The Challenge
If you look at sponsorship as the conscious choice by a business to engage more deeply with society than through products or services alone, it’s obvious that any changes in either society or business will impact on this relationship. And if you think about the dramatic changes in western society over the last decade, it’s easy to understand the enormous impact on sponsorship:
- brand: as competitive advantage is increasingly difficult to maintain at the level of product, the role of brand as a differentiator for consumers grows steadily stronger
- communication: radically transformation of how people and brands communicate as a result of the digital revolution
- values: significant shifts in value sets within mainstream society, with regard to life and consumption
- public perception: sponsorship is not immune from the increasing cynicism of consumers – most people realise sponsors are still trying to sell to them
- competition: sponsorship is increasingly identified as an additional revenue stream by government departments, local authorities and public facilities, as well as organisations from sport, culture and community
The challenge for sponsors, rights-holders and agencies alike is to assimilate this new landscape and re-engineer new and relevant frameworks for partnership.
‘Defining Sponsorship’ was for us the catalyst to fundamentally reappraise the traditional sponsor-rights-holder relationship – and the foundation for our first sponsorship Masterclass.
