In last week’s TMC, I focused on the conversations I have had recently with properties and why sponsorship revenue generation should be part of their diversified revenue mix. I addressed their issues (and possibly yours) and why a transformational change is necessary for long-term success.

This week, I would like to speak to the conversations I have had with brands (another one this past week) around this. In these two recent instances, both organizations claimed they do not invest in sponsorship marketing because it is not measurable and they have more confidence in their “traditional” or mainstream marketing channels of radio, TV, digital, OOH, and print. What both failed to understand is they are on the brink of sponsorship, but instead, they are just advertising.

Here are parts of the discussions we had around sponsorship marketing and what I termed their “need to engage.”

• According to the Canadian Sponsorship Landscape Study CSLS, over one in four Canadian marketing dollars is presently spent on experiential marketing/corporate sponsorship. That is 25% of the billions spent annually in marketing. So if you are not in this game, what are all your competitors seeing that you are not?
• Sponsorship is different than advertising. Advertising is a push medium. It impinges on what you are engaged in (listening to the radio, watching the football game on TV, going to a festival, attending a play) with a message that interrupts.
• Sponsorship, on the other hand, reaches people in a setting that matches their lifestyle and engages in conversation with them versus intruding on their experience.
• Studies show that sponsorship with sampling opportunities (beer, wine, food products) provide heightened awareness of the product and result in incremental retail sales from those who attend the festival or experiential event, This is sponsorship assets versus hanging an advertising banner for your beer, and hoping people will see it and buy it at the beer store.
• Sponsorship can provide hosting and hospitality aspects for staff or clients—great times spent one-on-one with your clients.
• Sponsorship can provide employee engagement. Your staff can be recognized for and be proud of their company’s association to a team, event, or charity.
• Finally, it is measurable. As with any medium, you can track sales, brand awareness (both with engaged and unengaged participants), lead generation, affinity, and more.

As the marketing landscape continues to change, the traditional cluttered marketplace in TV, radio, and OOH sees decline while segregating to deliver niche audiences—and an uncertain future for print media. The future is grim for some of these intrusive marketing channels. They all work and have a place, but if you want to build loyalty, engagement, and sales opportunities versus acquiring customers based on best advertised price, sponsorship needs to be part of the mix. It won’t work solo, but it should be included! The 40+% growth in allocation of funds to sponsorship over the last decade is coming from these traditional media. The combined growth and development of the internet, digital, social, and soon-to-be VR media interact well with experiential marketing channels such as sponsorship.

For those companies leaving sponsorship out of their mix, or sticking to the archaic sponsorship approach of hanging a banner and calling it a day, there is a price to pay. As I noted last week, failure to adapt to change will allow your competitors to surpass you and build loyalty and affinity to their favorite charities, arts organizations, and teams.

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