Is Bigger Always Better in Sponsorship Sales?

Stacy Mitchell penned a great piece the other day entitled How the World's Biggest Corporations, From Starbucks to Wal-Mart to Barnes & Noble, Claim to Be 'Local.' Here's a short excerpt: 'HSBC, one of the biggest banks on the planet, has taken to calling itself "the world's local bank." Starbucks is un-branding at least three of its Seattle outlets, the first of which just reopened as "...

M-B Lines Up London Fashion Week, Too

In keeping with Mercedes-Benz sponsorship of exclusive fashion experiences throughout the world, the automaker will be the official car of this year's London Fashion Week. As the official car of London Fashion Week, Mercedes-Benz will provide a fleet of low CO2 emission, BlueEFFICIENCY cars to provide transport for accredited journalists VIPs, designers and celebrities between the catwalk sho...

Sponsownership, the Virgin Way

True to the Richard Branson way, Virgin is one of a number of companies pioneering the idea of "sponsownership." In response to our previous post about the idea of "sponsownership," Stephen Rogan at Virgin Media UK offered up an interesting perspective on the Virgin Way: "I think this is an interesting topic. I know for a brand like Virgin it is very important that we are seen to have some o...

Natural Evolution of Advertising Hits Golf

Editor's note: In last week's BrandCast, Doug Pirnie mentioned ProBagAds as one example of how sports marketing continues to find ways to evolve. Here's Michael's take on the new product. ProBagAds might be changing how player sponsorship and advertising for golfers work. SBJ reports the company has released a golf bag with a built-in H-D, weatherproof digital display that can show advertise...

2 Brand Icons, 1 Vinyl Banner, Lotsa Bad Press

Partnering with a global icon, ~$10M. 1 vinyl banner, $50. Bad press, priceless. I'll admit it, we were pretty excited to see what Blackberry and U2 would cook up when the two brands announced their partnership last April. At the time, we said the partnership was "clearly not about awareness - both the brand and the band already have leading global mindshare." Judging by some recent reports,...

Comeback Categories?

Not to be a debbie downer, but it's going to be a long time before we see the spending levels we once saw from categories like auto, finance, and airlines. Nevertheless, the August TURNKEY Sports Poll, which surveys senior-level sports executives, asked the question on everyone's mind: "Which of the following categories will bounce back, in terms of sponsorship spending, the fastest?" A rec...

PS Takes on the Measurement Agencies, Rd. 1

Ding ding ding... In a scathing post of measurement agencies entitled sponsorship measurement agencies fading into irrelevance, Power Sponsorship's Kim Skildum-Reid poses the question whether measurement agencies have lost their relevance in today's environment. Here's the crux of the argument she makes: Sponsors need to know what results they get. Exposure is a low-value mechanism that say...

TRESemmé Wants To Take You Inside The Tents

How do you add consumer legs to official sponsorship of an exclusive, couture event like Fashion Week? How about some clever messaging, CBS outdoor signage and a slick micro-site? As the Official Hair Care Sponsor of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, TRESemmé's microsite takes fashion fans behind the scenes with Rachel Bilson revealing style secrets. At the TRESemmé microsite, fashion fans can wa...

Deal Flow 9-14-2009

Standard Chartered bank will replace the Danish beer Carlsberg as Liverpool's primary sponsor next season in a deal worth 80 million pounds ($134 million) over four years. BB&T Corp. has signed a sponsorship deal with the University of Alabama football program. Dell has renewed its sponsorship of the MTV Europe Music Awards. The Denver Broncos have teamed up with the Colorado State Lotte...

MEC Access Launches New Measurement Tool

MEC Access, the partnership division of WPP's Mediaedge:cia, will soon launch a new measurement tool under the acronym, ROSE, according to a report today from MediaWeek. ROSE, which stands for return on sponsorship and events, will be available to MEC Access' clients and will seek to identify the correlation strength between sponsorship activities and purchase intent. According to the report...