Welcome to Power Sponsorship!

I’ve got one ongoing project and a couple of other major projects that need some online research in the area of corporate sponsorship. I’ve got the methodology and many of the sources, just not the time to hunt down what I’m after. So, for the first time ever, I’m looking for an intern! What I’m looking for This internship should take no more than ten hours per month of your time for a period of six months. The job is primarily web research and can be carried out from anywhere in the world. (In other words, this is a virtual internship.) You are welcome to plan your own time, but deadlines are firm. Please note, by […] Read More

Any regular reader of this blog knows that I talk a lot about sponsorship being win-win-win. That third win is for the target markets, with the goal being small, meaningful benefits for all or most of the market, not a chance to go into a draw for one person to win one big prize. The question is, then, what do you do with benefits or leverage activities that are, by their very nature, limited in size? How do you make that a win for everyone… and should you even try? As usual, I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve! Know how the third win works Providing that third win is about adding real value to a […] Read More

Appearances are a mainstay of sports and athlete sponsorship, and can be a part of almost any sponsorship. But with best practice sponsorship being win-win-win – with the third “win” referring to small, meaningful wins for all or most of a target market – the way appearances should be used is now very different. Gone are the days of a few athletes rocking up to a store to sign autographs and get their photos taken. The few hundred people who may turn up simply don’t comprise a win for all or most of a target market. The challenge then is to create thousands – even millions – of wins from each appearance you’re contracted to receive. […] Read More

I don’t know how many of you write blogs and/or make your direct email address available to the masses. I do both, and there is something about the combination of providing a lot of readily available advice and being readily available myself that makes me a magnet for emails from strangers. I decided to catalogue these emails for a week. I thought it might provide an interesting glimpse into our industry, and I reckon I’m right. Keeping in mind that these are only the emails I received from people I hadn’t heard from before, and there is some overlap, this is the breakdown: And my favourite emails of all… 23 success stories from people who […] Read More

You’ve been sponsoring a property for a while and renewal time is coming up. Sometimes, what you need to do is a no-brainer; the experience was either so great or so bad, you know whether to renew or walk away. Not this time, though. You value the opportunity, and may have even achieved great results, but the experience of being a sponsor hasn’t been great. Some of the typical scenarios include: They promised the world and failed to deliver. They played fast and loose with the contract or hit you with extra fees whenever they could. Their lack of flexibility or vision meant you couldn’t mount a leverage strategy that would have been good for […] Read More

I wrote the original version of this blog back in 2009, when Australian politicians were debating an alcohol sponsorship ban. With Ireland now considering the same, with potentially ruinous results, I thought I would give it an update and repost. So, here we go again. Irish politicians – who clearly know nothing about sponsorship – are going on about banning alcohol sponsorship of sport. This isn’t the only country where our industry is unfairly under fire from politicians on this subject, and some politicians and lobbyists keep rolling out new arguments to support the ban. One time it’s that alcohol sponsorship promotes underage drinking, then it’s that it promotes binge drinking. Pretty soon there will […] Read More