Marketing Communications

362 CHAPTER 11 SPONSORSHIP

and its overall communications strategy. Th e eventual shortlist of potential candidates for

sponsorship will ultimately depend on the relative weights of the criteria used and the available

sponsorship budget.

Budgets

Obviously, it is impossible to provide detailed guidelines as to the required budgets of a spon-

sorship campaign. Budgets should depend on the expected eff ectiveness or return in terms of

exposure, communications eff ects and sales or market share impact (see below). As in com-

munications campaigns in general, the objective-and-task method is called for. Sponsorship

decision-makers should decide on the objectives they want to achieve, assess to what extent

a sponsorship programme can contribute to these objectives and try to calculate how large an

economically meaningful sponsorship budget should be. Needless to say, in most cases this

is a cumbersome task.

However, sponsorship-linked budgets are not limited to the expenditures directly related

to the sponsored event or cause, but also encompass all communications eff orts and budgets

that are spent leveraging the investments in the activity or cause. Buying the sponsorship

rights is indeed ‘just a licence to spend more money to leverage the initial investment’. For

instance, Coca-Cola spent $40 million to become an offi cial sponsor of the 1996 Olympics,

and an estimated $500 million to leverage this status.^72 A Canadian study revealed that only

37% of sports sponsors do not provide an additional support budget. But almost 20% allocate

an additional budget of 50% of the sponsoring budget or more to communications support

activities.

Indeed, there are diff erent reasons why sponsorship should be supported by other media

eff orts. Firstly, as has already been mentioned, sponsorship has its limitations. Very oft en

brand awareness and brand image are supported, but other necessary communications and

commercial objectives, like building knowledge about the brand and generating sales, will

Table 11.3 Assessment criteria for sponsorship proposals

Sponsored event or cause Potential promotional spin-off Budget

z Type of event or cause

z Quality level or image of the event

z Target groups

z Compatibility between sponsored

event and company’s promotional

strategy

z Strategic fit between event or cause

and company or brand name

z Uniqueness of sponsorship or place

of the company in the list of

sponsors

z Length of impact

z Geographic scope

z Company’s role in decision-making

z Protection against ambush

marketing

z Event’s own communications plan

z Estimated media coverage

z Quantity and quality of exposure

z Fit between company’s and event’s

communications strategy

z Interest with employees

z Corporate hospitality potential

z Sales promotion spin-off potential

z PR spin-off potential

z Advertising spin-off potential

z Amount of supporting advertising

or PR activity needed

z Chance of negative or no media

exposure

z Measurability and evaluation of

effectiveness

z Costs in cash or kind

z Alternative investment for budget

and expected return

z Budget for supporting marketing

activity

z Time implications for own staff

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