

• Affinity marketing refers to the brand loyalty
  and attraction leading to purchases.
• The impression created is more important than the
  number of impressions.
• Recall research

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Why Sponsorships Fail to Achieve Desired Outcomes?

• Failure to activate
• No long-term relationship developed
• No measureable objectives and limited or no
  evaluation of outcomes
• Overlook ambush marketing or fail to do due
  diligence, such as when the event owner does not
  protect the sponsors interests or the sponsor
  fails to activate its sponsorship
• Too much advertisingclutter or noise

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Relationship Marketing with Sponsors

• Improved relationships built on mutual trust and
  joint commitment and satisfaction
• Communication and consistency as a basis for
  personal relationships
• Focus on retention of existing sponsors
• Steps in relationship marketing with sponsors
• Awareness
• Exploration
• Expansion
• Commitment

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Ethical Issues in Sponsorships

• Alcohol and college athletics
• Promises that cannot be met
• Ambush marketingplanned effort to associate with
  an event to gain benefits without the expense of
  sponsorship

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Sponsors and Ambushing

• Sponsors are threatened by ambushers, which are
  direct competitors who seek to deceive or confuse
  consumers by close approximations with the
  official sponsors and brand equity of the target
  sport or event without payingif exposed, can
  have negative ramifications
• To thwart ambushers, major sporting events
  provide more value and protection to a smaller
  number of sponsors, with a higher cost, of course
  (co-marketing alliance)
• When sponsors activate their sponsorships, such
  as by contracting for advertising time during the
  event, this helps to reduce ambush marketing
• Freeloading occurs when ambushers benefit through
  an association, such as by posting schedules of
  college teams, without paying sponsorship fees
• Defending co-brand equity by making long-term
  strategic plans, select congruent sport brands or
  events, and invest heavily in marketing and media
  strategies to build barriers to ambushers

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Measuring the Results of Sponsorships

• Joyce Julius and Associates http//www.joycejulius
  .com/index.html
• Broadcast televisionclear and in-focus exposure
  time and verbal references
• News and highlightsexposure of the sponsors
  brand
• On-siteexposure from signage, give-a-ways, and
  hospitality
• Promotions and advertisingexposure from these in
  displays and via athlete appearances
• Fan surveysrecognitions and perceptions measured
  in fan intercepts

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Sport Sponsorship Activity (completed in groups
of two)

• Select a collegiate or professional sport team
  and assume that it has just won an NCAA
  championship or the Super Bowl, World Series, or
  NBA Championship. Agree between yourselves who
  will play the role of person 1 and who will play
  the role of person 2. Then work individually to
  complete the assigned tasks listed for each
  person below.
• Person 1
• Riding the crest of this significant
  accomplishment, you as a member of the marketing
  department want to increase the number of
  sponsors and extent of existing sponsors
  financial involvement for this team. Develop
  strategies of how you would convince one
  potential corporation to become a sponsor and
  strategies for how you would convince one
  existing sponsor to continue and increase its
  sponsorship.
• Person 2
• You are a member of the marketing department for
  a major national corporation (your choice) and
  are asked to prepare for two different scenarios.
  First, your company has never sponsored this
  team. Develop a list of those outcomes that would
  make it financial beneficial for your company to
  become a sponsor of this team. Second, your
  company is currently a sponsor of this team, but
  now it is uncertain about whether to continue
  this sponsorship since it is likely that this
  championship team will demand a greater financial
  investment. Develop a list of those outcomes that
  would make your company willing to continue and
  increase its level of sponsorship for this team.
• The Negotiations
• After person 1 has developed his or her two
  strategies and person 2 has developed his or her
  two lists of benefits or expectations, get back
  together for the negotiations. Remember that
  negotiations are most successful and lasting when
  the outcome is win-win. So, try to work together
  to agree of a mutually beneficial outcome.
• Person 1 will take the lead in negotiating a
  potential new sponsorship with person 2. In this
  negotiation, person 1 is trying to increase team
  revenues through this new sponsorship, while
  person 2 will only agree to this sponsorship if
  it benefits the corporation.
• Person 2 will take the lead in renegotiating the
  existing sponsorship with person 1. In this
  negotiation, person 2 is trying to minimize the
  expected increased cost, while person 1 is
  trying to retain and maximize the sponsorship.