The Best Kept Secrets In Sponsorship Marketing

Secret #4 The definition of sponsorship

First of all, thank you to Dan Beeman for linking this post from the Sponsorship Insights Group. Be sure to read the other three secrets as well to get a perspective of where I'm taking this post. Part serious, part tongue and cheek. But I always welcome your feedback and ideas.

It's amazing how many times I need to start conversation by defining the use of the word "sponsorship." Because the practice is fragmented so differently among companies - the idea varies from company to company. Is it a donation? Is it really a marketing or a PR initiative? Would it be a part of media planning , public affairs or even investor relations?

Perhaps all sponsorship consultants and property rights-holders need to take the initiative to define "sponsorship." In the 90's, the wireless phone community decided to redefine themselves from being about cell phones to being about wireless communication and transformed the way people connect to each other and their world. While it took new technology to do that, it took an industry to verbalize it first.

Europe's Sponsorship Association defines sponsorship as "any commercial agreement by which a sponsor contractually provides financing or other support to establish an association between the sponsor’s image, brands or products and property in return for rights to promote this association and granting of certain agreed to benefits."

I like this as a starting point as this defines how a company can market itself to a specific audience through a mutually beneficial relationship. But is that any different than how we can define traditional advertising on TV or radio, or reaching out to newspaper or magazine readers?

The secret definition may be that defining sponsorship is not about the property or the sponsor - but the way in which consumers are reached. So, what is sponsorship? Sponsorship is a way to touch, move and inspire audiences toward purchase, a purposeful two-way communication method with consumers.

"Hi, can I speak with your consumer inspiration department, please?" Perhaps it's time we let the secret out of the bag.