Six Flags New Sponsorship Strategy Comes At A Big Cost...
When Electronic Arts announced earlier this year that it would hold Madden's release back 2 weeks to late August, everybody assumed the NFL lockout factored in to the decision. It only makes sense, right? But then an EA spokesman came out and said that "the lockout had no impact in the decision" to delay the release. Well, EA COO Peter Moore last night reconfirmed what pretty much everybody was already assuming in the first place..
"We were delighted when the NFL owners and players association signed a new 10-year agreement in time for a full season of action. Our strategy to mitigating potential downside from the NFL lockout was well conceived and executed. We did it by extending the window for NCAA 12 and launched Madden 2 weeks later than usual to coincide with our sponsorship of NFL kickoff week."
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Coca-Cola Enterprises' CEO John Brock says the beverage giant's Olympics activation is in full swing to the tune of more than 50,000 theme displays across G.B. ...
"This work is underway and generating significant customer and consumer interest. In fact, we leveraged our Olympic involvement with targeted customer focus promotions in place with practically every major customer in Great Britain as well as customers in all of our territories. And as an example, so far, we have already activated more than 50,000 Olympic theme displays across Great Britain."
Theme park operator, Six Flags, is rethinking its strategy when it comes to sponsorship - at a hefty cost of $2 million per quarter. The company, which currently operates 19 different parks throughout North America, says its sponsorship revenue was less $2 million for the third quarter and down $6 million over the first nine months of 2011. CEO Jim-Reid Anderson explains that it's all part of a 12 to 18-month strategy that will move the company towards higher margin sponsorship deals..
"Lower sponsorship revenue [is] a result of our strategy to move away from low margin or unprofitable sponsorship arrangements... What I would say is what I’ve said over the last couple of quarters – that this is a year of paradigm change for this company. We’ve talked about the paradigm change around pricing, around marketing, around communication, around the capital, and this is one -- this area of the corporate alliance side is one where there’s a paradigm change and that takes a period of twelve to 18 months to work its way through, though you have seen a decline. I would anticipate a continued decline for the balance of this year, and into next year, we should start to see that turn."
USANA Health Sciences, a major sponsor of the WTA, does a lot of athlete endorsements. North American President, Kevin Guest, says the numbers don't lie... people trust them more than doctors!
"One of the interesting things as it relates to our athletes, we did some marketing research from a credibility perspective and our athletes score actually highest on the list, even above medical doctors and speaking about trust in using our products. And so we continue to be involved from a -- from that perspective with our WTA relationship and we're excited to see that relationship grow."
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