An End to Alcohol Sponsorship II

So if 40% of police time is alcohol-related, 30% of alcohol time is sports-related, 10% of sports time is sponsor-related and 20% of sponsor time is alcohol-related, what does that make the percentage of police time that is alcohol sponsor-related? That seems to be the basic deduction being espoused in this news piece on Australia's recently proposed sponsorship ban on alcohol products. F...

Outside the Box Activation Ideas: Pepsi-Co(pter)

Plane activation is nothing new, but have you ever seen a sponsored chopper? We got a note about LA's KIIS-FM traffic reporter Commander Chuck and his Pepsi-sponsored chopper. Here's a look: As it turns out, this isn't the first use of helicopters as out-of-home media. In late 2007, the recently shuttered Portfolio Magazine sponsored helicopters to reach ultra-elite manhattanites on ...

Army-Navy Finally Finds its Match

The U.S. Automobile Association, a financial services firm that provides financial products and services to members of the U.S. military, has agreed to become the first presenting sponsor of the iconic Army-Navy football game. The game will be "presented by the USAA" starting in 2009 at Lincoln Financial Field, the 119th meeting between the two academies, and will run through 2019, the same le...

Five Music Sites for Marketers

A recent report in the Guardian last weekend painted a surprisingly optimistic picture for the music industry. Why is this? For one, diversification, expedited by desperation. With dwindling music sales, sponsorship, licensing and merchandise are all taking a bigger slice of the music revenue pie. Back in May, IEG forecasted that North American companies will spend $1.08B on music festival a...

Deal Flow 7-20-2009

Military financial services provider USAA has signed a 10-year agreement to be presenting sponsor of the annual Army-Navy football game. The International Ski Federation (FIS) and LG Electronics today announced an extension of their current sponsorship whereby LG Electronics will continue to serve as the title sponsor of the FIS Snowboard World Cup for the 2009/10 season. Coke Zero has a...

Tour de France Sponsorship Primer

As the Tour de France moves into the mountains and stage 16, today Business Week offers up a great primer for the corporate partners that are behind this year's field. If you want a quick look at the corporate faces behind each team we'd suggest you check it out. While stateside cycling events like the Tour of Missouri are struggling, BW makes the case that cycling's doping scandal, in part, ...

Cause Marketing in the Age of Free

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book review of Chris Anderson’s Free: The Future of a Radical Price (which I learned of from one of my new favorite bloggers and twitterers @danblank) he shares this study from an MIT economist. He offered a group of subjects a choice between two kinds of chocolate—Hershey’s Kisses, for one cent, and Lindt truffles, for fifteen cents. Three-quarters of the subjects chos...

'This flush brought to you by...'

This one probably didn't make your list of sponsorship trends for 2009. Nevertheless, clever CPG marketers are seizing on the opportunity to sponsor your next flush. You heard that right. Today the city of Calgary announced it is exploring the option of procuring sponsorship of the city's automated public toilet - "Olga" - which reportedly had over 45,000 flushes in 2008 alone. It's...

Bears Join Jersey Patch Bonanza

Good tie-in or bad jinx? For obvious reasons, we're sort of torn on whether practice sponsorships by health and life insurance companies is such a good idea. Knock on wood, Bears fan. Brad Biggs at the Chicago Sun-Times reports that the Chicago Bears have agreed to a practice jersey patch deal with Northshore University HealthSystem. The sponsor patch will be 3.5"x 4.5" and will not be worn...

Lance Armstrong Finds American Partner for TDF '10

Much has been made about Lance Armstrong's somewhat unfamiliar Tour de France partnership with Astana Group, an affiliation of Kazhak companies. Now that the Borat references have subsided, he made it clear today that he doesn't plan on sticking with the team for 2010. He's found a new American partner and plans to race with them in next year's Tour de France. Great news for American cycling ...