The Halo Effect: Events vs. Celebs

Mary-Ellen Field from Brand Finance talks about the risk/benefits of using celebrities vs. events with the apparel industry as her case study. Her thesis: Adidas wasted a "golden" opportunity with the 08 Olympics and Puma took market share with celeb endorsements like Usein "Lightning" Bolt. On the flip side, the Man-Ram's and A-Rod's make celeb endorsements a whole other (and potentially mor...

.. and what of youth sports?

Just as Fortune 500 companies are reassessing the justification behind multimillion dollar sponsorship, local mom and pops are finding that the t-shirt and banner sponsorships that have been a staple of little league sports for so long, may be getting squeezed out as well. The Ledger takes a deeper look: Youth Sports Hit Hard by Dropoff in Sponsorships

Key Learnings: Finding Activation Ideas in Unlikely Places!

Today we're kicking off our "Key Learnings" blog series, which will be a regular collection of insights and stories from thought-leaders within the sponsorship industry. Today's key learning comes from Jim Loria who has over 30 years of sports management experience and for the past 10 years as served as President of the USHL's Sioux Falls Stampede. "One of the best sponsorship ideas I've ev...

Remember when you were a kid...

Warning: this has nothing to do with sponsorship, however this is a pretty cool YT video I picked up from Darren Heitner at Dynasty Sports Management. Maybe it's not that distant from each of our jobs, after all. Whether you're selling sponsorships, brand planning or consulting at an agency, we all see obstacles in our daily routine (especially these days). Do you have a clear vision for ...

The "Buy Now" Button You Won't See.

What a week!! - lots of news that we're excited to share with you in the next few days. To cap it off - 75 degree weather in NYC and two game seven's coming this weekend. We'll be putting out some exciting news next week, but first I wanted to take a couple minutes to tell you more about where we're headed. Whether you're a buyer or seller of sponsorships, we think that the goal is the same...

How to Announce Your New Sponsorship Deal on SponsorPitch

Is there anything more exciting than finally being able to announce a deal that you've spent months working on? We know you're doing lots of deals these days because we get press releases about them every day. But we're just a small team and we simply can't cover all of the amazing deals that are happening out there of every size, every day. We're counting on you to help us out. Now, SponsorPi...

U.S. Army Sees Record ROI from non-existent IRL Sponsorship

Eyewitness news' unscientific sponsor recall study brings up a good question - with all of those logos going round and round, who gets noticed and why? In this piece, the Army got some recall for $0 while silly National Guard is out paying six or seven figures. But that isn't the point of the piece so let's set that aside for a moment. We'll agree that IRL sponsorships (along with motorsports...

Free Shirts! ...

Everyone loves free shirts, but apparently not when the fine print reads... "for £300mm sponsorship." A £20 co-branded Manchester United jersey (sent out to prospective sponsors and branded by Man-U with with their company names) didn't get the team a £300 million shirt sponsorship from Norwegian energy firm, StatoilHydro. That would've been a heck of a sales tactic had it worked. Alas, FA...

Key Learnings: Moving to True Win-Win Relationships

This is the second posting in our "Key Learnings" blog series, which will be a regular collection of insights and stories from thought-leaders within the sponsorship industry. Today's key learning comes from Kevin Hanft from Marketing Leverage LLC. “Strategic partner” is a term used freely and likely too often. Especially when it comes to sports and entertainment marketing. Properties have m...

Can Lax Catch Corporate America's Eye?

According to this piece from Wall Street Journal Economics reporter Kelly Evans, 1.2 million Americans are playing lacrosse, an increase of 40% since 2000. Don't worry - lacrosse is still up there with popped collared polos and sperry top-siders for Northeast preppy quotient, but there are signs that the sport may be growing its demo and geographic reach beyond private and ivy-league school pr...