HSBC Leverages with Live Grass Tennis in NYC

We get to see some pretty cool activations here in midtown Manhattan. Where else can you see a NASCAR pit stop one day and grass court tennis the next? In conjunction with Day 1 of Wimbledon, HSBC is launching a week of complimentary tennis activities in Rockefeller Center so we stopped by to check out some live tennis with Jennifer Capriati, Jim Courier and Luke Jensen. HSBC is in the secon...

5 Books for Sponsorship Sellers

Amazon.com Widgets Ice to the Eskimos In just three years as president of the hopeless New Jersey Nets, Spoelstra upped the sponsorship level from $400,000 to $7 million and increased ticket sales by 300 percent. What everyone else had seen as a lost cause, Spoelstra saw as an outstanding opportunity to reawaken a tired product to achieve unprecedented profitability. As sponsorship sellers,...

Sponsorship Communications 101

Today SBJ/SBD reports that golf agents are seeing "cautious optimism" that corporate skepticism towards golf sponsorships has waned. The New York Times didn't sound too optimistic last week when they reported a tepid appetite for the U.S. Open's $230k tents. Turns out they might both be right. Darren Rovell sat down with crisis management consultant Gene Grabowski, who offers a slightly dif...

Is Wimbledon Leaving Sponsor Money on the Table?

We all know that at some point the law of diminishing returns applies to sponsorship. Now you can mitigate it to a certain extent with clever activation and added experiential value, but with each new sponsor you always risk diluting the piece of consumer mindshare that your existing sponsors receive. By limiting sponsorship is it possible to enhance the value of (and your pot. revenue from) s...

Chipotle Greenlights Food, Inc.

Chipotle today announced it will be rolling out a promotional partnership with Food, Inc., the upcoming film documentary that seeks to expose the U.S. ag industry's impact on the environment and economy. Chipotle will host free movie screenings in 32 cities across America, while advertising the documentary with promotional materials in 860+ fast-casual restaurants and including branded content...

Deal Flow 7-16-2009

The Sears Tower, one of the world's iconic skyscrapers and the tallest building in the U.S., was renamed the Willis Tower on Thursday after the London-based insurance broker. Willis will be a major tenant, but will not pay a separate naming rights fee for the benefit. Hawaiian Airlines on Thursday was named title sponsor of the inaugural Diamond Head Classic basketball tournament. The spons...

Strings Attached: When Sponsorship Wins Business Contracts

How much weight should sponsorship carry when awarding new services contracts? That's the question that critics were asking LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games) and the ODA (Olympic Delivery Authority), the body responsible for developing new venues and infrastructure around the 2012 games, earlier today. This all came about when architects and politicians questioned Cry...

An End to Alcohol Sponsorships?

The social costs of alcohol in Australia are approximately $15.3 billion according to a recent report commissioned by prime minister Kevin Rudd. Now his National Preventative Health Taskforce is out to do something about it. Today the taskforce announced that it will recommend a complete ban on alcohol sponsorship of sporting events. If approved, the move could cost cricket, rugby and othe...

Persuasion: Convincing Thinkers, Feelers & Deferers

A cause is an important cornerstone in many sponsorship platforms. Today's "key learning" comes from Joe Waters, who is the Director of Cause Marketing for Boston Medical Center, an avid blogger at Selfishgiving.com and a rabid Boston Red Sox fan. In addition to being a one-time winner of the SponsorPitch Friday Caption Contest, he has agreed to lend us his insights on cause marketing, which i...

Deal Flow 7-15-2009

Chelsea Football Club has agreed to a three-year sponsorship extension with Samsung for their jersey sponsorship, which was set to expire in 2010. No financial details were released but reports are that it was an improvement on the $18.03 million/year deal already in place. BP North America has signed a one-year agreement to become the “official fuel provider" of the Giants, according to SBD...