Sponsorship 101–Chris Larsen
October 20, 2010 Leave a comment
In Chris Larsen’s ASF Session ‘Sponsorship 101’ he will be sharing almost 30 years of sponsorship marketing experience to show ‘real life’ examples of successful approaches. In this blog post Chris sets the context for his work with the Blue Nose Marathon:
As Scotiabank Blue Nose Marathon approaches its 8th anniversary with expectations of almost 11,000 participants in 2011, the passage of time can easily blur the memory of how things got started ‘in the early days’.
Much pre-planning and preliminary work was done for two full years prior to the first Race Weekend in May 2004. In fact, the kick-off media conference to announce the start up of a marathon event for Halifax was held in June 2003 at WTTC – announcing that 11 months hence the first annual would be staged.
Brave souls we were….. a route had not been finalized, agreements had not been arranged with HRM, an organizing committee had not been established and most importantly no sponsor funding channels had been established.
High on the list of priorities was the development of a strategic sponsorship plan and then ‘going to market’ to close partnership agreements with local and national companies so that the financial ‘framework’ of the event would be assured.
Central to the strategic sponsorship approach was the understanding that Blue Nose was intended to be ‘different’ from the wide range of ‘city marathons’. Indeed the brand platform has remained constant and consistent from the early days…..being a catalyst promoting active healthy living and balanced lifestyles.
Given that brand promise, the sponsorship plan then began to identify companies who reflected similar goals and values in their market presence. Design of the sponsorship architecture was completed identifying a less cluttered matrix of levels and event inventories.
But the biggest challenge laid ahead – the challenge of understanding why companies would invest funding and resources into a new, unknown property. The compelling turning point for Blue Nose was the decision to engage potential partners in a series of discussions to understand what were THEIR business goals as sponsors. These discussions were not sales pitches but rather a business discussion to learn what were the key drivers in decision maker’s minds. What business goals were they trying to achieve through sponsorship marketing.
