As the British Comedy Awards once again (dis)graced the small screen with its infamous ceremony last Saturday evening, there was an embarrassing degree of mirth at the sponsor’s expense.

Highland Spring’s association with the Comedy awards stems from a hat-trick deal with ITV in 2006 that saw them take the sponsorship of the British Soap Awards and the National Television Awards as part of the same package.

Ironically, despite being both title sponsor and broadcast sponsor of the event and after show party, the increasingly raucous antics of the guests and nominees displayed little evidence that much, if any, water was being taken at the tables on Saturday night.

No fools ITV, ensuring that the later stages of the ceremony were taken off ITV1 and reserved for the smaller, more open-minded audience of ITV2 - as the behaviour of a resentful bottle-throwing Kevin Bishop proved testament to:

Bottles, undoubtedly, of the Highland Spring water that proudly adorned every table and remained largely unopened for most of the evening.

Admittedly, the creative was strong. The idents that wrapped each section of the broadcast were cute and wonderfully conceived. Simple but effective, positioning a bottle of Highland Spring as an award-winning celebrity itself, under the tag line, ‘If you’re this good, you must be rewarded’.

And that is where the brand presence should have ended. Instead, Sally Stanley (the brand’s courageous but arguably ill-advised Marketing Director) braved the toughest crowd in the business and took to the stage alongside Frank Skinner to present the highly coveted Best Comedy award as the pinnacle of the evening.

Error.

Angus Deayton [introducing Stanley]: ‘And of course a big thanks to Highland Spring - without whom tonight would certainly not have been as…cheap.’

And it only got worse. Granted, with the amount of subsequent mentions that Deayton and Skinner managed to notch up between them, the brand probably regained its rights fee in media value alone. But they also succeeded in presenting the brand as an intrusive, resented necessity, over-playing the contractual exposure that was guaranteed for them, and generally making Ms. Stanley look like a bit of a joke.

With marketeers across the country already cringing with embarrassment on her behalf, she then attempted to squeeze in a suitably ‘on-message’ introduction which was predictably ignored and cut short by her co-presenters and the less than captivated crowd:

Stanley: ‘[the sponsorship] is a perfect partnership as we strive all year round to make people feel better…’

(Err…what?)

Skinner [doubtless echoing the thoughts of the entire room]: ‘Well, it certainly makes me feel better - as a recovering alcoholic. Not quite as good as an actual drink, but you can’t have everything.’

Words alone cannot do the whole episode justice - watch for yourself: 

A prime example of when a sponsor should be seen and not heard - always engage, but never intrude. 

However, whether or not you believe that a television awards sponsor has a rightful active role in their presentation, one must ask how the brand association with this particular ceremonial joke can be seen as beneficial in the long run? The announcement of the 2006 deal suggested that Highland Spring did know what it was getting into, but as the calibre of this most ‘notoriously unpredictable’ awards night continues to decline, how much longer can the brand deem the association a desirable one? Can the value of numerous shameful on-air plugs really outweigh an association with an awards show that is increasingly becoming the laughing stock of the industry? And how does a high-profile water brand sit alongside an event renowned for the drunken, outlandish behaviour of its celebrity guests?

One last thing: take a look at the sponsorship section of Highland Spring’s website. In the brand’s list of ‘high profile Awards and Dinners’ with which they are proudly associated, the British Comedy Awards is not listed.

Go figure.

By Lucie Bartlett on December 11th, 2008

Tags: Brand marketing, Broadcast sponsorship, Media, Sponsorship, Television

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Albeit that we’re not sure if we’re glad or sorry(!) to read that we missed out only ’by a whisker’ on Marketing’s Sponsorship Agency of the Year for 2008, we’re very proud to have either won or been shortlisted every year since the award’s inception in 2004, so it was great to be recognised again this year, and to see that our work with Guinness received yet another commendation, this time for the Guinness Honesty Bar.

Thank you to Marketing and the award panellists, and congratulations to Octagon on their debut win.

By Tim Crow on December 10th, 2008

Tags: Default, Sponsorship, Synergy

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It’s good to see that UK Sport and LOCOG are taking Medal Hopes over, and back to the drawing board.  As I wrote back in August when it first surfaced, Medal Hopes was clearly a flawed concept that needed a radical re-think.

I wasn’t alone. Peter King, CEO of British Cycling, was quoted by the Evening Standard as follows after listening to a Medal Hopes briefing by Culture Secretary Andy Burnham:   

“I don’t think it will work - it’s an absolute non-starter. Even if it does generate income it will not generate £79million. Athletes are supposed to give three days of their time (per year) to support the lottery programmes. But it will be an extra demand on their time and there will be conflicts of interest between athletes’ own sponsors, their governing bodies’ sponsors and the sponsors of the Medal Hopes scheme.”

The mystery is why it took DCMS and Fast Track over two years to come up with something that would be so obviously problematic and unpopular.

Now, with UK Sport leading, and LOCOG advising, the global and domestic sponsors of London 2012 will be reassured that whatever finally reaches the market will not dilute and ambush the Olympic sponsors’ territory in the way that Medal Hopes was clearly going to.

Indeed I hope that UK Sport will explore non-sponsorship solutions, and take inspiration from innovations which others have already created to fund the Olympics without ambushing it, such as Team Business West Midlands and BeNumber 1.

They could also look at why it is that our Olympic athletes’ contractual appearances for the National Lottery are, as The Times’ Olympic Correspondent Ashling O’Connor revealed recently, ‘rarely used’, and how they might be used to drive additional funding via the Lottery rather than being re-sold as part of Medal Hopes.

By Tim Crow on December 4th, 2008

Tags: Ambush campaign, DCMS, Default, London 2012, London 2012 sponsorship, Olympic sponsorship, Sponsorship, Team GB

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Traditionally, November is the sponsorship industry’s conference time of year.  Last week’s Future Sponsorship conference in Brussels is now well-established as a gathering of the great and the good in the industry and, as its name suggests, where the future is discussed.  This year was no different.

The first question on most people’s lips was “how will the sponsorship industry be affected by the credit crunch?”  

My answer was, and is, that the sponsorship industry will be affected, just like all other industries and it’s short sighted to pretend otherwise.  Budgets will be trimmed, cuts will be made and everyone will be squeezed in one way or another.

But the industry is far better placed than it was during the last major downturn in the 1990s.  Then, only some marketers were convinced that sponsorship worked.  As a consultancy, we were still busy educating companies on the benefits of sponsorship and showing them that it worked. 

Now, we spend little, if any, time persuading marketing directors that money will be effectively spent on sponsorship – they’re already convinced.  They have numerous examples for reference and it’s pleasing to note that they are considering sponsorship in their current and future strategies as a matter of course.

Increasingly, sponsorship is being asked to provide tangible business benefits.  And, thank goodness, it can, because now is the time when proof is needed that marketing expenditure can indeed put money on the bottom line.

A great deal of time is spent within the industry discussing precisely how that proof should be declared.  Unlike the advertising or PR industries, sponsorship has no universally-agreed evaluation system, arguing as it does that sponsorship’s success depends upon objectives set at the outset.  The difficulty (or, as many argue, the advantage) being that these objectives can be immensely varied and, therefore, results need to be individually tracked.  Thus a universal system is both impractical if not impossible.

I’ve always argued that sponsorship’s marketing advantage is its flexibility; the fact that it can solve a multitude of business challenges.

But I came away from Future Sponsorship thinking that it would be in the industry’s interest if it can make itself bullet-proof against accusations of non-accountability, especially in this economic downturn. 

By Karen Earl on December 2nd, 2008

Tags: Brand marketing, Public relations, Sponsorship, Sponsorship consultancy

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If you get the product right, everything else follows.

So General Motors has inevitably parted company with Tiger Woods. Some commentators have claimed that this somehow proves that endorsements of this type don’t work. Nonsense. In Tiger’s case, Nike and Accenture in particular disprove the point. Tiger may be a miracle-worker, but not even he could have saved GM from its current predicament. The problem isn’t Tiger, it’s GM.

Also this week, the PGA Tour announced the FeEx Cup’s third format overhaul in as many years. As I wrote back in September, in this case, the problem is also the product - the Cup format. Only time will tell if, this time, the PGA has got the product right.

Which brings me to the latest example of NPD on the PGA Tour, the Kodak Challenge. Like both the FedEx Cup and the Red Bull Final 5, it’s a competition-within-a-competition, its USP being to link great holes on different courses, with $1m going to the player who posts the lowest score on the Kodak Challenge Holes over the season.

Again, only time will tell if Kodak has got the product right - on which point I suspect they’ve missed a trick by not adding a cause-related overlay to counter-balance the $1m prize  - but there’s a lot to like here, in particular the integration of Kodak’s ‘Kodak Moments’ heritage; the opportunity to leverage the wonderful imagery that great golf courses provide; and the season-long campaign platform. What I most like is that, as the Kodak blog reveals, Kodak planned their activation upfront - one of the keys to successful sponsorship.

By Tim Crow on November 28th, 2008

Tags: Branded content, Default, Experiential marketing, Golf, New Product Development, PGA Tour, Public relations, Sales promotion, Sponsorship, Tiger Woods

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Congratulations to the Guinness team who picked up their fourth award last night for the title sponsorship of rugby’s Guinness Premiership. The sponsorship, managed on behalf of Guinness by Synergy, won the Rugby Business Award for Rugby Sponsor of the Year (over $500k). 

The judges particularly commended the ground breaking work on the Guinness Club Together campaign across 2007/8. Synergy manages all aspects of the sponsorship from strategic consulting to experiential events and PR.

 

By Dominic on November 18th, 2008

Tags: Experiential marketing, Guinness, Guinness Premiership, Public relations, Rugby, Sponsorship, Sponsorship consultancy, Synergy

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The Barbie Store has opened in Buenos Aires. It is an immersive experience where girls can shop for clothes, have their nails and hair done, peruse the latest dolls and buy Barbie accessories such as wristwatches, two-way radios and play laptops. And, of course, there are doll, dolls and more dolls.

Entry is free, although admission to the Casa de Barbie, the fantasy-land, is about $10. A manicure runs about $6, hair braiding costs as much as $20, and an elaborate “Barbie Full Style” hairdo can set Mum back $38. And, I have no doubt that every little girls leaves with a doll with the latest outfits as well. What a great concept - sell the dolls and the Barbie experiences as well – what a money spinner!

This concept is Mattel’s first experiment with experiential marketing and unsurprisingly it has been such a success that ‘Barbiedom’ may be replicated globally. But is doesn’t stop there……….

Next year Barbie turns 50 so will it be time for Barbie to slow down and start wearing comfortable shoes? Absolutely not. Mattel Inc. plans to market Barbie as a fashion brand. Mattel Inc. is sponsoring New York’s Mercedes Benz Fashion Week and is also the first toy company to agree a three-year partnership with the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Designers will be creating life sized outfits that reflect the ‘world of Barbie’ for a catwalk show at February’s New York fashion week. “For many young girls, [Barbie is] their first association with fashion and dressing up and changing clothes,” Fern Mallis, London Fashion Week New York. 

So Barbie goes high fashion. It is also rumoured that Mattel want to launch ‘Plastic Smooth’ a make-up line with skin care treatments. The new Barbie fashion collection will go on sale internationally with ‘The House of Barbie’ flagship store planned for Shanghai. Here girls and women will be encouraged, say Mattel to, ‘nibble on truffles, smear on pink-tinted mud masks and shop for clothes for themselves and their dolls’.

 Clearly, for Barbie, life begins at 50.

By Lisa Woodward on November 17th, 2008

Tags: Experiential marketing, New Product Development, Sponsorship

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Analyse the thoughts of newspaper editors (that have occasionally had a reputation for cynicism around the ‘integration’ word) on what it means and we have the perfect roadmap for the Communications and PR executives trying to maximise our clients’ exposure.

The Guardian’s editor, Alan Rusbridger outlined his paper’s plans for a newly built newsroom organised into ‘pods’ based around content areas not publications.

At a regional level, it’s happening even faster. The Nottingham Evening Post has re-trained its newsroom which now outputs seven niche sites, 20 hyper local and one main newspaper website as well as putting out a daily paper – all this without one member of staff dedicated purely to one medium.

The underlying implication of the conference for sponsorship PROs is clear. Those at the highest levels of newspapers have now recognised that it is content not platform that is king and it is this content we are fortunate to have in spades. Don’t pigeonhole yourself around the type of media you’re targeting, rather the opportunities now lie in working your content through all parts of the system – your story must become a ‘content factory’ not just one hit.

Why will the media love you for this? Simple - last word to Rusbridger – “there is a lot of advertising waiting for [video] content…We just can’t generate it fast enough at the moment.”  

By Dominic on November 10th, 2008

Tags: Branded content, Media, Public relations, Sponsorship

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Bravo Lewis Hamilton, cue media frenzy - with, as ever on these occasions, a predictable focus on Hamilton’s future earning power. Thus we find Max Clifford in the Telegraph (not an everyday occurrence in itself) predicting that Hamilton will be ‘bigger than Beckham’ and this, my personal favourite to date, from the Mirror:

He is already on a £75million five year contract with McLaren and has a £10million three year sponsorship deal with Reebok. But extra sponsorship deals could see him on £1billion next year.

Now that would be bucking the credit crunch.

There is, of course, much more interesting territory to be explored here. For example, how will the nascent ‘Brand Hamilton’ be evolved?  To what extent does Hamilton’s appeal extend beyond F1? And what effect is Hamilton having on the F1 brand and audience?

In the UK at least, we already know some of the answers. Yesterday’s Grand Prix drew an average audience on ITV of 8.8m, way ahead of the channel’s slot average for the year so far of 2.6m, with a massive peak audience of 12.5m watching at 18:45 as the race went down to the wire.

Ironically, it was thus easily the most watched race since ITV started broadcasting F1 in 1997 – the irony being that coverage reverts to BBC in 2009, ITV having opted out of F1 earlier this year in order to retain its UEFA Champions League rights.

By Tim Crow on November 3rd, 2008

Tags: BBC, Formula 1, Media, Sponsorship, Television audiences

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With the £79m shortfall now apparently down to £59m, and (not coincidentally) Medal Hopes still merely a soundbite, it was nonetheless surprising to see Beijing golden girl Rebecca Adlington, interviewed in The Times the other day, declaring that her success had not led to any endorsements. 

“Nobody has called to help with any funding…nobody has come forward to help. People mistakenly think, ‘She must be well-off now’, but it’s not quite how it works.”

So not surprising then, in an ever-crunchier world, to see many of our London 2012 medal hopefuls doing the fundraising for themselves, in the shape of the Be Number 1 online campaign, which uses the pixel marketing model pioneeed by Alex Tew’s now-famous Million Dollar Homepage to give donors the opportunity to sponsor individual athletes, including including the ‘Yngling girls’ Sarah Payton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson, BMX ace Shanaze Reade and gymnast Beth Tweddle, by buying pixels on their Be Number 1 pages for as little as £20.

Clever – good luck to them.

By Tim Crow on October 29th, 2008

Tags: Beijing 2008, DCMS, Default, London 2012, London 2012 sponsorship, Olympic sponsorship, Olympics, Sponsorship, Team GB, grass roots sport

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