Deal Flow 8-6-2009

AirTran Airways has entered into a first-time sponsorship deal with the Wisconsin State Fair, which opened its 11-day run on Thursday. Robby Gordon Motorsports’ No. 55 NASCAR Nationwide Series Toyota will be sponsored by the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas in this weekend’s Zippo 200 at Watkins Glen International. During the months of September and October, Hennessy will host Hennessy A...

Live Nation Q2 Loss Widens; Rev/Sponsor Grows 14%

Live Nation (NYSE: LYV) released second quarter earnings today posting a wider loss of $27.2 million on lower revenue of $1.06 Billion, a year over year drop of 5.9%. However, while overall revenue has dipped, Live Nation has seen a 4.9% growth in sponsorship revenue during the first six months of the year. Live Nation today reported a 7.5% year over year drop in the number of sponsors, but at...

Why Sponsors Sponsor

The best answer to the "Why do sponsors sponsor?" question can be found in the quote of the great P.T. Barnum, one of the world's best promoters -- who put it best when he said: "A funny thing happens when you don't advertise ... NOTHING!" You can have the absolutely BEST flowers in town at your flower shop ... but if no one knows you have a store, than no one can buy from you. Right? Which m...

Redemption Marketing Anyone?

'There's no such thing as bad publicity,' right? For has long as there have been sponsors, there have been embarrassing situations for the properties they sponsor. However, when it comes to sponsors where do you draw the line between publicity and bad publicity. What role do/should official sponsors play in "redemption?" As sponsorship pros, we're engrained with the idea that to properly lev...

In the Spirit of Sharing?

In the spirit of sharing best practices, look what landed on our desk yesterday! SportBusiness is looking for the best in sports marketing case studies for their upcoming Sponsorship Works report. If you are a sponsor, sports property or agency with a great story to tell they would like to hear from you! As far as we know, it only applies to sports properties. Pity. In any case, a great idea t...

MEC Access 10 Principles of Partnership

MEC Access recently released a study entitled ‘Game Change: A New Agenda for Partnerships." As patterns in consumer media consumption change, marketers of all sizes are tapping into the power of partnerships, a $40 B industry worldwide according to the new study. At the same time they say, the current economic environment dictates that properties are offering more versatile and effective asse...

Deal Flow 8-5-2009

Procter and Gamble has agreed to agreed to sponsor the newly-created "official locker room products" of the NFL category, in support of the 13 P&G brands. The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim announced a new partnership with MonaVie, making MonaVie EMV the official healthy energy drink of the Major League Baseball team. Lifetime Television and The Weinstein Company have signed an integrated...

n-ASK-ar: Marrying Content & Competency

If content is king, then IBM is the dynasty when it comes to sponsorship. IBM has since the early '90's used tennis' grand slams and high profile golf events to showcase their ability to provide back-end technology infrastructure, rich and reliable data and real-time scoring and statistics. They've done this through a well constructed combination of co-branded content and competency. But As...

Rising Tides Lift All Boats… Even in Sponsorship Marketing

As SponsorPitch introduces a new and improved platform this week, it seemed appropriate to look into the whole concept of information sharing in the sponsorship marketplace. After thinking about it, is there another industry that is less open with information? OK, I’ll give you the National Football League, and the Central Intelligence Agency, and maybe KFC’s guarding of the Colonel’s Secret ...

Defending Cause Marketing

Assistant Professor Angela Eikenberry has written a thoughtful and provocative article for the Stanford Social Innovation Review entitled The Hidden Costs of Cause Marketing. In it, Professsor Eikenberry makes her case against cause marketing or “consumption philanthropy,” as she calls it. Consumption philanthropy individualizes solutions to collective social problems, distracting our attentio...