Why sponsorship sucks!
I always get a laugh whenever I read about another dumb company dumping millions into another dumb sports sponsorship. Yeah I know everyone in America is a sports nut, but when I read that my old client Qwest is tying up a deal with USA Hockey that names Qwest the "Official Communications Services Sponsor of USA Hockey." I had to ask, what the fuck for? When I worked on the account they dumped fucking millions on the Olympics for very little return, except free tickets and getting pissed in the hospitality tents. Still the fucking Directors could impress all their pals while the shareholders took it in the shorts. Speaking of hockey, anyone remember when CA, the software company that did the second worst high tech advertising in the world. (First place will forever belong to Oracle, thanks to the “Samurai of Redwood Shores continuing to stick his abysmal fingers into everything!) The Chairman and CEO actually bought a hockey team… Again with shareholder money, that’s one of the reasons why the CEO is now doing long time in the pen. As usual, the Chairman got away with it, just as Qwest's Phil Anschutz, the world’s most evil billionaire did! Anyway, the point of this particular rant is that I don’t give a fuck what anyone says, sponsorship only benefits senior management and their cronies.
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We can put your decal inside the wheel well for a million. Wonder woman costs an extra million!
JESUS CHRIST. Is Wonder Woman standing on the crew chief?
Tall.
Posted by: makethelogobigger | February 27, 2007 at 05:23 PM
George,
I simply love those sponsorships!
My wife love those sponsorships and so does my banker.
Your old account Quest sponsors big convention centers, like in Omaha, NE too.
Posted by: Roy | February 27, 2007 at 08:56 PM
the wonder Woman S&M package also costs extra, mtlb...the crew chief paid for it...
Posted by: marinobean | February 28, 2007 at 04:57 AM
Looks like like he's paying for it now actually.
Posted by: makethelogobigger | February 28, 2007 at 10:45 AM
Depends on your definition of sponsorhip, I think. I'd bet there's some sponsorship of the House and Senate that are doing pretty well for some folks. Not a lot of name recognition, probably, but excellent ROI.
Posted by: everysandwich | February 28, 2007 at 12:13 PM
Anschutz is the guy who founded National Cinemedia, right? The company that makes sure you see ads as part of your in-theater experience. Is nothing sacred? It's not like they have reduced ticket prices.
What is amazing is how so many clients will pour their money into anything that is not TV today, just because it's not TV.
Posted by: Billy_Boney_and_Ma | February 28, 2007 at 12:47 PM
The premiums associated with these sponsorships is often incredible, e.g., an advertiser pays several times what he might pay for the same rating points in Primetime. In other words, it can come down to like $50,000 per "free" ticket!
In many cases there is category exclusivity so if you just wanted to buy time (and forgo the tickets and autographed memorabilia), you can't, if your competitor is already there.
They also make you by many units each telecast, like maybe 8-10 :30's. So you keep reaching the same fans over and over.
You get beer companies dumping large %'s of their ad budgets into 4th quarter sports (where the most sports rating points exist) and guess what - it's a much lower consumption season for beer than the summer.
Also, some of the absolutely highest cost per thousands get paid on sports that are so low rated that they are almost invisible, like the NBA. What drives that is there just isn't a lot else out theere when the NBA runs (particularly second quarter) so all the ego-driven CMO's bid up the price on the few scraps there are. They should be arrested for reckless disregard of their financial responsibilities.
Then you've got national sponsorships on things like the NHL. But guess what - they are hardly national, but restricted to say the snowbelt in the case of the NHL. Yeah, yeah, the NHL will tell you all about their national footprint by telling you about its teams in say Florida. But hardly anybody watches it on national TV except a handful of icebound viewers in the big latitudes.
Oh yeah, that's another thing - just because a sport does a nice local rating doesn't mean it does well nationally. So if you watch local hockey in Pittsburgh say,you see your beloved penguins. But if you watch the national game, you see two teams play and both are based in markets on the other side of the U.S.
Despite all the reasons in the world NOT to advertise in these big wastes of money (including starving to death the athletes that would otherwise work at Walmart), the CMO egos must be sated. It also helps that most of the people at the agencies do not know how to appraise the value - much stemming from being math-challenged.
The only time I think it's worth the plunge is if you are a new product and you use your presence in big ticket sports, etc. to make consumers regard you as big, real and credible, so that they tuck you into their consideration set. Other than paying for instant legitimacy as such, there are usually much better places to drop the big bucks.
Posted by: Palisades Park | February 28, 2007 at 01:05 PM
it's nice you think of yourself as such an authority. but i remember you when i worked at ogilvy. you were a hack.
Posted by: jack t | July 19, 2007 at 08:28 AM