Worldwide OfficesSponsorship: the prizes and the pitfalls
The Edinburgh International Festival will come to an end this Sunday and, as always, the grand finale will be the spectacular fireworks display over the Castle.
For the last sixteen years, the Bank of Scotland has sponsored the event but, in July, they indicated that this was the last year that they would do so. Now part of the Lloyds Group, which has shed some 15,000 jobs since the recent crisis in the banking sector, the bank has decided that it is perhaps the wrong time to literally be sending large sums of money up in smoke.
The Royal Bank of Scotland has also been trimming its sponsorship deals of late. Over the last couple of months, they have announced that they will no longer be sponsoring The Scottish Open Championship or the Williams Formula One team.
In both cases, ending the sponsorship seems a pragmatic response to banks’ current image problems. Widely perceived to be responsible for the financial stresses of the last two years, the banks’ donations are likely to be misinterpreted. Rather than being seen as putting money into wider society, the banks run the risk of being portrayed in the media as squandering taxpayer’s money. Worse still, they lay themselves open to media accusations of sponsoring events in order to create corporate ‘jollies’.
Recently, the Edinburgh Comedy Awards have also had a few potentially sticky moments. Formerly known as the Perrier Awards, its organisers announced in May that the beer brand Fosters was to be its new sponsor. All was well until they launched a public voting competition to find a Comedy God drawn from the winners and nominees of the last thirty years.
Influential stand-up comedian Stewart Lee denounced the Comedy God awards. According to Lee, it was a ruse on the sponsor’s behalf to make sure that they became associated with a recent, mainstream comic such as Michael McIntyre or Russell Howard. Lee suggested that obscure Japanese dance troupe the Frank Chickens, who were nominated in the Eighties, should win the competition.
Lee’s subversive suggestion went viral and the Frank Chickens duly won the Comedy Gods award. Michael McIntyre and Russell Howard were the runners-up. Stewart Lee won a Malcolm Hardee Award for the Best Cunning Stunt and the Fosters Edinburgh Comedy Awards got some publicity that they probably didn’t want.
So, does this little selection of unfortunate tales mean that Vistage Scotland members should avoid sponsorship? No, of course not, but you do need to think very carefully about which events or organisations best fit your brand and think through any potential downsides.
However, get it right and sponsorship can be a very effective tool for companies to communicate their brand message and boost their corporate social responsibilities kudos. The blog spoke to Charlotte Di Corpo, Head of Development at Edinburgh Festivals. Her comments are about sponsoring the arts in Scotland but the principles would hold true when it comes to sponsoring other events or organisations.
‘Business sponsorship of the arts, with all its educational and cultural benefits, offers companies a dynamic way of demonstrating good corporate conduct and contribute to cultural life in Scotland. But there is much more to it than that.
‘Cultural and commercial collaborations now create tangible return on investment for both sides. Successful partnerships with the arts are often key drivers of new business, providing high quality and unique client entertaining opportunities, allowing companies to demonstrate their core values and in some cases showcase their product.’
4:24 pm on September 1st, 2010
As a sponsorship consultant operating in Scotland, I couldn’t agree more with the conclusion of this piece and Charlotte’s comments.
Of course brands should think carefully before going into new sponsorship deals and they need to make these decisions based on their own objectives – just as they do with other areas of marketing spend. But sponsorship is certainly a useful and cost-effective tool and, activated well, can meet a whole variety of objectives and deliver real results to businesses.