Chipotle Greenlights Food, Inc.

Chipotle today announced it will be rolling out a promotional partnership with Food, Inc., the upcoming film documentary that seeks to expose the U.S. ag industry's impact on the environment and economy. Chipotle will host free movie screenings in 32 cities across America, while advertising the documentary with promotional materials in 860+ fast-casual restaurants and including branded content...

Fête Nationale Possibilités de Parrainage

While riots, car burnings and arrests marked this year's real Bastille Day in Paris, stateside July 14th is mostly marked with more gentille activities like street fairs, Francophilic treats and fireworks. We'll join in the celebration of France's independence with a really quick look at how some of the major Bastille Day festivals in the Etats Unis are fairing a la parrainage! Bastille Day ...

Executing Sponsorships in China: Lessons I've Learned

Yesterday we heard about an interesting new sponsorship opportunity/idea. The Bird's Nest, the main stadium of last year's Olympics, is set to auction the rights to name its 80,000 seat backs for the Italian Super Cup game which will be held on August 8, the first anniversary of the Olympics opening ceremony. In the spirit of this, Kevin Hanft offers up some tips on what it takes to execute s...

GM Puts 54 Contracts in the Rearview

On Monday, a federal bankruptcy judge allowed GM to cut 54 advertising and marketing contracts, as part of a restructuring plan intended to make the car company a leaner and more focused business operation. Here's a quick rundown of some of the deals that were waived: the Arnold Palmer Invitational Chevrolet Clock in Times Square Oakland Raiders San Antonio Livestock Expo University of ...

Deal Flow 7-13-2009

The Breeders' Cup and Montblanc, manufacturer of luxury handcrafted timepieces, announced they have entered into a partnership, designating Montblanc as the exclusive promotional partner in the timing category for the 2009 Breeders' Cup. WGN-America, Tribune Company's national cable network, today announced that Priceline.com has signed a 10-week sponsorship deal for its Sky Dives series host...

360 integrated communication.. massive ROI!

There's some truth behind every joke, right? WARNING: not suitable for work (unless you work somewhere really fun)

Can the Wisdom of Crowds Help with Sponsorship?

By now most people are familiar with crowd sourcing and/or have heard of or read "The Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowiecki. As an advocate for crowd-based decision-making, the book sang to me. It seemed to validate a lot of my suspicions, and frankly, my company Fantell is predicated on the notion that crowds are more accurate than individuals. I had never really thought about crowd wisdom ...

Priced to Play: the Case for Sponsored Gaming

According to a new study by market research firm Comscore, 87.1 million people were gaming online in the US as of May 2009, a 22 percent year over year increase. Over the same period, internet usage as a whole grew by only 2 percent. How can the online gaming sector be growing at a 20+ % clip when it is widely accepted that the fragmentation of entertainment interests continues to accelerate? ...

Lesnar KO's UFC Sponsor, Apologizes

20 months is a long time -- when you just insulted one of your sport's biggest sponsors on your sport's biggest night. That's what is left of Bud Lights' three year sponsorship agreement with UFC. We've been talking a lot about ambush and the UFC's new protocol for league/fighter sponsor conflicts. Last night's UFC 100 presented us with a little bit of both, courtesy of UFC's new antagonist,...

Deal Flow 7-10-2009

Cisco today took over sponsorship of the 2012 London Olympics, from bankrupt technology company, Nortel. Cisco will fulfill all of Nortel's previous obligations in the new deal, said to be worth approximately $32 million in cash and services, but will provide approximately $20 million less in cash making Cisco a "tier two" provider. Nortel's original "tier one" deal was worth arround $65 mill...