The Ice Bucket Challenge

3 Critical Lessons for Sponsors From The Ice Bucket Challenge

If you have a Facebook account, by now you’ve seen dozens of friends, relatives and celebrities doused with ice water, in the Ice Bucket Challenge. Perhaps you’ve even been challenged – and accepted – yourself.

More than a fun event and a worthwhile fund-raiser, the Ice Bucket Challenge offers these lessons to marketers – and particularly sponsors – on how to engage consumers:

1.     Extreme sells. If this was the Lukewarm Water Challenge, everyone would yawn. But the Ice Bucket Challenge gets your attention because the very concept is a cold slap in the face (without actually being harmful, of course). This is the factor that makes extreme sports so worthy of consideration. In mainstream sports, “extreme” is winning a championship.

2.     Viral is for real. I’m sure you’ve participated in meetings where you discussed the power of viral marketing as a concept. You may even have seen impressive numbers from campaigns. But forget the numbers, this is a tangible, in-your-face example of viral marketing at work, expressed in tens of thousands of homemade videos.

3.     It’s all about the idea. Marketing and advertising firms have known this for years. If you come up with the right idea, management will buy (fund) it. That’s why you need creative people on staff. 

       Hard work isn’t enough, you need a blockbuster idea.

Taken together, these points illustrate the potential for the right sponsorship marketing idea to take off.

You don’t need a high profile sponsorship to make it work, either. Who would have listed ALS as among the first three charities to come to mind, prior to the Ice Bucket Challenge? Even now, you see ALS described as “better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.”

Take the sponsorship marketing program you have, and find the “ice water” element. It has to be clever, simple, scalable and inexpensive. Like the Ice Bucket Challenge, it needs a call to action that compels consumers to take the next step in engaging your brand.

And yes, it helps if your idea has a social responsibility element. But it’s more important that it be fun.

Sponsorship and Networking

Networking Is a Huge Component of Sponsorship

When we analyze the value of a Sponsorship Marketing program, one of the key components we examine is how well the sponsorship lends itself to networking.

This aspect represents a “value multiplier” to the sponsor, because it leads directly to new business. Typically, that new business involves big orders.

For that reason, it’s important that properties don’t treat networking as an afterthought, or worse, rely on the sponsor to do all the work.

Here are two components that properties should consistently offer their sponsors:

• 1.     Easy access to other sponsors, to facilitate networking internally.
• 2.     Assets that can readily be leveraged to network with the sponsor’s existing key customers and prospects.

Let’s look at those individually, in more depth.

Face it, in the battle for sponsorship dollars, you are competing against ALL sponsorship opportunities, not just other players in your niche. The sponsor has many possible pathways to marketing success.

So look to industry best practices for inspiration.

One great example lies in the world of professional sports. Top NASCAR teams like Penske and Hendrick Motor Sports stage annual get-togethers for their sponsors, with presentations on how to build business. They revel in bringing their sponsors together and making connections, in the context of their own racing business.

This brings value to the sponsors, and secures contract extensions and expansions for the racing teams.

You may not be able to play on that same scale, but you can emulate their tactics. Invite sponsors to your headquarters, if applicable, or a high-profile event, for dedicated networking time. Develop your own version of one-minute dating, or anchor the event around a keynote speaker, ideally drawn from one of your top sponsors.

Facilitate the connections, and importantly, share your successes with existing sponsors and prospects.

Likewise, sponsors want to leverage your relationship among their own leads in the context of your events and activities.

This emphasizes the connection between the sponsor and property provides unparalleled sales opportunities by creating a comfortable zone of interaction with their key prospects.

Your role is to make sure the experience fits the expectations. It needn’t be luxurious, but it does need to be hassle-free, with plenty of opportunity for interaction, so don’t overload the schedule.

Make networking a central component of your sponsorship offering, and help your sponsors take advantage. You’ll create stronger, more lasting bonds.

Getting Your Feet Wet in Sponsorship

How To Start A Sponsorship Marketing Program

Multi-million dollar sponsorships, such as naming or apparel rights, get the big headlines, and rightfully so.

But don’t let that give you the impression that sponsorship is only for the well-heeled.

In fact, sponsorship can be a very effective and efficient tool for local marketing, with a reasonable budget.

These local sponsorships offer many of the benefits of big-name deals, at a fraction of the price:

• -       A chance to tap into fan loyalty
• -       Prestige of joining a winning team
• -       Increased awareness among a plugged-in demographic
• -       Assurance of a proven marketing vehicle
• -       The chance to network with other local business
• -       And many more

The key is that the impact will be on a smaller scale. If your business operates within a limited geographic area, or has a very well-defined customer demographic, you can tailor a sponsorship program to deliver on your marketing needs.

Follow these five steps to sponsorship success:

1.  Begin with your customer. Define their lifestyles – what are their activities, their interests, their passions?

      2.     Match these against your own company’s offerings. How do your products or services intersect with these customer pursuits and passions?
3.     Identify possible sponsorship opportunities within this emotional intersection of your customers and your offerings.
4.     Rank the opportunities on a scale of 1-10 based on their ability to seamlessly represent your products and services.
5.     Evaluate the best opportunities in terms of your available marketing budget, and act accordingly.

You may find that it’s more effective and more economical to pursue a relatively narrow sponsorship-based marketing strategy than to use traditional media to drive your marketing goals.

Support a Vision

Make Sure Your Strategy Has a Long-Term Vision

There is a common perception that only short-term goals matter in these “what have you done for me lately” times.

Of course your CEO will be very focused on short-term results, particularly those that deliver to the bottom line. In fact, most of the goals you discern from your corporation’s public-facing documents are likely to focus on the short term, because they are written with investors as the key target audience.

That’s why your goals discernment must take into account insights the CEO and executive team share internally, perhaps through town-hall style employee meetings or other grassroots communications.

This will give you a more realistic picture of the long-term corporate vision.

This vision will help guide longer-term marketing commitments, including certain elements commonly associated with sports marketing, such as naming rights.

These will almost certainly involve multiyear contracts – sometimes decades-long.

Therefore, it’s critical to consider the long-term benefits they will confer on your corporation, such as generating sustainable growth, or preserving and increasing marketing share.

Here are some valid considerations when evaluating long-term impact of a marketing program:

-       Customer recruitment and retention

-       Cultivating the next-generation of customer

-       Protecting against inroads by competitors

-       Building sustainable relationships with high-value customers

-       Supporting new initiatives such as rebranding

-       Establishing awareness in a new geographic market, such as in the wake of a merger or acquisition

How much of your sports marketing budget is going toward short-term results? How much is building toward a strong market position in the future?

The proportions should reflect the importance of short-term vs. long-term corporate goals.

Balance your marketing portfolio accordingly, then communicate this vision to the executive team.