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Media Is Still A Key Sponsorship Component
There exists a growing school of thought that feels media buys as part of sponsorship packages are a waste of money. In a way, that school of thought is teaching the right curriculum, but media buys are a necessary and crucial element of sponsorship. The problem is that many properties require sponsors to purchase excessive ad inventory with the properties' broadcast partners. Ironically, that encumbering requirement hurts properties as well because many sponsors won't invest additional advertising dollars to promote their sponsorships - and their association with properties - so the properties lose the chance to piggyback on the sponsors' promotional plans.
So let's split the media buy issue into two discussions: advertising as part of the sponsorship package and advertising as a leveraging tactic. Required media buys have a lot to do with rights arrangements between properties and their broadcast partners, but that's a topic for another discussion. So what are the positives associated with required media buys on a property's broadcast? Undoubtedly, advertising during the broadcast reinforces your association with the property. In fact, without advertising, a television viewer may never know that your company sponsors the event, team or sport, especially if you are not a title or presenting sponsor. Also, without advertising on the event broadcast, your sponsorship essentially becomes a local or regional deal - despite the fact that the event or property may be a national one. You certainly don't want to pay a nationally-priced rights fee for a local, on-site sponsorship!
Some properties and their broadcast partners will sell ad inventory to your competitor if you don't buy the required ad inventory. In that case, you invest significantly in a sponsorship, only to find that viewers associate your competitor with the property!
The required ad spend then becomes a defensive investment, especially if the broadcast ratings are frighteningly low. If your company is a title sponsor of a PGA Tour event in which Tiger Woods doesn't play, do you really want to buy up a dozen and a half ad spots on a broadcast that pulls in a 1.9 rating? Would you have done so had you not been the title sponsor? I'm not sure I would.
What about advertising as part of your activation plan? Yes, sponsorship has evolved to the point that the focus is on your customer, as it should be, and activities involving the customer are critical to a sponsorship's impact. But it's also still about the brand, and advertising still delivers on educating the public about your brand and what it stands for. You invested in a particular sponsorship because you believed that the property's brand attributes were either similar to your brand's, or you wanted to move your brand's personality closer to that of the property. Advertising that includes imagery, logos, personalities and anything else associated with the property will only help to speed that brand migration from the property to the sponsor. Of course, the difference between the required ad buy and your promotional advertising is that the latter allows you to focus the advertising on targeted, specific audiences.
