Why Are You NOT Getting Sponsors?

Sponsorship industry has been evolving in recent years. From one of ask and spend to invest and return.

We get so many inquiries from properties and rights holders who are intent on securing sponsors for their specific event, venue, or project, but most of them do not realise or underestimate the value of their pitch. Especially when we ask the question what else are you doing, throughout the year? 

So, rather than a specific sponsorship, a client should look at their entire portfolio and assets that are immediately not so obvious. Then, a corporate brand partnership strategy must be put in place, whereby brands can be shown the ongoing partnership and activation options to allow them to diversify their investment (not spend), by allowing them access to multiple opportunities to engage.

Think IOC (International Olympic Committee) when it comes to designing this model. They have a limited number of top-level presenting global brand partners, exclusive in their category and sector. The local Olympic cities (Paris, LA, etc.) then are able to attract local ‘sponsors’ to incentivise their own revenue stream, while leveraging the TOP brands.

Accordingly, a ‘Corporate Circle’ may be designed to allow this category of top-tier partnerships to take advantage of all the obvious, and not so obvious assets, whereby lower-tier sponsorships can still take place re: hospitality, etc., to accommodate local engagement.

Lastly, think Innovation. There are separate budgets reserved by brands when it comes to disruptive innovation platforms or hubs. 

If you incubate startups, either internally or vendors or strategic partners you may be dealing with externally, or especially if you are scaling your business yourselves, it may be wise to incorporate a Corporate VC opportunity for your potential brand partners to be an investor, in your R&D or business expansion plans.

Business Model and Brand Partnership

Why not bring your corporate partner along for the ride, if you allow them to invest the monies for what you intended to do with the revenue from the traditional sponsorships? Web3/Metaverse, AI, Immersive Reality, and digital-hybrid solutions are getting a lot of airtime and money. 

Why not incorporate them into your business model as part of your long-term vision, which your potential brand partner can assist you with upon partnering with you, at first via your short-term plan and outlook. 

Corporate brands invest in products, services or solutions which may be of interest to them. Unlike traditional VCs, if the potential customer is investing in you, then you become more credible and use this as further leverage to your advantage. At the very least, you don’t have to prove who your customer will be or if there is a market for your product or service, as asked by the institutional investors who feel they are taking a bigger risk and therefore ask for more equity in return.

Sponsorship then becomes an activation spend for the brands investing in you. You may even be considered an activation spend opportunity for their existing sponsorships in place.

As you can see strategy is very important. Before you seek sponsors, perhaps better to take a step back and revise your pitch to ask for investment, rather than spend. We can help in this effort.