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The Article Bank
194 how-to articles on doing sponsorship properly — for the people who sponsor, and the people who seek sponsorship. Free, ungated, and added to regularly.
Showing all 194 articles
The Ten Biggest Questions Brand Managers Ask about Sponsorship
Like most people, I’ve been working with AI across a lot of functions. I’m working out effective ways to use AI with sponsorship, and…
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Rightsholders: This is How It FEELS to Do Sponsorship Right
I’ve created many dozens of blogs, white papers, tutorials, and more all about how to do best practice sponsorship, as well as the…
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Sponsorship Leverage Workshop: The Easiest and Highest-Leverage Way to Add Value to Your Sponsors
When I talk to rightsholders about adding value to their sponsors – AKA sponsorship servicing – some rightsholders have no idea what I’m…
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Diversified vs Non-Diversified Sponsorship Portfolios: A Guide for Sponsors
Over the years, I’ve had so many people ask whether it’s better to have a diversified or focused (non-diversified) sponsorship portfolio…
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Sponsorship in a Recession: A Sponsor’s Guide
The sponsorship industry is staring down the possibility of serious economic crisis. Many economists are predicting a global recession,…
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Recession-Proofing Your Sponsorship Program: A Rightsholder’s Guide
This blog was originally written in January 2020, before COVID-19 brought recession down on the world. Since then, the economy has been…
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Introducing the All-New Corporate Sponsorship Toolkit 2nd Edition
After a very long writing and publishing process, my brand new book is finally out and available to sponsorship professionals worldwide…
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What is the Role of a Corporate Sponsorship Manager?
I’ve written blog after blog after article after book about the collaborative nature of sponsorship; how it requires both broad buy-in and a…
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Rightsholders: How to Spot a Sponsorship Lie (and What to Do about It)
Sponsorship lies are ubiquitous in our industry. It’s a temptation to call them “white lies” because they’re usually not intentionally…
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8 Must-Have Organisational Traits for Successful Rightsholders
I’ve spent a bit of time over the past few years covering the traits you want and don’t want in sponsorship managers, but as important as it…
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How Long Should You Follow Up on a Sponsorship Proposal?
This is a pretty common question in my inbox, with many rightsholders telling me that they’ve left “literally dozens” of voicemails or had…
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Sponsors: How to Get the Right Sponsorship Consultant for the Job
Lots of sponsors hire sponsorship consultants or agencies, and I’d hazard a guess that most of them go pretty well. But if you’ve been in…
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How Do You Get a Fire-Sale Sponsor to Renew at a Realistic Level?
You shouldn’t have. You know you shouldn’t have. But you did. You sold a sponsorship at way below market value because time was getting…
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What Artificial Intelligence Really Thinks of Sponsorship
A few days ago, I did a few updates on my white paper, Disruptive Sponsorship. One of the things that needed updating was the AI sponsorship…
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Rightsholders: 7 Questions that will Transform Your Sponsorship Results
Being successful at selling and retaining sponsorship requires a sophisticated approach, a number of critical skills, and a replicable…
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The Limitations of Data-Driven Marketing and Sponsorship
Data is a huge thing in marketing. From big data forecasting to person-level customer journeys, attribution models to unified marketing…
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New Podcast: For the Love of Sponsorship
A couple of months ago, I sat down for an interview about sponsorship with charming Irishman, Stephen Bradshaw, from the fantastic podcast,…
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Sponsorship Selection for Smart Sponsors
Sponsorship is a lot of work. Getting a sponsorship from go-ahead to delivering measurable results against your objectives requires effort,…
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Do You Need a Sponsorship Expert for Your Podcast?
Over the years, I’ve been on a lot of podcasts talking about sponsorship. I’ve been on podcasts for brand marketers and rightsholders;…
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What Is the Real Driver for Sponsorship Leverage?
I talk a lot about sponsorship leverage, but it’s so critically important to sponsorship results that it warrants a lot of attention.…
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Rightsholders’ Guide to Using AI for Sponsorship
“Can I use artificial intelligence to write my sponsorship proposals?” I’m hearing this question a lot. And the answer is that you CAN use…
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How Many Times Do You Have to Miss Your Sponsorship Target before You Change Your Approach?
How many times will you miss your sponsorship target? How many times will you scramble for rats and mice sponsorship to make up a shortfall?…
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“But Sponsorship Leverage Costs Money!”
For years, I’ve had the same protest at sponsor workshops. I go through the benefits of sponsorship leverage and a bunch of case studies,…
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What Time of Year Should I Seek Sponsorship?
I get this question a lot. The expectation is that there will be some magic window where the yesses will be plentiful. The good news is that…
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Can You Target Multiple Sponsors at the Same Time?
This is a question I get at least a couple of times a week. Generally, it refers to approaching multiple sponsors in the same category – ice…
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How to Increase Sponsorship Revenue: Getting Creative with Benefits
You want more sponsorship revenue. Everyone does. The problem is that you only have so many benefits to offer, so if you want more money,…
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The Sponsorship Consistency Conundrum for CMOs
You’re the Chief Marketing Officer of a large multinational, or a Group Marketing Manager, overseeing multiple major brands. Whatever your…
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Why You Should Never Use a Scorecard to Assess Sponsorships
If you read this blog with any frequency, it won’t come as any surprise that I have a few sponsorship-related pet peeves. One of my biggest…
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Why Associations Suck at Sponsorship, and How to Fix It
My normal approach is to write blogs and other materials that are centred on the various skills, strategies, and pitfalls around sponsorship…
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Should We Hire a Sponsorship Valuation Service?
Selling sponsorship is hard. Even if you do it perfectly, you’ll still hear “no” more than “yes”, and if your skills are less than best…
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How to Shift a Sponsor’s Mindset on Measurement
These days, sponsorship measurement is sophisticated, multi-faceted, and creates a holistic picture of the results achieved. Sponsors forego…
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The Bear Grylls Guide to Sponsorship Renewals
I loved Man vs Wild. I mean, who would have thought being a survivalist could be sexy? Thankfully, Bear Grylls is still at it, because I…
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How to Right-Size Your Sponsorship Leverage Activities
Any regular reader of this blog knows that I talk a lot about sponsorship being win-win-win. That third win is for the target markets, with…
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Tick Tock: The Most Precious Resource in Sponsorship is Time
If you asked one hundred sponsorship professionals what the most precious resource in our industry is, ninety-nine of them would say “money”…
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Rightsholder Sponsorship Strategies for a Great Year
It’s early in the year, the time when we look at twelve months stretching out in front of us, and the sponsorship possibilities seem…
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Sponsor Strategies for a Great Year
Here we are, at the beginning of the year – 365 days where you can stick with the status quo, for more of the same uninspired approach…
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What Every CMO Needs to Know about Sponsorship (Redux)
I write a lot about sponsorship – books, blogs, white papers – and virtually all of it is aimed at the frontline sponsorship and brand…
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How Not to Sell Sponsorship: A Guide for Charities
Organisations with charitable status often have enormous commercial potential, but more often than not, that potential goes unrealised.…
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6 Critical Strategies for Sponsorship Negotiation
In the past, I’ve tackled a lot of aspects of negotiation, but I haven’t really blogged about the basics of the whole negotiation process…
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What Should You Do When Your Board Sets Unrealistic Sponsorship Targets?
If you’re a rightsholder – particularly in the non-profit or charitable space – your board probably holds a lot of sway over…
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Using Sponsorship to Support DEI and ESG Initiatives (and Not Just Pay Lip Service)
DEI and ESG have been percolating away in the corporate world for a while, but in the past few years, have exploded. The profile of these…
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Why I’m Not the Right Sponsorship Consultant for You
I’m a sponsorship consultant, undertaking sponsorship reviews, developing strategies, and building organisational sponsorship capacity. I…
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No Excuses: It’s Time for Developing Sponsorship Markets to Grow Up
Sponsorship sophistication varies around the world. There are mature, sophisticated sponsorship markets, developing markets, and some…
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Is It Better to Have Fewer, Bigger Sponsors or More, Smaller Sponsors?
I get this question quite a bit. Is it better to have fewer, larger sponsors, or more, smaller sponsors? The implication is that the choice…
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How to Ride Out a Bad Sponsorship (and Get Out Gracefully, when the Time is Right)
Just about every rightsholder in the world can run through their sponsorship portfolio, noting the great sponsors, the improving sponsors,…
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Should You Have Opt-Out Clauses in your Sponsorship Contracts?
I was recently involved in a debate about whether multi-year contracts are preferable to year-to-year deals. I make no bones about my…
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Sponsorship and Emerging/Improving Technology: The Rules of Engagement
I’m a nerd, and I love technology. My office, home, and travel is peppered with ridiculously-specced gear, and I don’t know what I’d do…
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Why Great Sponsorship Requires Both Right- and Left-Brain Thinkers (and How to Get the Best out of Them)
Yeah, I know. The left/right brain thing has been largely debunked. But it’s still accepted shorthand for tasks and people that are more…
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39 Ways to Ensure You Don’t Sell Sponsorship
My blog is full of advice on how to sell sponsorship – the strategies, angles, and pitfalls. But in order to find the right…
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ChatGPT May Be New, but Its Views on Corporate Sponsorship Are Stuck in the Nineties
Like so many people in recent days, I’ve been giving ChatGPT a run. And like so many people, I’ve found it to be fun… and amazing… and…
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A Sponsor’s Guide to Getting Buy-In (and Why It’s Crucial to Great Sponsorship)
Way back at the beginning of my career, I worked for an agency that leveraged mostly sports sponsorships for Fortune 500 companies. My…
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How to Build Sponsor Relationships
There are people in this industry who will tell you that sponsorship is all about relationships, and that building personal relationships…
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Why You May Be Better Off Without a Sponsorship Broker
Every week, my various inboxes overflow with questions from around the world, and the two things I’m asked most are whether I will sell…
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5 Bad Habits Sponsors Need to Leave Behind
COVID had a big impact on the sponsorship industry. The negative impacts were readily apparent, but there were also a lot of positive…
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Most Important Post-COVID Sponsorship Strategies for Rightsholders
A few days ago, I wrote a similar blog for corporate sponsors, listing the sponsorship strategies that have emanated from, and been…
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Most Important Post-COVID Sponsorship Strategies for Sponsors
I know, I know… COVID isn’t over. But what we are seeing is what public health experts are calling a shift into the “new normal”, and with…
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Why Sponsorship Leverage is Like Boxing
After four months of lockdown, I was finally back in the boxing gym yesterday and wow, am I sore today. Actually, it’s not the muscles I use…
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Sponsorship Industry Scammer, Matthew Delmore, Sentenced to Federal Prison
Matthew Delmore was sentenced in US Federal Court today, 29 October 2021, for his role as the leader and primary beneficiary of a…
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Should We Bother Measuring Sponsorship Awareness or Exposure at All?
I’ve been getting this question often, of late. The good news is that most of the sponsors that ask have moved on from visibility-based…
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What Is the Role of a Sponsorship Sales Manager?
A little while back, I wrote a blog about the role of a corporate sponsorship manager, which should be a much broader role than it’s usually…
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Ronaldo and Coca-Cola Make It Clear: It’s Time for Major Rightsholders to Grow Up
“Cristiano Ronaldo snub wipes billions off Coca-Cola’s market value.” That was the 16 June headline in The Guardian. But they were hardly…
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How to Manage (or Get Rid of) a Senior Executive’s Pet Sponsorship
In many ways, the Global Financial Crisis of 07-08 was one of the best things that ever happened to the sponsorship industry. As the level…
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Can Sponsors Help Teams Sell Tickets?
That was the question I had to address at a conference a while back. My opinion? Of course sponsors can help teams sell tickets. Great…
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Top 11 Sponsorship Proposal Killers
I see a lot of sponsorship proposals, and most of them are terrible. Your property may be amazing, but if your proposal is awful, you’re not…
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My Top Five Priorities for Sponsorship Selection
This is another total rewrite of a very popular blog from a few years ago, and while the advice from back then still holds, my top five…
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How to Structure a Sponsorship Portfolio
Most of my blogs address issues and opportunities presented by individual sponsorships or overall approaches. It isn’t often that I address…
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The One Critical Skill Most Sponsorship Professionals Lack
Sponsorship isn’t easy. It’s complex and sophisticated and it requires many very specific skills to do it well. But there is one skill that…
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Sponsors: What If You Could Start Over?
It’s still early in the year – the time when people wipe the slate, make resolutions, and dedicate themselves to doing better. It’s when…
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Sponsorship is Unallocated Funds, End of Story
I recently had an interesting question. A charitable organisation was advised by their lawyers that they were obliged to spend sponsorship…
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Last Generation Sponsorship Redux
It’s been over two decades, and a million downloads, since I first wrote “Last Generation Sponsorship”. I’ve done…
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The Most and Least Powerful Sponsorship Benefits
Back when I started in this industry, visibility ruled, and the most powerful thing any sponsor could get was lots of logo exposure –…
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How Much Should You Budget for Sponsorship Leverage?
This is a big rewrite of one of my most popular blogs for sponsors. It’s actually the second full rewrite, since I first wrote it…
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6 Ways Sponsors Can Be Jerks, Without Even Knowing
This blog is for all the sponsors out there. And no, I don’t think you’re a bunch of jerks. Not at all. But there are some things that a lot…
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Can’t Keep Up? 3 Ways to Better Manage Sponsorship Proposal Assessment
Some sponsors receive dozens of unsolicited proposals a month. Some receive hundreds. Others, thousands. It’s a relentless firehose of…
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How to Exit a Sponsorship
Looking at the title, I think I probably should have been more specific. I mean, there are dozens of ways to exit a sponsorship, including…
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The Zero Guilt Trip Guide to Raising More Cultural Sponsorship
A few years ago, I came across an article entitled, “Sponsorship is Dead! Long Live Corporate Cultural Responsibility”. This article is a…
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Why Having a Strong Marketing Plan is Critical for Sponsorship Sales Success
I can hear you. You’re asking yourself what a marketing plan has to do with sponsorship sales. And I’m here to tell you that it has…
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Diary of a Sponsorship Loser
I hear a lot of stories from rightsholders. Stories filled with frustration, anguish, and sheer desperation. Most of the time, all of that…
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Action Plan: What to Do when a Big Sponsor Exits
This is the nightmare for much of our industry. I’m guessing some of you may develop a facial tic just thinking about it! And yet, it…
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How to Create a “Balanced” Sponsorship Portfolio
The other day, I had someone ask me how to ensure a sponsor’s sponsorship portfolio was “balanced” across sponsorship categories. Her…
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Favourite Sponsorship Leverage Hack: Don’t Sponsor the Property, Sponsor the Fans
I’ve published a few sponsorship hacks over the years. Most of them have to do with a process shortcut – something to streamline or speed up…
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4 Warning Signs that a Sponsor is Planning to Exit
Have you ever been blindsided by a sponsor exiting? Thought a renewal was a sure thing, or at least a strong probability, only to get a…
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Sponsorship Proposal Hack: The Invention Test
I love Masterchef, and one of my favourite challenges is the invention test. If you’re not a cooking nerd, like I am, the invention test is…
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4 Warning Signs that Your Sponsorship Proposals Suck
I’ve lamented on a few occasions about the bad news I often have to give to rightsholders. A lot of it has to do with the quality of the…
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Are Sponsors Worth the Headache?
This was a question I came across a while back. To be fair, the person who asked wasn’t that blunt, but had definitely seen a lot of…
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Five Reasons Sponsors Should Consider an Umbrella Sponsorship Portfolio
I love umbrella portfolios. I make no bones about it. They’re powerful, flexible, and super-efficient – what’s not to…
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The Dos and Don’ts of Sponsorship Research
While there are lots of ways to measure sponsorship, how to conduct sponsorship research is often the most vexing. The thing is, sponsorship…
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The Enemy of Effective Sponsorship Measurement
I’ve written at length about sponsorship measurement in books and blogs, but I’ve never really addressed why sponsorship measurement so…
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It’s Not the Size of the Sponsorship, It’s What You Do with It
“We sponsor a great little organisation, but their reach is so small, how do we make this work for our brand?” “Our event is smallish and…
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Sponsorship Measurement: How to Measure What’s Important
A while back, I read a blog by Seth Godin. In it, he asked a question that has stuck in my head ever since: Do you measure it because it’s…
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Dos and Don’ts of Sponsorship Proposal Assessment [Infographic]
How complicated can sponsorship proposal assessment be? I mean, you just look at the back page for the price, and if you don’t fall…
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Should Sports Uniforms Carry Sponsor Logos?
I speak at a lot of conferences, and one question that comes up in North America – and nowhere else – is whether sports uniforms…
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Sponsorship Multi-Tools: The Holy Grail for Sponsors
If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say almost all of us has at least one multi-tool. I’ve got a much-loved, 20-year old Gerber that lives in…
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What Should a Sponsor Do If a Rightsholder Doesn’t Deliver Contracted Benefits?
I recently worked with a sponsor that had a major sponsorship with a professional sporting body, but when the rightsholder failed to deliver…
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How Do You Sell Sponsorship to an Old-School Sponsor?
The sophistication level of sponsors increased dramatically in the aftermath of the global recession of 2007-2008, as sponsors had to deal…
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Sponsorship Benefits Every Sponsor Should Want
Sponsorship is an amazingly creative medium. Unfortunately, most sponsors still lack the imagination to really harness it. Either that or…
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Sponsorship Beginners Can’t Get a Break (nor Should They)
I get emails all the time from people who read my blogs or watch my tutorials. Most have specific questions or just want to thank me for the…
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Corporate Sponsorship SAQ (Should-Ask Questions)
A while back, I wrote a blog entitled “If the Answer is a Sponsorship Formula, You’re Asking the Wrong Question”. Ever since, I have…
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5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Send Your Sponsorship Proposals to Consultants
I had a very typical situation today that took an almost surreal turn. I was on television being interviewed about sponsorship one night. By…
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Should a Sponsor Pay for Extended Benefits?
You’re a sponsor. You sponsor a team that has just got into the finals/playoffs. The team enacts the contract clause that states you either…
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Should a Sponsor Exit if an Event is Cancelled?
“Social distance.” As COVID-19 takes hold around the world, this is our lives now. To mitigate the virus’ spread, we’re being…
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Sponsors: 4 Renewal Strategies for Reinventing Your Sponsorship
You’ve been sponsoring a property for a while and renewal time is coming up. Sometimes, what you need to do is a no-brainer; the experience…
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Is It Ever Okay to Invest in Sponsorship for Defensive Reasons?
When it comes to sponsorship selection, there are a number of great reasons to commit to a sponsorship. There are also a few bad reasons…
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Why Be a Sponsor?
That’s a good question, and one I get more than you would think. Over the past decade or so, sponsors all over the world have looked at the…
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4 Minor Changes That Could Create Major Improvements in Your Sponsorship Results
When it comes to annual sponsorship plans, many sponsors simply pull out last year’s plans, update a few figures, and do the same thing…
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How to Manage Regional Sponsorship Management
You’re a brand or sponsorship manager, working in your corporate headquarters. You’re handling the national and/or global sponsorship…
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Sponsorship Pricing Basics
I get more questions about sponsorship pricing than any other aspect of sponsorship. I wish there were an easy answer – a magic wand I could…
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Psychographics: An Overlooked Building Block for Sponsorship Sales
So, you target women 18-34, living in your geographic catchment area. That seems specific enough. So, how are you going to entice them to…
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Sponsorship Leverage vs Activation: The Difference and Why It Matters
I recently wrote a blog about the longstanding issue around whether to call what we do “sponsorship” or “partnership”. So you know, the…
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Sponsorship vs Partnership: Will This Argument Ever End?
Air New Zealand recently posted an amazing video, featuring their staff welcoming the All Blacks home from the Rugby World Cup with a haka.…
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8 Toxic Traits a Corporate Sponsorship Manager Shouldn’t Have
A while back, I wrote a blog entitled, “8 Traits of a Great Corporate Sponsorship Manager”. I think that gives a good rundown on the type of…
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5 Ways Rightsholders Need to Get Over Themselves
You’re great. No, really… you, your organisation, your properties, are all wonderful. I wish I could meet you all, and I could happily go to…
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How to Hire a Corporate Sponsorship Consultant
Sponsorship consultants are a dime a dozen – I’m one – but we are far from a homogenous group. When it comes to hiring one to assist with…
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What Esports Fans Can Teach Brands about Sponsorship
Esports are exploding. That’s not news. Unsurprisingly, esports sponsorship is also exploding, and there is some great sponsorship happening…
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11 Good Reasons to Exit a Sponsorship (and 5 Bad Ones)
I was inspired by a great question I got recently, and am writing a couple of blogs on exiting sponsorships. This one is about why you…
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The Number One Job of a Sponsorship Proposal (and It’s Not What You Think)
You spend a lot of time crafting your pitch – what you are going to say to pique a sponsor’s interest and the proposal you leave behind. I…
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How to Spot a Sponsorship Broker Scam (and One Broker You Should Avoid)
Really good sponsorship brokers are rare. They have extensive connections, strong skills, and a good work ethic. They’ll represent your…
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Do You Really Need a Sponsorship Policy?
Sponsorship is an exciting, vibrant, creative, and ever-changing industry. We’re lucky to be a part of it. But like all jobs, there are…
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Sponsors: 8 Ways to Ensure Your Sponsorship Portfolio Underperforms
I’ve blogged on and on about the big issues that affect our industry; about the critical factors that drive sponsorship results. But…
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You’ve Got the Big Sponsor, Here’s How Not to Screw It Up
The sponsorship industry is rife with advice on how to sell sponsorship. A quick search of the web will net you literally thousands of…
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6 Reasons You’re Better Off without That Sponsor
Sponsors mean money, so it makes perfect sense to try to retain all of the sponsors you possibly can. Honestly, though, there are times when…
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5 Ways Sponsors Abuse the Privilege
A few years ago, I started using a new word around sponsorship – “privilege”. At one point, I was trying to convey the critical importance…
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How to Find Out Who to Contact for Corporate Sponsorship
This now fully updated blog has been the most popular blog on this website since it was first posted. Meeting with, and getting your offer…
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8 Traits of a Great Corporate Sponsorship Manager
I’m often asked by clients to assist in writing the job description for hiring and managing sponsorship staff. What I come up with is…
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The Best Sponsorship is Process-Driven Sponsorship
For most sponsors, decisions to invest in or renew a sponsorship are based primarily on analysis against a set of criteria. This may seem…
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Does Sponsorship Affect Share Price?
A few years back, I read an article entitled, “The Impact of Sponsorship on Share Price Brand Value”. The main assertion is that companies…
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How to Save a Sponsorship in 5 Minutes
We’ve all been there. You start negotiating a sponsorship that you thought was a dead cert to renew, and it’s suddenly looking…
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Is First Right of Refusal the Sponsorship Equivalent of a Ball and Chain?
First right of refusal is a valuable defensive benefit for a sponsor, guaranteeing them the opportunity to review and take up a new…
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The First Sponsor Meeting (and How Not to Make an Idiot of Yourself)
The first meeting with a sponsor is both the most important, and the easiest to screw up. Sponsors know what they want to hear, they know…
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What to Do if a Sponsor Says, “Just Send Me a Sponsorship Proposal”
When you hear that, what do you think? Some rightsholders are delighted that they’ve been asked to submit a proposal. The more astute…
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Four Other Reasons You Might Need a Sponsorship Consultant
The normal role of a sponsorship consultant is to offer expert strategic advice, generally based on a reasonably long history of doing good…
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Sponsors’ Guide to Avoiding Mediocrity
Sponsors all over the world are embracing best practice sponsorship – adding value to the fan experience, aligning with fan and customer…
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The Sponsors’ Guide to Breaking Sponsorship Rules and Changing the Game
I can admit it: I’m a nerd. I love science fiction, hate JarJar Binks, and have stood in my back garden waving at the International Space…
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Should Your Community Sponsorships Be Managed Separately from Other Sponsorships?
I’ve lost count of the number of sponsors I’ve worked with who managed their community sponsorship portfolio separately from their other…
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6 Warning Signs Your Sponsorship Has Passed Its Use-By Date
Sponsorships get stale. And when they get stale, they don’t work. What was a great sponsorship or an awesome leverage idea several years…
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What Should a Rightsholder Include in a Year-End Sponsorship ROI Report?
Nothing. Measuring sponsorship is not your job. You’re probably thinking to yourself, “If I can’t prove what the…
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How to Create Sponsorship Vision
Best practice sponsorship is strategic. It’s creative. It’s amazingly multifaceted, measurable, and just bloody amazing. But it’s also very…
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How Do Sponsors Evaluate Sponsorship Proposals?
Sponsorship proposal evaluation comes down to two major factors: What you offer; and who you submit it to. These are the factors that will…
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Why You Shouldn’t Sell Sponsor Mentions as a Sponsorship Benefit
It used to be that 99% of sponsorship proposals were made up of the following four or five benefits: Logos on things Tickets to things Some…
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Herding Cats: Getting Your Regions to Deliver a National Sponsorship
I have worked with a lot of big rightsholders, and one of their biggest challenges is how to get the regional offices to deliver national…
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Ambush Marketing has Never Been Easier… or More Pointless
I was recently discussing sponsorship with a brand manager, when she said that she didn’t understand why brands would bother with…
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Valuing Contra vs Cash Sponsorship
How to value contra, otherwise known as in-kind, sponsorship is a question I get almost every day. What is most interesting is how…
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5 Things Your Sponsorship Consultant Probably Won’t Tell You
Over the past few years, I’ve had several consulting jobs where I’ve been the second consultant hired in less than a year. Either the…
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The Problem with Sponsorship Levels
This is a total rewrite of one of my most popular blogs. For years, this blog has sat squarely in the top five, and according to analytics,…
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Rightsholder Research that Really Benefits the Sponsors
“Can you name any of the sponsors of this event?” If that question is never asked again, our industry would be better for it. It’s…
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Disruptive Sponsorship: Like Disruptive Marketing, Only Better (white paper)
My latest white paper is all about how sponsorship broke the ground that Disruptive Marketing is now claiming, and how we’re going to…
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Sponsorship, Data, and Maximising Brand Returns [Infographic]
With the huge, new focus on developing giant data sets – for analytics, for micro-targeting – some sponsors have lost their way on…
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The New Swear Words of Sponsorship: Sponsor Edition
I recently wrote a blog on The New Swear Words of Sponsorship for rightsholders. But rightsholders aren’t alone in this sponsorship…
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The New Swear Words of Sponsorship: Rightsholder Edition
Years ago – like, seriously, twenty-five years ago – I did a presentation at a major conference where I called “exposure” and “awareness”…
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Attention Non-Profits: Your Mission Statement is Irrelevant
I have lost count of the number of sponsorship proposals that feature – even open with – a non-profit’s mission statement. These are the…
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Don’t Send a Sponsorship Proposal Until You Read This
Most sponsorship proposals are total crap. They are all about the rightsholder, not taking the sponsor’s needs or markets into consideration…
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Can’t Keep Up? 5 Ways to Simplify Sponsorship Servicing
Back when I started in this business, sponsor servicing was almost non-existent. Properties (usually) delivered the benefits, then the next…
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Think an Online Form Will Make Sponsorship Selection Easier? Think Again!
Over the years, I’ve been involved in several lively discussions about the value of online sponsorship submission forms. The response…
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Should We Break Up Sponsorship Sales and Servicing Roles?
This is a question I’ve had with increasing frequency the past few years from (usually) larger rightsholders. Most of them have been…
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Why Using Sponsorship for Data Acquisition is a Bad Idea
Sponsors around the world are becoming preoccupied with data acquisition – to the point where it is a primary goal of many sponsorship…
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5 Sponsorship Negotiation Mistakes that Hurt Your Bottom Line (and Make You Look Dumb)
You’ve got a sponsor interested in your property. You must have done a few things right, and congratulations for that. Unfortunately,…
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If the Answer is a Sponsorship Formula, You’re Asking the Wrong Question
“What proportion of our sponsorship portfolio should be made up of sports, arts, community events, etc?” “How much should we spend on…
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The Rejection Letter Sponsors Wish They Could Send
A while back, there was a social media stir about an over-the-top rejection letter sent to 900 candidates for a job in the IT industry.…
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Which Generation Corporate Sponsor Are You?
I’ve been doing sponsorship a very long time, and I’ve seen the growth of best practice through four very distinct generations. When we…
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Six Signs a Sponsor is Just Not That into You
Rejection sucks. We all hate it, and it’s even worse when we don’t see it coming. But, there are a few signs that rightsholders…
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What’s the Best Layout of a Sponsorship Deck and the Acceptable Number of Pages?
If you were a fly on the wall of my office, you would have been wondering why I was yelling at my computer screen last week. I had seen that…
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How Much Should You Pay a Sponsorship Broker?
I was recently involved as an expert witness in a case involving sponsorship broker remuneration. As I reeled through all of the ways a…
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Rightsholders: Please Stop Doing Audience Division
“We’re projecting attendance of over 17,000. With your $20,000 sponsorship, that means you can reach all of them for just over a dollar…
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How to Use Your Website to Sell Sponsorship
I get a lot of unsolicited emails – okay, spam – trying to sell me sponsorship. Leaving to the side the fact that I’m not a sponsor, I’m…
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Five Reasons Sponsors Resist Change
I meet a lot of sponsors, and something that strikes me with alarming frequency is the fact that so many of them are quite aware of what…
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How to Increase Sponsorship Revenue: Getting Creative with Benefits [Infographic]
After writing my recent blog, How to Increase Sponsorship Revenue: Getting Creative with Benefits, I realised that there was a great way to…
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Selling Multi-Brand Sponsorship: The Cheat Sheet
A while back, I stumbled across a post by Oxfam, showcasing the best performers in their Behind the Brands Scorecard. That is, in and of…
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Negotiating and Managing Multi-Brand Sponsorship
I tell rightsholders all the time, “Don’t approach the company, approach the brand”. The underlying principle is that companies will…
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Why Governments Should Never Put Sponsorship Out to Tender
Over the years, I’ve had a steady stream of questions about putting sponsorship out to tender. The questions invariably come from…
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Sponsorship Sales Rule #1: Sell What Sells, Not What You Need Money For
Every day, my inbox fills with messages from people who want advice about selling sponsorship. There is nothing wrong with that – I’m happy…
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7 Reasons You Should Want Multi-Year Sponsorship Contracts
I see too many one-year proposals. Way too many. Some rightsholders seem to be under the impression that it will be easier for a sponsor to…
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Anatomy of an Ugly Sponsorship Renewal
I work with some amazing, committed sponsorship professionals, spanning industries and on both sides of the equation. But as smart and…
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The Minefield of Selling Major Sponsorship to a CEO
A while back, I was forwarded a link to a video showcasing how Chelsea Football Club went about replacing their principal partner. The link…
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How Not to Sell a Major Sports Sponsorship
“Lower Back Jersey Partner” Those were the only four words on an ad featured in an industry newsletter. This is where we’re going to put…
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Sponsors: How to Keep Rightsholders from Stealing Your Leverage Ideas
If your company sponsors a major event or professional sporting organisation, there is every chance that they will require you to submit…
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If You Can’t Explain Sponsorship to Your Grandma, You’ve Got It All Wrong
“If you can’t explain it to your grandmother, you don’t understand it well enough.” – Albert Einstein I love that quote, and it is so…
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New Video: Sponsorship Proposal Basics in About 15 Minutes
After almost seven years, over 137,000 views, and a lot of amazing feedback, I’ve fully updated my most popular video tutorial, “Sponsorship…
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Dear Sponsors, Fans Don’t Owe You Anything
There is a “Coke ad” that did the rounds a few years ago Facebook and Twitter. It’s a collaboration between a few people, including mystery…
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This Is What Ambush Marketing Looks Like
Back in 2010, soccer fans were gripped with anticipation over the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Also in that year, Valentine’s Day…
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Sponzillas: How to Deal with a Sponsor that Bullies
Sponsors are becoming more and more strategic in how they make new investments. They’re embarking on strong relationships that are…
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9 Secrets of Amazing Sponsors [Infographic]
I’m asked all the time what separates truly amazing, best practice sponsors from the also-rans. And although the specific strategies…
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How to Respond to Sponsorship Spam
OMG, I get a lot of sponsorship spam. I bet I average a dozen or more spamsorship emails a day, and they all say virtually the same thing:…
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What is the Greatest Sponsorship Innovation of Modern Times?
A while back, I saw the following, excellent question on Twitter and was asked to put in my two-cent’s worth: What is the greatest sports…
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What Generation Rightsholder Are You?
A while back, I wrote a similar blog for corporate sponsors, giving them the hallmarks of each generation of sponsorship, how that is…
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How a Great Sponsorship Proposal Follows a Hollywood Story Arc [Infographic]
Most sponsorship proposals are awful. They’re uncustomised and often arranged in levels; They’re self-centred, having absolutely…
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Managing the Hardship of Selling Sponsorship
I got an email a few weeks ago that was just heartbreaking. The subject line read simply, “The hardship”, and the email went on to detail…
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Sponsors: Should a Major Sponsorship Be an Extension of Your Marketing Plan?
A while back, I was advising a sponsor, and came upon this scenario… A large brand takes up naming rights sponsorship of a major…
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Why You Should Never Write a Sponsorship Letter of Request
The only thing worse than a search-and-replace, gold-silver-bronze sponsorship proposal is the “letter of request”. I don’t even like the…
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Are You Really Selling Sponsorship?
I get dozens of emails and social media approaches every week from people looking for sponsorship of their podcast, website, blog, business,…
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Sponsor Speeches: How to Alienate Your Target Market in One Easy Step
I talk all the time about the kinds of benefits sponsors should want from an investment: Benefits that can be shared across the target…
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Why “Proud Sponsor Of” is the Most Worthless Phrase in Sponsorship
Oh, how I hate those words. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that those three words can be among the most telling in…
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Is Naming Rights Sponsorship Worth the Money?
I’ve had this question a few times lately. More often than not, it’s a brand manager who asks the question, after a senior executive has…
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Cover Girl? How the Heck did THAT Happen?
A funny thing happened when I got back from overseas a couple of weeks ago. I checked my email and there was one from a journalist I worked…
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Sponsorship Lie #212: “There’s Still Time!”
One of the first things I do every day is check out what’s happening on LinkedIn. It’s such a great resource for advice and networking in…
Read the article →Nothing matches that. Try a broader filter, or ask me directly — if I haven’t written about it, I probably have an opinion anyway.