Event sponsorship strategies and applications

Marketing Communication

My marketing concept is event sponsorship. Event sponsorship is when a company agrees to pay money to event organizers in exchange for the opportunity to use the event as a marketing platform. There are many benefits to event sponsorship, including brand exposure, but the primary benefit is for brand associations to be created. Typically, the brand is associated with the event, which might be an athletic event, a charitable event or a community event. The sponsorship works on the principle of image transfer, where the positive associations of the event are transferred to the brand that has provided the sponsorship (Gwinner & Eaton, 1999). It has been argued that the greater the fit between the brand and the event, the better this image transfer will be (Haden, 2014).

There are several examples that can be found of event sponsorship. At very high levels, we can look to the recent World Cup in Brazil. This event is a high-level opportunity for brands to gain exposure to a massive worldwide television audience, and millions of people who attend the events live. The FIFA web page highlights the different sponsors of this event: http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/organisation/partners/

Event sponsorship is not just for massive companies to gain exposure from massive events. There are events of all sizes, and each provides opportunities for sponsorship and the benefits it brings (Mack, 1999). For example, even in smaller places there are opportunities, such as the Alice Springs Community Garden. Local businesses in that part of the country have the opportunity to provide sponsorship to the project, and in return they gain goodwill and some publicity, for example here: http://alicecommunitygarden.org.au/sponsors_and_partners

Both of these sponsorships work on the same principle, based around a situation where something creates a market, and when the brand fits well with the event's target market, then the result is an opportunity to create goodwill and brand image associations with the target market. There is high relevance to the concept because they both show that sponsorship opportunities exist everywhere, and they exist for all types of sizes of events. While something like the World Cup is a fairly obvious example, and clearly provides tremendous opportunity for sponsorship, this is the type of event that only garners major corporations. There are lesser events all over that can be used, with the same principle.

If you look at the Alice Springs page, many sponsors are government, but one is a local landscaping store, Centre Landscaping and Supplies. There is clearly a strong fit between this store and the event, and many of the people involved in this event are going to be part of the store's target market. But the store, through its sponsorship of the community garden, creates goodwill through its sponsorship, creates awareness of the brand, and creates a positive association because such community-building events are viewed in a favourable light.