Getting the sponsor aboard

RACE FINANCE

Reasons for sponsoring
Putting together a competitive racing campaign often means involving a sponsor so it’s essential to understand this complex area, reports Mark Willett.

The sponsorship and event medium in Australia is now a part of virtually every major company's corporate sales, marketing and entertainment budgets. So how does sailing fit into the sponsorship and events industry’ First, let's look at how it works.

The key components of the industry are: the property holders (sports, arts and events bodies); the venues; the media and their audiences (television, print, radio and internet); the attending spectators; and the companies who sponsor.

Companies have staff dedicated to the discipline - sometimes with teams of skilled people employed internally - but mostly involving one or two managers and maybe expanding to include specialised agency support.

A company has three key reasons to buy into sponsorship arrangements: sales concessions; brand association/exposure; and hospitality opportunities. Other reasons could be to generate an internal focus for employees; or as a positioning strategy to win a particular one-off deal; or to support a major customer/business partner that may already be in a sponsorship arrangement.

Over the past 16 years of our involvement, we have seen strong industry growth, to the point where Australian business pays significant amounts of money - mostly into the sports industry - to be in it. However, when we started, much of the industry was based on a business owner or CEO's preferences or maybe a marketing director's instinct: there wasn't much science. In 2006, everything is measured: sales as an incremental increase; brand exposure against what it can be bought for as paid advertising; and hospitality, based on the business written off the back of it.

From a potential sponsor's point of view, sponsorship properties can be hard to justify if you look clinically at the returns that can be measured. However, what can't be measured is the combination of benefits that add value - benefits that may not directly stack up, but indirectly provide incremental growth opportunities. The key to this is the "fit": the right association between brand/business and the sponsorship property.

In 2006, we see the word ‘partner’ as much as we see the word ‘sponsorship’. This reflects the precision within which the industry is now operating. Successful sponsorship programs or partnerships are where the company and the sponsor have worked together. There are examples of strong partnerships where the sponsored body has its own skilled and experienced staff on board for the purpose of not only servicing the sponsor, but actually acting as advisor and providing creative input. This may be the future for any sport or body seeking corporate partnerships and may also be useful information for sailing's governing bodies and clubs.

Relevance to sailing
But how does it work for an aspiring Olympian, a prospective Hobart entrant or someone seeking support to achieve some kind of sailing odyssey’ It's tough out there! There is no easy answer, but an honest review of the position of our sport and what it really has to offer might help. These points are worth considering before entering into an effort to initiate a corporate partnership.

Sailing and sponsorship in Australia’ I break it up into two geographic regions, Sydney Harbour and the rest of the Australian sailing world. Speaking as a Melbourne-based participant, Sydney Harbour is a sailing phenomenon, unparalleled anywhere else in the world. If you have a half decent boat or fleet of boats and you are on the harbour, you have a better than even chance for some sort of corporate support.

We've seen it on the harbour for many years and we see it continuously re-inventing itself. I loved the recent news of the ‘Gotta Love It’ Channel 7 skiff launch. This is a classic example of the visual aspects of the harbour being utilised ‘ in this case as marketing and brand positioning for Channel 7. At the launch, David Leckie, CEO of 7 Broadcast TV, connected this sponsorship with some of its key strategies in sport: "‘We're building a bit of a platform’we're back in AFL, back in V8s’ We think it's back to the heartland’back to what we do best’we can't wait to see our big red 7 on the harbour’ Sailing is not that commercial but you know it's something we have a lot of heritage in’"

Those of us old enough will remember Channel 7 closing their evenings with footage of the Color 7 skiff, helmed by Iain Murray planing past the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House - great visual content and, for me at the time, really inspiring. Companies based in Sydney constantly use the harbour for entertaining: the visual elements of the harbour and brand logos together are compelling. Sails and hulls provide the medium. And on Boxing Day, the biggest sailing event and only one of two main events in Australia during the week following Christmas, provides content for a national television telecast at a time when entertaining TV content is scarce and the ratings measurement is off.

So what of the rest of the sailing sponsorship world in Australia’

Regatta sponsors
As well as those in Sydney, the key regattas look to be reasonably healthy. Mostly run by clubs, the well-established regattas are achieving reasonable sponsorships and government event funding support. There are healthy sponsorships in place including Skandia, Audi, Hamilton Island, Reuters, Rolex, Hahn Premium and Bundaberg Rum. The National and State governing bodies are supported by state event funding of one sort or another, some luxury car dealerships and sailing industry support. Of course, the sailing industry companies have always done an amazing job at putting resources back into the sport.

Challenges
But there is a fundamental issue out there for anyone seeking corporate partnership in sailing. Unless you are a participant in the sport, it is unlikely you know anything about it ‘ except, of course, the Boxing Day race that starts every year in the harbour and occasionally goes wrong a day or so later down the coast.

Our world's best yachtsmen and women are virtually unknown in our own country. It is still the case that the one person from sailing most people would recall out there is John Bertrand. While one would never take anything away from John and what is Australia's greatest sailing moment, we know there have been many significant achievements by Australian sailors that have simply gone unnoticed by the general population.

The "underground" nature of our sport holds back the sponsorship potential. If there is no passion generated with the general public for what goes on in our sport, the big licks of value to sponsors will not be available to the sport. The sponsorships that are achievable will remain those that are solely targeted at the sailing demographic, with its relatively low numbers, as one-off or as entertainment options. Sustained and significant marketing campaigns aimed at the broader public and business will never be viable.

Maybe sailing will never be all that commercial in Australia, but that means viable Australian America's Cup programs, Volvo campaigns and a stronger Olympics will be harder.

Still, just to think of where the sport is in Australia today is encouraging: the two most advanced maxis in the world; our expertise being exported worldwide; specialised boatbuilding to an international market; world and Olympics.

Maybe we can take some of that harbour magic around the country and start something bigger and maybe Mr Leckie can take the sport further into his strategy and help make it a little more commercial. But we might have to find the ways to make it compelling for him to do so.

Case study: ABN AMRO

ABN AMRO was involved with two boats in the recent Volvo Ocean Race which was planned to stop in Melbourne. ABN AMRO, with a head office in Sydney, was seeking ways to activate or leverage the involvement of their company in the VOR coming to Australia.

Tasks
* Engage local customers and clients and connect them with the ABN AMRO VOR entries.
* Create strong branding for ABN AMRO.
* Communicate a meaningful connection with ABN AMRO Australia to the global ABN AMRO VOR campaign.

Strategy
Create a sponsorship with a previous generation VOR boat. Fully brand the boat ABN AMRO and moor it for maximum branding effect. Create on-the-water guest sailing experiences, first, in Sydney prior to the VOR arriving, then in Melbourne once the race was there. Get them wet and get them excited. Make sure strong and experienced sailing identities were on board to talk about the VOR. Enter the boat into the Sydney-Hobart and take three guest crew ‘ two guests from ABN AMRO and one media guest. And a dash of "making more possible" attitude.

Outcomes
* Strong incremental harbour, Hobart and Melbourne branding
* Hundreds of excited and happy key customers with unforgettable experiences
* Well-targeted media coverage outcomes
* The program merged seamlessly with the global Team ABN AMRO effort in Melbourne
* Great branded spinnaker runs out of the Melbourne Waterfront City docks and on the race chase on re-start day.

www.willettmarketing.com