Papi, Samsung Score With Presidential Selfie; W.H. Objects

Weeks after Samsung pulled off the $18 million selfie heard around the world, the telecom giant celebrated a new deal with the Red Sox' David Ortiz by helping facilitate the presidential selfie during the Sox' White House visit on Monday. In two days, Papi's selfie has been retweeted nearly 40,000 times and naturally got a big RT to Samsung's 5 million+ followers. While one might presume th...

$50M In Sponsorship, Not Enough?

Despite kicking off with a $41 million title sponsorship and an additional $6.5 million from MasterCard, Citi Bike may be facing a serious financial shortfall. That's according to the Wall Street Journal, which reports that price hikes or additional sponsors are needed to rescue the popular bike sharing program, the largest of its kind in the U.S. The root problem though, if Fast Company is to ...

Horizon Adds To Capabilities With Events Acquisition

Horizon Media, one of the fastest growing media services companies in the world, is placing a bet on live events with the acquisition of InsideOut Sports + Entertainment. InsideOut, which owns the PowerShares Series and is run by tennis star Jim Courier and founding partner Jon Venison, bolsters Horizon's existing event and entertainment marketing capabilities. "The importance of live events ...

Airline's Sponsorship Activation: Dress Our Flight Attendants

In what may be a sponsorship first, a major airline is using its new role as official airline of Miami Fashion Week to source design ideas for its flight attendant uniforms. Designers participating in Miami Fashion Week are being asked to submit designs for Eastern Air Line's skirt, vest, blouse, pants, jackets and knee length dresses that "convey the Miami/Caribbean/Latin American look." The ...

Luxury Automaker Looks To Cross Final Frontier With Space Sponsorship

Richard Branson’s pioneering commercial spaceline, Virgin Galactic, has its first official partner. Announced aboard the USS Intrepid, the partnership will see Land Rover vehicles become part of daily life for the Virgin Galactic team and for all ‘Future Astronauts’. According to the release, "the space experience will now begin with Land Rover as they arrive in New Mexico for training, and con...

Engagement: Everybody Wants It, BUT Nobody Knows What It Really Means

If you work in sponsorship you know that engagement is something of a trigger word that tends to get marketers all worked up. According to a new study though... - 88% of customers say they don’t want to engage with brands. - 75% of CMO's interviewed said they don’t know how to engage with customers. The good news, there does seem to be something of a formula for building it. According to th...

Digital Marketing's Last Holdout: UHNW?

While digital marketing deservedly gets most of the attention these days, there's at least one demographic where events and partnerships may still be the marketer's clear cut tool of choice. Ultra High Net Worth (defined as those with net assets of $30 million+). That's according to Wealth-X's most recent edition of the Wealth-X Luxury Sentiment Survey, which looks at how luxury brands employ m...

50 Awesome Sponsorship Activations From The Past Seven Years

Brian Gainor's Partnership Activation, one of the must-have resources for any sponsorship professional, recently celebrated its 7th anniversary (Congrats, Brian!) with a list of the 50 top sponsorship activations in recent memory. Partnership Activation, if you don't already know, is a treasure trove of information for anyone looking to create memorable partnerships for themselves or their mark...

Sponsors, Agencies React To Clippers Scandal

Lots of rumors have been flying around this morning about how sponsors will or will not react to the developing scandal with L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling. Here's what we know at this time. We'll update with more sponsor developments as they become available. State Farm's agency, Translation, says it is advising clients (including current sponsor, State Farm) to suspend sponsorship unti...

Shazam Promotion Lets Fans Plan Artist Tour

Multi-platinum recording artist, Demi Lovato, isn't planning her own tour. That's because she's teamed up with music service Shazam, and for the next three weeks, fans can help book a tour stop in their own city every time they Shazam her current hit single, “Neon Lights.” The tour schedule will be booked based on the cities throughout Europe generating the most "shazams" for Lovato's new sin...