I see a ton of new ideas, new tactics and “innovative” approaches to sponsorship. Recently I read about a sport organization who is going to focus their “sponsorship” program on their athletes. It will be all about the athletes and how businesses can help those athletes. It is “athlete centred sponsorship”… the goal will be based on helping the athlete.
To me that is not sponsorship… it is philanthropy or donations. The call is emotional and one of “please help us help the athletes”. They have a mission to pump out great athletes and this approach is asking companies to help them (the sport organization) to fulfil their mission by giving them the money to fulfill that mission. That is NOT sponsorship… it is asking for help. It is philanthropy. And don’t get me wrong… philanthropy is great… get the money and fulfill the mission with a much lower fulfilment cost. If you can get this short and long term… terrific. (Unfortunately, all the data shows a shift by companies away from philanthropy and shifting to ROI based investments in purpose driven partnerships, sponsorships, experiential events and interactions versus donations.) Philanthropy continues to grow, but not on the corporate side, only on the Foundation and donor side and those donors are getting fewer and fewer. The research shows that the big gifts are growing but they are coming from fewer and fewer people (because they are dying off… that whole generation). So do the math: if less and less people, who account for a larger portion of philanthropy, are dying off, and really no one is filling those roles, that will cause some decline down the road in philanthropy growth. And that has already happened on the corporate side, fewer and fewer companies are philanthropic… they want some sort of ROI.
So back to the sport organization who’s “sponsorship program” is focused on the athlete. In my mind, it will fail in the long run. First and foremost, there is nothing in it for the company or “sponsor”. They are (for the most part) no longer giving philanthropy. Second, what is in it for the audience that watches the sport? This is where the Trifecta of Sponsorship comes in. In my world, there are three partners in any successful sponsorship deal. Sort of like a three-legged stool. If all three legs are not working together, the stool will not support its mission… to hold a person safely sitting on it.
Each of the three parts of the Trifecta of Sponsorship (or the three legs of the stool) have a role to play to be successful. In sponsorship those three legs are: the property owner / organization selling the sponsorship; the sponsor / the company buying the sponsorship and finally, the audience… the people who are aligned with the property and who potentially will be aligned with the sponsor. Each has to come away with value and if all three don’t win… the sponsorship will not last.
- The property needs to win… be that getting money for their athletes, selling tickets to their performance or gala, building brand awareness, recruiting staff, gaining donors… whatever it is that is their goal and objective… it has to be defined and delivered, or it is not a win for the property!
- The sponsor needs to win… perhaps it is to build brand awareness, perhaps sample product so people test it and like it and buy it, perhaps driving traffic to their bricks and mortar store or website, perhaps recruiting employees or a GR or PR campaign… no matter what it is, the money they invest needs to help them achieve that goal.
- And finally… the audience needs to win. That audience may be spectators at a concert or sport event or stage production, they could be donors or parents; they might be ticket buyers or season subscribers or gala goers, they may be fans who attend the events or watch them on TV or streaming… these are the people that “consume” the product the property delivers and are the people that the sponsor wants to reach with their message. These people need to win as well. They need to get more than they “paid for” (whether it was a ticketed event / experience or not). This means that the gala they went to offered more than they bargained for; perhaps thanks to a sponsor there was a great speaker or they went home with a fantastic gift from a sponsor or wine on the table was “thanks to a sponsor”. Or at a festival or theatre experience or conference or sport, you got to test product (free beer samples) or there was a special lounge for you and other elite folks, or you got to meet the performers / athletes etc. You “paid” a price to get there (drove the family downtown for the free Canada celebration or paid for a ticket to an event) and you get what you pay for. That is the value exchange (the drive or the price of the ticket). For sponsorship to really work the “fan” or “user” (you) need to get something from the sponsor and the property as well. Typically, that is the sponsor providing some value above and beyond the price of that ticket. You should be going away and saying… this event / experience / class or whatever… I got more value than I expected / paid for. Then you the fan have “won” in this sponsorship and the trifecta has happened. If all three groups do not “win” it is not a great sponsorship.
In the case of the sport organization who had this new approach to “sponsorship” where the focus is on the athlete, it seems more like a pogo stick (the jumping kind not the delicious hotdog eating kind) sponsorship that goes up and down and erratic than a stable three-legged stool type sponsorship or the Trifecta of Sponsorship.
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