McD's and American Airlines to Keep Spending

McDonald's and American Airlines executives came out yesterday and announced that they would keep sponsorship budgets flat for 2009. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for sponsorships, but given the events of the past week and the macro-environment we're in, perhaps a needed dose of some perspective. It goes without saying that these are scary times for properties that rely on heavily on ...

Introducing SponsorPitch 1.2

Today we released our second build of SponsorPitch and while it took a little longer than expected, we hope you'll be pleasantly surprised because the truth is you played a big role in it. Here are some of the highlights of this release: * New sign-up/sign-in functionality directly on the homepage, * A complete overhaul of the dashboard/profile function for both sponsors and properti...

Perfect Pitch Fridays: Promote Your Pitch!

First day of Spring in NYC and it's snowing! Awesome. Now that I have that out of the way, this will be a short post because in a few minutes we've got an interview with http://startupslive.tv. Should be fun. Check it out if you can and you can even ask questions so feel free to lob us some softballs. First, a note about profiles. Please fill profiles out completely as this is the o...

Rough Weekend for Sports Sponsorships

With perhaps the greatest sporting event in the world taking front stage this week, more bad press this weekend on sports sponsorships. In case you missed it, here are a couple links: Companies shed sports sponsorships Sports finds it is not immune to the bitter economic chill It would be nice to see a few more stories on what strategies sports org's and properties in gen...

What do you like? What don't you like?

Heads up.. we'll be mixing and matching some new features over the next week or so. We'll stick with a few and probably end up scrapping some things you could do without. Let us know what you think! What makes your job easier and adds value? What is "ehh"?

SponsorPitch on StartupsLive.TV

I had an awesome time with Dennis from StartupsLive.TV and if you're interested in start-ups, you should definitely check them out for some great insights. Want to learn more about our plans for SponsorPitch? Watch the video interview: SponsorPitch on StartupsLive.TV

Cause vs. Sports. Rethink.

Just had a 3-hour lunch with one of the sponsorship industry's foremost thinkers and I'm even more pumped about what we're doing here. Get on board, we're leaving the station! Now to an interesting topic that's been dominating the sponsorship forums on linkedin, twitter, etc. Unless you've been under a boulder, you've seen the recent Performance Research study about consumers being more r...

Perfect Pitch Fridays VI: Prove It!

Yesterday, got a direct message on twitter saying "@sponsorpitch You guys have a great concept." After extending our gratitude came this follow-up question: "Now, help me understand how companies justify blowing big $ in untrackable sponsorships? Is there something I'm missing?" While some lawmakers and media would like you to believe otherwise, sponsorship pros know that demonstrating ROI a...

Regional Banks Putting on the Breaks Too?

Every night approximately 1,000 people pack Manchester, New Hampshire’s Palace Theatre for shows ranging from The Producers to Sweet Charity. Citizens Bank is a corporate donor, but this would seem a long way away from the media wave of nationwide scrutiny being cast on bank sponsorships. Nevertheless, while the spotlight’s on the big national banks and their multi-million dollar sport...

Property Spotlight: Vail Film Festival

The Vail Film Festival was one of the first properties to sign-up for SponsorPitch back in January. With the event coming up this weekend, we figured we'd check in with them to see how things were going as they gear up for the 6th annual event running this year from April 2nd-5th. Founded by actors, filmmakers, and dedicated film enthusiasts, and in close partnership with the Town of V...