HBR Lays Out Six Steps to Successful Sponsorship

In an excellent piece by Harvard Business Review, William Rosen, President & Chief Creative Officer of North America at Arc Worldwide, and Laurence Minsky, author of How to Succeed in Advertising When All You Have is Talent, lay out six key steps to making sponsorships successful. The general pitfall that marketers make, the authors say, is measuring the success of a sponsorship as an end in an...

Music Start-Up Finds New Distribution Channel in Coca-Cola

The Coca-Cola Company has made an investment in music licensing start-up, Music Dealers, in a deal that the Atlanta-based soft drink company says will help it source emerging music talent for upcoming global brand campaigns. The agreement between Coca-Cola and Music Dealers includes a guaranteed commitment by Coca-Cola to use the services of Music Dealers to discover and license music from curr...

Boris Bikes Deal Draws Criticism For Not Bidding Out Barclays Renewal

Last week, we reported that London-based financial services firm, Barclays, had agreed to put an additional $41 million into London's public bicycle sharing program, Barclays Cycle Hire. The deal extended Barclays title sponsorship through 2018, doubling the bank's lifetime investment in the program. While London mayor, Boris Johnson, took credit for the deal, this BBC report says that Barclays...

PBS Replaces Exxon Mobil With Luxury River Cruise As Masterpiece Sponsor

Six years after Exxon Mobil ended its 30-year partnership with PBS' Masterpiece, the iconic program has landed a new title sponsor. "Masterpiece" executive producer Rebecca Eaton told the the Television Critics Association yesterday that PBS had partnered with Viking River Cruises, who will assume sponsorship of the program in the fourth quarter of this year. “Their people are our people,” ...

Chiquita Finds Distribution Channel, Educational Opp in New Disney Alliance

As part of a new strategic alliance announced on Friday, Chiquita and Fresh Express products will be featured at a number of retail points, attractions and events throughout Walt Disney World and the Disney Cruise Line. The alliance will give Chiquita and Fresh Express products brand exclusivity within their sponsorship categories at Disney properties. "We are pleased to work with Disney to...

Texas Roadhouse Sponsors College Football Award

Louisville-based Texas Roadhouse has signed on as presenting sponsor of the Paul Hornung Award, given annually to the most versatile player in major college football. The award, which in its inaugural year was given to Owen Marecic of Stanford, will in its second year be powered by fan voting on Facebook. Texas Roadhouse will promote the award, and voting of it, to its customer base at mo...

Dick's Sporting Goods Looks To Combat Concussions With Latest Sponsorship

With sports concussions drawing more attention in recent years, Dick's Sporting Goods latest sponsorship is aiming to raise awareness and prevent them in youth sports. According to the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, up to 3.8 million recreation- and sports-related concussions occur in the United States every year. Though Dick's sponsorship of PACE, which stands for Protecting At...

IOC Hit With Biggest Cyber Attack In History, Expert Says

Update (8/4): Insidethegames.biz reports that the British Olympic Association widely feared a cyber attack in the run-up to the Beijing Games, so much so in fact that "in early 2008 they held a special one-day conference organised by worldwide Olympic sponsor Atos Origin where top-level security consultants advised them how to make their systems safe." Meanwhile, Patrick Adiba, the chief execut...

Luxury Auto Scores Primetime Emmy Partnership

Audi of America has been named the official automotive partner of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences startig with the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards, scheduled for Sunday, September 18 at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. Terms of the multi-year partnership were not released. Audi will participate in select Television Academy events celebrating this year's Primetime Emmy Award nominees, ...

Delta Adds Whitney Museum To Growing Portfolio of NY Partnerships

Delta Air Lines and the Whitney Museum of American Art today announced a new sponsorship which will make Delta the official and exclusive airline of the Whitney Museum in New York City. It's the latest addition – and first in the arts category – to Delta's extensive sponsorship portfolio in New York, which includes Madison Square Garden, the New York Yankees and the New York Mets. As part o...