Week 8- Sponsorship- Investing top dollar in the “goodwill” assets.

Week 8

Sponsorship- Investing top dollar in the “goodwill” assets.

Halo...Greetings Public Relations investors.....

This week readings made me think about public relations practice in that it may to a certain extent entails the practitioner to function as brokers, plotting strategic purchases of goodwill stocks through sponsorship. Unlike financial acquisition, investment in sponsorship is not a straightforward business of obtaining X amount of goodwill for Y amount of investment.

The intangible nature of goodwill involves greater risk, especially without a comprehensive Public Relations strategy. As such it becomes necessary to synergise the creative elements of development and logical aspects of implementation.

Ambush Marketing

Apart from meticulous planning, public relations professionals ought to anticipate rogue tactics deployed by “ambush marketers”. It was interesting to note that ambush marketing was not solely carried out by Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (SME) guerrillas, but also other big corporations.

Case study 13.4: Qantas and the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games

The readings highlighted the exigency of coming out with a fortified sponsorship programme. It requires more than an enormous war chest for a sponsorship campaign to be successful. Defensive arrangements have to be incorporated within a sponsorship set up.

Despite Ansett forking out 40- 50 million dollars to be the official airline sponsor of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, polls revealed that significant amount of people surveyed were certain that Qantas had signed up as the main sponsor.

Qantas had shrewdly invested in the use of high- profile athletes for advertising campaigns three years prior to the Olympics Games. This illustration provided me with a fresh perspective and revealed the importance of taking into account the timing factor. Public relations practitioners, who are too fixated on planning for the major event, may overlook the larger context and risk being outwitted by their competition.

Finding the right fit

Before embarking on an expensive sponsorship deal, the readings made a brief mention of finding the right fit between a firm’s specific associations and a sponsored cause. I found this to be an important subject matter that warrants more exploration. I discovered that failure to recognise this issue may squander huge investments and lead to a detrimental outcome, especially in terms of reputation.

To exemplify my point, I refer to an academic article titled “Achieving Marketing Objectives Through Social Sponsorships”. (JOURNAL OF MARKETING). The article highlighted that sponsorship is not the simple transfer of positive affect from sponsored causes to sponsoring firms.

The article discloses:

1. The fit between a firm’s specific associations and a sponsored cause can reinforce or blur the firm’s positioning, influence liking for the sponsorship, and bolster or undermine the firm’s equity.

2. Sponsorship effects can persist for as long as a year despite day-to-day exposure to other brand communications.

3. Communications decisions can mitigate the negative effects of low fit.

I think the key points to remember from this week's readings were that the mammoth task of undertaking a sponsorship deal requires a gigantic overview of events. The readings has covered much on the creation, implementation and monitoring of a sponsorship roadmap. As public relations practitioners sought to shape public perception for their organisation, it is necessary for them to raise critical questions to merit the investment. I personally felt that that sponsorship is multi- layered and its complexity lies not merely in the planning and implementation stages but is compounded in its implication.

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