Sponsorship 2.0: the new high-impact marketing tool for companies

Why sponsorship? Long limited to a simple vehicle for visibility and hospitality, many companies are sceptical of its usefulness or do not maximise its potential. A new approach which might be better known as partnership, focusing on data and impact measurement has transformed it into a true marketing tool with unparalleled growth potential. Here is a look at this new approach to Sponsorship 2.0 and its benefits for companies.

To make this article easier to read, we shall first agree on a definition:

• Property = any organisation (cultural, sporting, economic, NGO, etc.) that can be sponsored by a company

To begin with, we feel it is important to point out that sponsorship should no longer be considered in terms of the media impact of your logo on external communication media. Indeed, beyond a very low degree of memorisation, being seen does not mean being liked and certainly is not key to generating commercial spin-offs. This is especially true when you are not directly affected by the main message of the communication.

Therefore, when we talk about Sponsorship 2.0, we are really talking about a partnership, i.e. a relationship based on co-creation and the active participation of the “sponsor” in the audience’s experience (sponsorship activation campaign).

Read more: the end of sponsorship

Select your sponsorship objectives from your marketing, sales, retention, HR or other business objectives. Don’t try to create sponsorship objectives that are not directly linked to your company’s objectives, as the objectives you choose will then form the basis of your actions and allow you to measure their impact on your company.

Also bear in mind that your sponsorship objectives must then be tailored specifically and precisely to each of the “properties” (sponsored organisations) with which you partner. Therefore, each property can potentially meet a different set of business objectives.

We also invite you to read our article “Why sponsor?” / “Measuring sponsorship” for more information on this topic.

In simple terms, a property can be defined by 4 main parts:

• an identity / an image
• expertise
• an hospitality offer
• a community

The community is nowadays of paramount importance and can be considered as the main added value of a partnership. Unlike a simple “brand audience”, this is a mobilised, committed public gathered around a common passion. This last part opens the door to communication with a much increased level of impact for your brand, provided, of course, that it is relevant and authentic in the eyes of the public.

The data available on the communities of different properties has also improved greatly in recent years. As a result, sponsors are now able to run campaigns targeted at specific segments of a wider community.

In summary, whatever your target audience, one or more partner properties will allow you to reach them in a more engaged, emotional and therefore more impactful way.

For more information: “The keys to a successful sponsorship campaign”.

Let us return for a moment to the parts that make up a property mentioned in the previous point. Expertise and hospitality offers are components that will allow you to positively impact the public’s perception of your brand, provided you use them legitimately.

When it comes to your brand’s image, the choice of properties must naturally be dictated by a coherent identity/image as much as by a target audience/community balance.

Therefore, the activation dynamics inherent in Sponsorship 2.0 will allow you to extend your brand universe or define its position in the market while benefiting from the engagement, passion and media buzz generated by the property(ies). From invitations to live experiences to bespoke content creation, Sponsorship 2.0 will allow you to develop all the material you need to bring your brand to life to grow your audience and turn it into a community of fans.

An activation campaign is not about entertainment, it is about taking the audience on a journey of conversion leading to increased business performance through customer acquisition and retention. Unlike a traditional visibility sponsorship operation, activating will allow you to have some control over the content that is distributed and to put in place tools and processes to track the customer journey with quantified data.

It is therefore essential to develop your activation campaigns in the form of a customer journey that naturally integrates measurement tools.

• discussing what role Sponsorship 2.0 can have in your strategy
• designing a Sponsorship 2.0 strategy based on your objectives
• developing a Sponsorship 2.0 activation campaign