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Capitalising on Sponsorship and
Endorsement Opportunities and Creating Value for Money |
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Sponsorship can be an exceptionally powerful marketing tool for sponsors to establish and maintain visibility and name recognition of a particular company, brand or product. For instance, by developing an association with established or new sports leagues, events, tournaments and teams, the sponsor is able to reach specific targeted audiences to achieve a variety of marketing goals, including brand awareness. The attractiveness of such deals for the event organiser is that they receive an alternative method of raising finance, in addition to the bedrock of ticket sales, and may also provide other links into merchandising opportunities, as illustrated by team kit sponsorship in football. The endorsement of individuals, rather than sponsorship of particular events and teams, likewise, can achieve a similar marketing goal, tailored into an overall strategy of increasing brand/product awareness. |
This sometimes occurs in the most unusual combinations of celebrity and product endorsement, such as David Beckham’s endorsement of “Castrol Oil” in Japan and Lleyton Hewitt’s sponsorship of Australian toilet paper, ‘Sorbent’. Morality clauses can be added into endorsement contracts to give added protection to the sponsor’s investment, in case the image of the personality is damaged by adverse publicity. Sponsors were contractually entitled to withdraw support from Jennifer Capriati after publicity that she had been caught shoplifting and taking soft drugs. It is crucial that event organisers ensure they actually have the ability to grant sponsorship rights for a particular event it claims to grant; such as a hall area for a fashion show, an industry fair trade centre, or a sports stadium for a cup final, since it is not uncommon for venues to have pre-existing stadium sponsorship deals, existing naming rights and various advertising restrictions. |
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