I think the key points from the week's readings were that sponsorship and special events can provide opportunities for practitioners to gain good media exposure for their organisations and that in some cases both sponsorship and special events can be used in conjunction with one another to enhance the outcomes. While sponsorship can be an expensive tactic, it is a case of high cost, high reward if handled the right way.
Another point that I found interesting was the need for organisations to be wary of ambush marketing. The case study of Qantas ambushing Ansett's sponsorship of the Olympics reminded me of the journal article I found on the subject of sponsorship for the annotated bibliography assignment. It studied the awareness that was generated for brands who sponsored the Adelaide Grand Prix. It noted that in some instances, simply by being the leader in their respective product market, a brand could be seen to unwittingly 'ambush' a competitor’s sponsorship of an event. When the public was surveyed regarding which company sponsored a specific section of the grand prix, Castrol received nearly as many responses as Shell, which was the official sponsor. I guess a similar case could be made for Qantas and Ansett, although in this case study Qantas could be seen to be undertaking several deliberate 'ambush' tactics.
Event management was shown to be a tactic which probably requires the greatest attention to detail of them all. There are several reasons for holding events and these include gaining media coverage, product demonstration, entertaining of clients and revenue generation. In order to gain media coverage etc practitioners must be creative and extremely well organised.
The readings made me think more about public relations practice in that it detailed the processes which you must go through when attempting to gain sponsorship of an event you are running and also detailed things PR practitioners need to consider when propositioned with a request for sponsorship. The reading made clear that event management required great attention to detail and extensive planning and while it sounded quite stressful I can imagine that the successful completion of event you had planned/managed etc would be extremely satisfying.
This week I commented on Abby's blog:
http://cmnsabbyhallett.blogspot.com/
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3 comments:
Hey Nathan.
I agree with your statement, that although sponsorship is an expensive tactic, it is a case of high cost equals high reward.
I also found ambush management interesting within this chapter. I personally believe that although it seems...unethical would you say? I think it is very clever PR. Why not go for it! But from the perspective of a PR practitioner organising an event, you would have to ensure the real sponsors of your event receive their deserved promotion. The text book provides examples of tactics used to do this, such as having them visible on large billboards and making regular announcements thanking sponsors.
When reading this chapter I began to consider who benefits the most from sponsorship, the organisers of the event, or the sponsoring companies. Who do you think? I came to the conclusion that it was the organisers.
I also found it interesting that there were several types of sponsorship. These included: Philanthropic, corporate and marketing.
The fact that sponsors can gain positive images from sponsoring events such as charity balls also amazed me. Talk about great PR!
Anyway, great blog!
I like what you said about event management need close attention to detail. this is definitely true, if you let something slip past you could end up with a massive mess in your hands. Organisation and planning is important in order to make sure everything runs smoothly. You really clarified the points in the chapter about sponsorship and ambush tactics. I like what you said about accidental ambush of events, that makes a lot of sense. Sometimes organisations might inadvertantly ambush an event. Thankyou.
Nathan
You pick up the important point of attention to detail when planning and executing events. This is relevant when considering "ambush marketing" and the actions that an event organiser may have to undertake as detailed in the Ansett v's Qantas example provided in the text - even though it could be argued that Qantas still derived a large benefit - and in ensuring the smooth running of any event, big or small. One way of handling the detail is the use of lists or checklists. Again it goes back to planning.
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