Brand emotionality is what we build into our brands in creating their identity and in the associations we position them with; it is the emotion it evokes with it’s intended prospective clients. I have been working with sponsorships for nigh on 30 years and have learned a thing or two that I would have expected to find in the literature back then, but apparently I was meant to learn lessons for myself by doing. Of course, changes in technology, perceptions and societies have changed along the way as well, but one core aspect that has not changed, which I hope to address in this text, is the emotionality around sponsorships.

The founding point of sponsorship and sponsorships’ unique role in the marketing mix is the emotional association between the brand, the sponsored and, ultimately, the target audience. Sport sponsorships are probably the strongest in this category where arts and culture sponsorship are more about showing a commitment. I have found that the emotionality will either become a hindrance or an accelerant for your objectives.

Anyone promoting sponsorships will already be so heavily emotionally connected with the project that they cannot fathom why anyone wouldn’t want to commit their budget to it tout de suite; it just makes sense to them. This is the first disconnect, the promoter and the “target” are coming to the conversation at different energy levels. The second challenges that we have to consider at the first contact is the value proposition of the sponsorship. Sponsorships are notoriously difficult to value because most of the values are arbitrary at best, and to most marketing executives highly circumspect.

The two challenges above are luxuries insomuch that in order for them to openly considered and discussed, you have actually gotten passed the gatekeeper and are having a first meeting with the marketing professional. Most often you arrive at a gatekeeper who either asks you to go through and automated process of submitting your generic proposal (since you haven’t been able to truly understand the brand’s strategic objectives, it cannot be anything but generic), or to email that same prospectus to the gatekeeper for screening. I won’t go into everything that is wrong with this process, it simply is a reality that we have to consider.

So, thus far we have to consider:

• Who in the target organisation is already emotionally “sold” on the project, or how can I quickly bridge the emotional connection of the prospect?
• How do I provide a realistic and reliable value to my project and price it accordingly?
• How do I bypass the gatekeeper?

Most organisations seeking sponsorship don’t have the resources to work on the smaller package offerings (or so they reason), they become a afterthought option for brands who are keen on being part of the project but don’t have the means and/or the stomach for the higher cost sponsorships. Commercial executives and their agents go for gold and try to sell the high value sponsorships, that is where they need to allocate their scarce resources. By applying the “St Petersburg Paradox” we can understand that, even thought the theory gives us infinite opportunities to double down, eventually the cost of doubling down is going to become too much and one surrenders. Of course, this is less true for many sponsorship opportunities that have clearer value propositions. It becomes more true the more an emotional, vis a vis analytical, connection is required with the project. Also, if the project lacks continuity and you have to start over from square one after every completion, e.g. some motorsport projects, or record breaking attempts. Of course, many projects in history would not have come off the ground without the dogged determination and passion of the teams that run them, but an efficiency fanatic, I find beauty and finesse when simpler and cleaner solutions can be found. Using the power of higher energy vibrations versus brute force as Dr. David R. Hawkins (https://veritaspub.com/) would put it. At the end it also comes down to sound financial analytics.

I recently saw a video by Universa on risk mitigation strategies using the St. Petersburg Paradox (https://player.vimeo.com/video/708841050?h=4f07bff38e) in investments. Selling sponsorship has huge risks not only in the invested resources, but also the opportunity costs, and the fewer projects you succeed with you reputation becomes more tarnished as well. So what can I do to mitigate my risks when selling sponsorship?

In this process I want to increase my ratio of success, even though I notionally sacrifice some medium range gains, but in reality, I statistically increase my gains while securing revenues from an earlier point in the process. Some key factors are:

• Delaying the need to interact with the emotionality until there is an opportunity to properly engage with it.
• Increase and enhance the verifiable commercial value of the proposition so that I can lead with it.
• Establish a clear and immediate proposition of return on the clients investment.
• Creating a product that has a lower entry barrier, but I can sell the same product 10 or 20 times as opposed to only between 1 to 3 times.
• Shift the point of contact in the sponsor prospects’ organisation to someone with a shorter planning window, down to 6 to 9 months as opposed to 18 – 24 months.
• Shift the focus from the big ticket items to smaller ones, and let the big ones be the ones you stumble over in the process of selling the smaller ones.
• Using technology and creative approaches to bypass gatekeepers.

I think it is rather evident that my proposition is to change the way I work and what I sell. From the time I first read Guy Edwards’ “Sponsorship and the world of motor racing” back in 1997, to now, I don’t see many commercial departments, agencies or agents changing their approach, while the world around them is changing rapidly. With my agency “V&V – Brand Positioning“, I am looking to disrupt the way we approach sponsorships and create more opportunities for more brands and more projects to share in the pot of resources available out there. I am here to help brands distil their campaigns to reach more of the right audiences and reduce eyeball wastage. If I have the right products and the right audiences, then I will attract the right brands.

The brand emotionality is what makes brand positioning so effective and gives such powerful feedback from the market, good or bad. It is when we understand this power that we can learn to balance and harness it to become the sharpest tool in the marketing mix and rendering the others supporting acts.

Photo by Nik on Unsplash