politics Archives - Power Sponsorship

Sponsorship Seekers: How to Get Free Advice from a Consultant (and How Not To)

It’s been a long time since I first addressed this subject. Back then, I would have thought that the increasing sophistication across the industry would have made this advice obsolete by now. But with the ubiquity and ease of so many messaging platforms, sponsorship consultants are being casually bombarded for free advice more than ever. Don’t get me wrong, I love it when people call or message me for a bit of ad hoc advice. I really enjoy it. I know a lot of other sponsorship consultants do, as well. It makes me think on my feet, even on days when I’m not in “strategy mode”. Plus, I just like being helpful. But, if you’re going to contact […] Read More

New Videos: Answers to the 20 Sponsorship Questions I Get the Most

Raising the bar for this industry has been one of my biggest goals since I started in this industry decades ago. Between the blogs, books, and speaking engagements, I offer a lot of advice, and really love doing it. This also means that I field a ton of industry questions. (If you want to see what my inbox looks like in a given week, check out this blog!) In the videos below, I’m addressing the twenty questions I get most often. Some are big, overarching questions about sponsorship. Others are tricky little buggers that stymie even seasoned veterans. I’ve broken these down into two parts. The first is primarily for sponsorship seekers, and the second is […] Read More

Fighting the Wrong Fight: Corporate Ego vs Sponsorship Strategy

I’m on a plane, flying into a speaking gig in Minnesota. Just before getting on the plane, someone sent me a tweet referencing a stoush between the Minnesota Vikings and Wells Fargo, principal tenant of two nearby office towers. US Bank is naming rights sponsor of the new stadium and there is an agreement in place limiting the types of signage that Wells Fargo can put on the buildings. This hasn’t stopped them wanting to have offices in the building, so that would appear to be the end of that. Except that it isn’t. In addition to several 18m long, illuminated logos at the top of the 17-storey buildings, which are already allowed as part […] Read More

The Minefield of Selling Major Sponsorship to a CEO

I was recently forwarded a link to a video showcasing how Chelsea Football Club went about replacing their principal partner. The link was accompanied by the message, “I bet this will make you sick.” He wasn’t wrong. I will say that Chelsea FC was successful in gaining a new principal sponsor in Yokohama, and well done to them. I don’t know if this approach was used on Yokohama or not, but either way, I wish them both a long and fruitful relationship. That said, there are still some serious issues raised around this approach, and those issues are exacerbated by the decision to publicise it. Before I make my case, you should probably have a look: […] Read More

Why I’m Retiring the Sponsorship Guidelines Database

In 2013, we compiled a comprehensive listing of links to the sponsorship guidelines for many hundreds of corporate sponsors around the world. This took a lot of time and effort, but we did it because I believed it would be an invaluable resource for sponsorship seekers. Fast forward 18 months… Every week, I get an email from my website, telling me about all of the new broken links. Invariably, these are links from my database of sponsorship guidelines. Upon investigation, these links are going dead because – despite the very clear warning that spamming hundreds of these companies with generic proposals will not net you any sponsorship – that’s exactly what’s been happening. This is why we […] Read More

Sponsors: What If You Could Start Over?

It’s still early in the year – the time when people wipe the slate, make resolutions, and dedicate themselves to doing better. It’s when people give themselves permission to start over. What if we applied that thinking to corporate sponsorship? What if sponsors took some time out from dealing with the administration of sponsorship and the improvement of sponsorship, and instead, dedicated themselves to the potential of sponsorship. What if they asked themselves this one question: If you had the same sponsorship budget, but no commitments, what would the perfect sponsorship portfolio for your brand(s) and target markets look like? I do this for my corporate clients all the time. In its formal iteration, it […] Read More

The Other Ambush: Standing Up for What’s Right when Sponsors Don’t

Normally, when the Olympics roll around, I’m having a field day picking apart sponsorship strategies and, in particular, analysing the ambush marketing activities. Truth be told, ambush marketing gets me a bit giddy, lying as it does at the intersection of strategy and troublemaking. But this time around, the ambushers haven’t come to the party like they have in the past. Hell, the sponsors haven’t even come to the party. I can just see all the usual ambush marketing suspects gloating – not because they’ve done something so clever to gain marketing benefit for their brands, but because they’re the lucky ones with no IOC contracts, so they can stay well away from this debacle. […] Read More

Olympic Sponsor Cowardice is Bad for Business

Sochi 2014 is a debacle. The past week or so has been all about the coverage of unfinished hotels, major infrastructure issues, the killing of Sochi’s stray dogs, and ridiculous inadequacies of some of the Olympic venues. But this was a debacle way before all of the “Where the hell did the $51 billion go?” questions were asked. It’s about human rights and Russia’s apocalyptic decision that only heterosexual people have them. This isn’t the forum to debate whether Russia’s LGBT laws constitute a human rights violation – and I honestly can’t see where there’s anything to debate – but there are sponsors involved, and that I’m happy to address. Sponsors didn’t ask for this […] Read More

IOC Gets a Gold Medal for Hypocrisy

“The Olympic Movement gives the world an ideal which reckons with the reality of life, and includes a possibility to guide this reality toward the great Olympic Idea.” – Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the International Olympic Committee In my 28 years in the sponsorship business, I have never seen an organisation as two-faced as the IOC. They’re happy to promote the Olympics as not only a sporting event, but as an idealistic social force in the cultivation of the world and host nations. They position themselves as the bloody UN of sports and proudly blather on about how important and influential the Olympics are in promoting “social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles”. […] Read More

How to Manage (or Get Rid of) a Senior Executive’s Pet Sponsorship

In many ways, the Global Financial Crisis of 07-08 was one of the best things that ever happened to the sponsorship industry. As the level of sponsor accountability rose at an astronomic rate, the level of sophistication required rose right along with it. For many companies, it also saw the end of a practice that has been the bane of marketing departments for decades: The senior executive’s pet sponsorship. Note, I said “many”, because as antiquated as this practice is, it persists in some companies. The accountability issue is addressed by a directive (implied or explicit) to find some way – any way – to justify this wasteful expense. If you’re in one of those […] Read More