The Future of Brand Partnerships
Of all the marketing options open to brands, sponsorship is arguably unique in its ability to reach and directly impact target audiences through something they have a passion for. I’ve worked in the world of brand sponsorship for most of my career, both client-side and sales-side, and have seen the significant impact that can be achieved with the right strategy, internal support and engagement, and budget.
In my experience, there are typically six primary objectives of a successful, purposeful and inclusive brand sponsorship:
- To drive up brand awareness, visibility and impact
- To directly reach and engage target audiences, and new audiences, externally and internally, whether that’s with business audiences, consumer audiences, or internally with employees. It’s essential to have a clear understanding of their passions and interests.
- To reward customers and colleagues, with the potential for money-can’t-buy experiences.
- To enhance the reputation of the brand: considering the potential opportunity for meaningful and appropriate social impact.
- To maximise the value of community engagement – in its widest sense.
… and finally, ensuring the relevance of the partnership – to the audience, the brand and the business.
When considering an approach to a new sponsorship, I tend to think of brand sponsorships as cyclical:
And for brand sponsorships to deliver results, there are, in my view, a number of clear stages to a brand sponsorship process:
- Developing and defining a clear brand partnership strategy, and for this to be signed off early in the process. This might be long-term, tactical, or a combination of both. What are the primary and secondary objectives for your partnerships? How might these evolve over time?
- A clarity of purpose from the outset is very important, as is the need for this to be clearly communicated across the business and signed off at the appropriate levels.
- Defining the role that partnerships will play for the business across different audiences and groups – for consumers, businesses and employees alike – and how these might evolve over time.
- Creating a big idea, that will help to differentiate your brand from others who may be in the same market sector.
- Ensuring clear differentiation from other brand partners – it can be a cluttered market! How is your proposition different? What are the unique attributes of this?
- Recognising the impact of ESG: the increasing importance of sustainability and attention to social impact at the heart of brand partnerships.
- Exploring the market for the right partnership assets or, indeed, creating your own…
- Negotiating the right sponsorship rights that will help you deliver a stand-out partnership. How critical is media coverage? Are brand ambassadors important? How significant will community engagement and activity be? To what extent do you need exclusivity? Are you prepared to be one of a number of brand partners? I would also note the importance of having access to legal advice on your contracts.
- Planning for the activation and management of the partnership – and identifying early on, the internal and external resources that are likely to be needed for the sponsorship to succeed. Can this be managed in-house?
- From the outset, ensuring robust evaluation and measurement is in place.
- Recognising the need for executive management, governance, reporting and delivery over the duration of the sponsorship.
- And finally, taking auditing and exit planning into account – this is important.
It is also worth noting that the end of gambling sponsorship will have a significant impact on sponsorship revenues, and possibly a general fall in overall sponsorship revenues. New sponsorship categories are starting to emerge, including luxury brands, alcohol-free drink brands and electric vehicles. In addition, major brands are increasingly committing to investing in women’s sports, from top to bottom, and Barclays’ commitment to women’s football is a great example of this.
If planned, managed and budgeted well, brand partnerships can significantly help to engage new target audiences, deepen relationships with existing ones, drive up awareness, enhance brand image and increase loyalty.
Written by Pimento Member, Sally Hancock, Managing Partner at High Tide Leap
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