CorpComms Magazine

When it comes to finding sponsors for major events, the financial crisis completely changed the game. Coming hot on the heels of new rules about tobacco companies not being allowed to splash their logos everywhere, a culture of austerity made it more and more difficult for even the big name sports and arts events to attract corporate money.

Companies themselves, however, have managed to turn this buyers' market to their advantage, and in a new world where every sponsorship penny needs to count, they are targeting those events which have managed to innovate and offer them more than their name on a banner hoarding.

Andy Muggleton, director of sponsorship agency Generate Sponsorship, says: 'Sponsors are in a better position to negotiate on price and assets. They are being more selective and have greater expectations of what they get from partnerships.'

That is bad news for the chief executive who has always had his company name splashed across the shirts of his favourite football team, but good news for those events that can offer a bit more.

'The 'chairman's whim' is becoming a thing of the past and the evaluation of sponsorship has been able to demonstrate its worth, cementing it as a genuine part of the marketing mix and delivering on brand and business objectives,' Muggleton says.

Pick your route

One of the events that has flourished under this new sponsorship culture is the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR), which has attracted big name supporters by offering them something a little different. The grueling sea contest, formerly known as the Whitbread Round The World Yacht Race, is prepared to go a little further for its sponsors.

As well as garnering big names to put their names to yachts, satellite technology and race timekeeping, it manages to whip up a bidding war amongst the world's major ports over where the boats should stop.

'We received 82 bids from cities to host a stopover of the race, of which ten were selected,' says former Olympic sailor Knut Frostad, chief executive of the race, which takes place every three years. 'We work closely with these cities in holding events. They have their own organising teams. No sponsorship deal is the same - they have to be as customised as possible.'

This year's edition of the race will start in Alicante in Spain in October. When Volvo took over as sponsor of the race in 2001, stopover ports were added in its three biggest European car markets: France, Germany and Sweden.

As well as being used by Volvo to raise its profile, for those places that do get involved, the economic upside can be considerable. County Galway, on the west coast of Ireland, hosted a stopover for the nine month race in 2009, netting the economy an estimated 60 million euros (£54 million).

Middle Eastern interest

The 2011/2012 race will finish in Galway with an in-port race that is likely to attract huge crowds. Abu Dhabi is one of the new stopovers for this year. The kingdom, which is the first in the Middle East to host the race, sees its sponsorship of the event - which pulls into port on New Year's Eve - as one of its major tourism pushes for the year. A new marina is being built especially for the occasion, which Sheikh Sultan Bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, chairman of the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority, claims will 'take Abu Dhabi's marine leisure proposition to the world.'

It's not just the city sponsors who feel that they are getting value for money from Frostad's bespoke sponsorship approach. He also picks corporate sponsors who can be 'involved as a business' with the race. These include DHL, which provides the logistics for the race, IWM, which works on race timekeeping, and Inmarsat, which provides the satellite technology for communicating with the vessels involved.

Andrew Sukawaty, chairman and chief executive of Inmarsat, recently described the company's involvement as 'an excellent opportunity to demonstrate a variety of Inmarsat services', regarding the sponsorship as important enough to mention in his annual statement to shareholders.

Tim Doust, founding partner of marketing agency Inferno, said that more companies will have to learn from the VOR approach. 'Sponsorship going forward will be about establishing a genuine affinity with the event and tailored multi-platform campaigns that echo the event values,' he says.

Brands will finally stop 'badging' - the creatively redundant habit of slapping a logo on everything - asconsumers increasingly notice inappropriate brand partnerships and lazy branding. Instead, he says, like the different sponsorships involved in the VOR, corporate sponsorship can be tailored to the needs of different companies.

'Clients and brand managers are becoming ever more savvy when extracting the full potential of a corporate sponsorship. Campaigns must deliver on an increasing array of communications platforms, and sponsorship must adapt to each one.'

Frostad says that every partnership that VOR has signed is completely bespoke, and that the race organisers have to know exactly what each company sponsor is looking for. 'We need to know whether it is a business to business sponsorship, or a consumer one,' he says. Traditionally, many of the sponsorships were based around business relationships and hospitality, but this is changing.

As the race gets a bigger and bigger audience, it has more relevance to consumers,' he explains. 'With the bigger sports it is difficult to stand out, but we are quite niche and that can be good for them.'

For the VOR, the next challenge is keeping continuity with sponsors through several races, with team sponsors now being required to sign up for more than one edition of the race. For Generate Sponsorship's Muggleton, it is these sorts of partnerships that will provide the value that sponsors need going forward.

'We'll see brands investing in the longer-term, with more strategic consideration to sponsorships,' he says of the future. 'Key areas of investment are most likely to be digital and broadcast as well as brands using sponsorship to communicate commitment in areas such as 'bigger picture' sustainability.

'Most of all there will be an expectation that sponsorship will deliver return for the sponsor as brands need to be accountable for their investment.'

In the current economic atmosphere, it will be the events that are able to create the most value that will sail away with the sponsorship deals.

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