Just about every rightsholder in the world can run through their sponsorship portfolio, noting the great sponsors, the improving sponsors, and the sponsors that are just taking up space – the bad sponsors. You don’t hate them, and they may be lovely people, but you know they just aren’t right… Read More
I’m a nerd, and I love technology. My office, home, and travel is peppered with ridiculously-specced gear, and I don’t know what I’d do without it. I’m the first to admit that the emerging/improving tech available to sponsors is staggering – and oh so tempting – but is it all… Read More
Yeah, I know. The left/right brain thing has been largely debunked. But it’s still accepted shorthand for tasks and people that are more analytic (left brain) and more creative (right brain), so I’m going with it. One of my very favourite things about best practice sponsorship is that it requires… Read More
My blog is full of advice on how to sell sponsorship – the strategies, angles, and pitfalls. But in order to find the right information, you kind of need to know where you’re going wrong. So that’s what this blog is all about – a big list of the things… Read More
Like so many people in recent days, I’ve been giving ChatGPT a run. And like so many people, I’ve found it to be fun… and amazing… and slightly freaky. After trying a bunch of quite silly queries, I decided to see what it knows about sponsorship. The answer is quite… Read More
Left of boom. It’s a term used by intelligence agencies referring to the timeline leading up to some kind of attack. The idea is that they want to be working left of boom – before it happens – to either stop the attack, or mitigate the effects. The sponsorship industry… Read More
This blog was originally written in January 2020, before COVID-19 brought recession down on the world. We’re now staring down another potential recession, stemming largely from dramatic, inflation-mitigation efforts put in place around the world. So, here’s an updated version of my recession-proofing advice for rightsholders. We’ve all seen the… Read More
Way back at the beginning of my career, I worked for an agency that leveraged mostly sports sponsorships for Fortune 500 companies. My company got hired, we created a plan – back then, largely centred on in-store and media promotions – and implemented it. What we didn’t do was coordinate… Read More
There are people in this industry who will tell you that sponsorship is all about relationships, and that building personal relationships with sponsors is the key to sales, renewals, and fruitful partnerships. While I’m not averse to developing friendships with sponsors, I’m not a fan of this take at all.… Read More
Every week, my various inboxes overflow with questions from around the world, and the two things I’m asked most are whether I will sell sponsorship on their behalf (broker), and whether I can recommend a sponsorship broker. For the record, the answers are: No, I’m not a sponsorship broker; and… Read More
COVID had a big impact on the sponsorship industry. The negative impacts were readily apparent, but there were also a lot of positive impacts, with sponsors becoming simultaneously more strategic, more efficient, and more resourceful. But even as sponsor sophistication has grown, many sponsors are still hanging onto some old… Read More
A few days ago, I wrote a similar blog for corporate sponsors, listing the sponsorship strategies that have emanated from, and been reinforced by, operating in a pandemic. In this blog, I address the rightsholder side of post-pandemic strategies. I know that the pandemic has been devastating to rightsholders around… Read More