New Facebook Game Could Be Market Research Tool For Music Sponsors

Called Facebook meets the music business, a new social game lets you manage your favorite artists from Rick Ross to T-Pain. From picking tour stops to selecting corporate sponsors, Play GIG-IT features over 70 current artists. Perhaps most interestingly, Forbes' Zack O'Malley Greenburg writes that the game could become a market research tool for sponsors: "There’s market research potential he...

Linkedin, The Latest To Try Its Hand At 'Sponsored Updates'

Following in the footsteps of other social network bellwethers, Linkedin announced last night that it would be the latest online community to launch what it is calling sponsored updates. Whether as a user you like it or not it's a trend that is likely here to stay so get used to seeing more and more advertorial content targeted to your social streams. Take a look... The updates, which loo...

NYC Marathon On The Hunt For New Title Partner

It's been a rough year for the running community and the northeast in general. After getting cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy, the New York City Marathon is in search of a new title sponsorship deal after ING revealed to SportsBusiness Journal that it would not renew the title sponsorship it has held since 2003. The move is not unexpected as ING recently reorganized its banking and insurance ...

Smurfs, Sony Score With Sponsorship

The Smurfs found their way into victory lane at the Brickyard 400 just ahead of their nationwide debut. Sony Pictures Entertainment partnered up with the #39 Quicken Loans Chevrolet this past weekend to promote The Smurfs 2, which premieres July 31st in theaters across the country. With Ryan Newman's win, the Smurfs found themselves in a rather unusual spot... victory lane! Check out this paint...

Publicis + Omnicom = World's Largest Agency

In a widely anticipated merger of mega ad-holding companies, Publicis and Omnicom have announced their intention to merge. The result will be the largest advertising company in the world with roughly $23 billion in annual revenues. For sponsorship, that means that agencies such as GMR, The Marketing Arm, TracyLocke, Sportsmark and Optimum will now be bedfellows with Starcom MediaVest, Zenith Op...

Too Much?

It seems micro-sponsorship is all the rage. Or at least, that seems like the only plausible argument for Oulu Energy Arena's distinctly more is more sponsorship strategy. Courtesy of Yahoo!... H/T: Yahoo!

Low Cost Airline To Put Ads On Airplanes

Would you fly a sponsored airplane? Popular low-cost European airline, Ryanair, has a new plan for making money. The progressive airline has announced that it will start carrying ads on the outside of its 300+ fleet of Boeing 737's. Companies can have their brand featured on four different locations on the Ryanair aircraft, including on the inner and outer winglets, front fuselage and rear fu...

Corporate Sponsors - Cars = Art

Race cars wouldn't be possible without corporate sponsors, but would sponsorship be possible without the cars? Thanks to artist, Yoni Alter, you don't have to visualize what that would look like. Order prints for popular F1 cars here. H/T: Jalopnik

IMG Beefs Up On Brand Protection Services

IMG has announced the acquisition of JPatton, the Atlanta-based provider of brand protection and brand management solutions specializing in patented holographic security technologies and digital asset management. JPatton says its patented process has produced over 1.8 billion holographic hang tags and labels worldwide, protecting more than $10 billion in intellectual property. The firm will be...

Breaking into the Sponsorship Industry

I had a drink with two interns this week – one who had just secured an internship with Slingshot and the other, someone who desperately wanted to intern at Slingshot and even offered to work on the weekends to beat out the other competition. Both evenings were relatively the same – a history on their experience outside of university, their difficulties in trying to gain credibility within the ...