In DEpth IEG Survey: Sponsor Diversity Trend …...Cold Calling Still Rules Despite changes, the fundamental approach of properties targeting the most appropriate prospects and reaching

© 2010 IEG, LLC. All rights reserved.

IEG SponSorShIp rEport

1

September 7, 2010 800/834-4850 | www.IEGSR.com

In DEpth

IEG Survey: Sponsor Diversity Trend Continues; Cold Calling Still RulesDespite changes, the fundamental approach of properties targeting the most appropriate prospects and reaching out to them still holds.

Sifting through sponsor-related information supplied to IEG by thousands of properties reveals that while much has changed in terms of the make-up of the sponsorship industry over the years, much has remained the same.

Change continues to come in a wider variety of companies and organizations that comprise who sponsors and who receives sponsorship.

on the property side, the number of events and organizations that represent less traditional categories—in particular associations, membership groups and other targeted B2B opportunities—has grown. The rise of those types of niche opportunities is reflected in the fact that properties with event attendance of less than 50,000 now comprise more than half of all respondents to the annual IEG property survey.

that development has had a direct effect on the sponsor side of things. A decade ago, when survey respondents were primarily sports, festival, arts, entertainment and cause properties, the types of sponsors they had as partners were relatively concentrated in major categories such as soft drinks, banks, telecommunications, etc. Although those industries are still at the top of the most active sponsor categories list (one of the things that has remained relatively unchanged), the percentage of properties they are involved with continues to fall, as newer property types rely more on niche products and services and not those looking to reach mass consumer audiences.

the same is true for the most active companies—those who appear on the largest number of respondent’s sponsor lists,

Attendance Of Responding Properties

© 2010, IEG, LLC. Source: IEG Research

Less than 50,000 51%

1 million-plus 11%

500,000 to 999,999 5%

100,000 to 499,999 19%

50,000 to 99,999 14%



2

with only the pepsi and Coca-Cola families of brands cracking double digits in terms of penetration.

the top 10 sponsor rankings for 2010 feature the same names as 2009 with the exception of At&t, which replaces rival Verizon in a continuation of the flip-flopping the two telco giants have experienced the past few years, with one always lurking just outside the top 10 list.

the trend of “usual suspect” categories not showing up to the degree they used to is continued in the case of media partners. here again, each category’s “market share” has declined steadily over the past few years, although the drop-off in 2010 was more precipitous for newspapers and radio stations than for tV, magazine and outdoor.

In terms of how sponsorships are initiated, the act of a property staff member contacting a prospective partner still accounts for the largest percentage of deals, with more than half of all partnerships starting out that way.

only about one-quarter of sponsorships get their start by a company or its representative reaching out to a property.

Figures represent the percentage of sponsees in each property category with each type of sponsor. For example, 15 percent of arts properties reported having an airline sponsor.

Editor’s Note: Analysis is based on data from free-listing applications for sponsorship opportunities appearing in the 2011 IEG Sponsorship Sourcebook ($399; call 1-800/834-4850 to order).

Party Initiating Contact That Led To Sponsorship


Property 53%Property’s Agency 6%

Board Member 10%

Sponsor’s Agency 9%

Sponsor 17%

Other 5%

Payment Structure Of Sponsorship Deals


Cash 51%

In-kind 25%

Combination 24%



3

Budgets Of Responding Properties


Less than $250,000 57%

$1 million-plus 20%

$500,000 to $999,999 11%

$250,000 to $499,999 12%



4


SponSor proFILE

How Sponsorship Levels Playing Field For Cellular SouthProperties should recognize the importance of sponsorship to challenger brands and smaller players in competing with deeper-pocketed companies.

As a regional wireless service provider in Mississippi, parts of Alabama, the Florida panhandle and western tennessee, Cellular South, Inc. has its work cut out competing with giants of the business like At&t, Inc.; Sprint nextel Corp.; and Verizon Wireless, not to mention other national and regional carriers.

the country’s largest privately-owned wireless carrier uses sponsorship to help counter that competition by demonstrating its support of local events and organizations, and to gain hospitality and promotional platforms to drive business.

IEG SR recently spoke with Jim richmond, Cellular South’s director of corporate communications, about the company’s sponsorship activity, including its new focus on creating proprietary programs.

Below are edited excerpts from the conversation.

IEG SR: What are Cellular South’s sponsorship goals?

Richmond: We like to invest in programs that people are passionate about. traditionally we have been involved with education and sports. Consumers in the Deep South are very passionate about sports.

In terms of strategy, in the early days of the company we sponsored just about every event in the communities in which we operated. We served as the title sponsor of a number of festivals, and we also did a lot of smaller sponsorships, such as signage at Little League baseball games.

that worked well for a while and it gave us strong brand recognition. not everyone had a cell phone back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. We had to work hard to get brand recognition and drive consideration.

As time moved on, we became too large to market in those ways. We are now putting more time and focus on developing our own programs.

IEG SR: What are some examples?

Richmond: right now we have two programs. one is the Cellular South Y’All vs. Us high school football series, and the other



5

is the Cellular South Emerge music project. We incorporate a lot of pr into the programs. the goal is to engage consumers and align them with our brand.

IEG SR: how does the Y’All vs. Us program accomplish that?

Richmond: We developed the program last year. high school football is very important to many people. the name is based on a 2008 book with that title by Mike Frascogna, an attorney in Jackson, Miss., about Mississippi high school football rivalries.

We worked on the program with Y&R, our ad agency. We televise five high school rivalry games on the Fox Sports South network. We have three games in Mississippi, one in Memphis, and one in Mobile, Ala.

Each is a big production. We bring in the Fox Sports folks, as well as an executive producer from new York City. We also bring in fireworks to add pizzazz to the game. It’s a very good experience for consumers.

We also post background footage about the games on our Web site. We have 10 to 14 video clips of coaches and administrators talking about the games. that provides another way for consumers to engage Cellular South. We can track click-through rates to measure sales generated from the program.

IEG SR: how does your Emerge music platform work?

Richmond: It’s a brand new program designed to help people discover emerging music. Bands can upload songs and videos to our Web site and music fans can go onto the site to rate them. We also have an application that lets people put the songs on their wireless devices.

We will also have emerging artists play at events we sponsor. For example, we will bring an emerging artist to the Bulldog Bash presented by Cellular South, an event in Starkville, Miss. that takes place the night before a September Mississippi State University home football game.

We will have the opportunity to talk about the emerging artist program from the stage, and we will also drive traffic back to our Web site. We plan to do the same thing at both existing and new sponsorships.

IEG SR: that event is under the auspices of the MSU Student Assn. You are also the sponsor of MSU athletics and a number of other collegiate athletic programs, pro sports properties and other events, so the new proprietary programs are in addition to a pretty robust portfolio.

Richmond: We have sponsored a number of universities for many years including ole Miss (the University of Mississippi), the University of Southern Mississippi and the University of Memphis. For the past two years, we have sponsored the University of South Alabama.

For the past eight years, we have sponsored the Cellular South Cup, a Sony Ericsson WtA tour event in Memphis. It hasn’t been announced, but we will sponsor the tournament again next year.

We sponsor other events as well, such as Memphis in May and the Cellular South Gumtree Festival in tupelo, Miss. We have also sponsored some golf tournaments over the past couple of years. those include the St. Jude Classic pGA tour stop in Memphis, as well as the Mississippi Gulf resort Classic Champions tour event.

IEG SR: how do you measure success?

Richmond: With any event we do, we try to build a return on investment model prior to going into the partnership.



6

Sometimes that is hard to do. We could measure roI for the Cellular South Cup based on media impressions; we received more than 135 million impressions when Venus Williams played the event. But that’s just one part of our measurement. At the end of the day, we have to know how media impressions lead to sales.

IEG SR: how do you tie them to sales?

Richmond: It’s more about driving cell phone activations. At the Cellular South Cup, we will host government officials, as well as existing and potential customers. We can clearly measure new sales and retention as a result of that hospitality.

IEG SR: how do you activate sponsorships with individual consumers?

Richmond: From time to time we will run promotions to drive store traffic. That includes the use of social media. We ran a promotion on twitter and Facebook that offered people the chance to win a tennis racquet autographed by Maria Sharapova. We gave racquets to the first ten people who visited a specific store.

We also distribute coupons at events. We have a big setup, and we give coupons to people who come by and look at our devices.

Driving Web site traffic is important with all of our sponsorships. Seventy percent of consumers go online to research phones before they make a purchase. the more people we can drive to our Web site, the more customers we will have at the end of the day.

So we try to create platforms that drive people to our site, like the Y’All vs. Us program. We also post photos from the Cellular South Cup on a Flickr site that is tied to our Web site. You have to go to our site to get the photos.

IEG SR: Do you activate with handset partners?

Richmond: Yes. At the Cellular South Cup, we brought in research In Motion. they set up a Blackberry VIp Lounge that featured handset displays as well as Blackberry and Cellular South representatives.

Source Cellular South, Inc., Tel: 601/974-7504



7


opInIon

Adopt And Adapt: Still Plenty Of Opportunities For Sponsorship Pros To Learn From Each OtherEditorial Director Jim Andrews’ latest observations, insights and advice

For someone who has spent 20-plus years showcasing the commonalities in sponsorship programs across sports, arts, causes, entertainment, events, etc.—as a way to promote best practices and inspire creative thinking—the not-so-sudden realization that the sponsorship marketplace is vastly different than it once was could be a depressing thought.

As the results of IEG’s 2010 property survey (http://www.sponsorship.com/IEGSr/2010/09/07/IEG-Survey--Sponsor-Diversity-Trend-Continues;-Col.aspx) show, the influx of new types of sponsorship opportunities has fragmented the property landscape. Gone are the days when eight out of 10 properties had either Coke or pepsi products as a sponsor. not because those companies are sponsoring less, but because there are now so many opportunities where having a soft drink partner—or any consumer good for that matter—is just not relevant.

At first glance, such diversity might appear to render cross-industry idea sharing pointless. But that is not the case.

Yes, there are vast differences between a pro sports property and a professional trade association. It would be foolish to think you could duplicate the prospecting, packaging, sales and servicing practices of one and apply them to the other.

however, there is still a great deal that all properties (and sponsors, for that matter) can learn from each other despite their many differences. take the recent example in our article on the Int’l Society of Automation (http://www.sponsorship.com/iegsr/2010/08/23/Association-Introduces-Digital-Development-For-Ser.aspx), a property about as far away from sport teams such as the nFL Chicago Bears, nBA Minnesota timberwolves and nhL Carolina hurricanes.

ISA followed the lead of those properties in using digital technology to provide online resources for helping partners manage their sponsorships. Did the association have to adapt the idea to fit the needs of its sponsors and account for the resources it could put behind it? of course. But by paying attention to new thinking and trends from across the sponsorship spectrum, it has taken a major step forward in growing its own program, complete with sponsors that will probably never appear on any other property’s target list.

Similarly, properties of all types can learn from associations who are developing new ways to deliver value to B2B partners by providing them with comprehensive information on the contacts they will be reaching through their partnerships. no



8

reason why a museum or any other property could not follow a similar path and provide purchasing-power information on the businesses their sponsors can network with.

As in other aspects of life and work, the right approach in sponsorship is not to avoid the “other” because of the many differences that may exist, but to open our eyes and minds and look for the new ideas that can be found anywhere.

Cast Your Vote For Sponsorshipthe new nASCAr hall of Fame is including fan votes as part of its process for selecting the next class of inductees for 2011. this is of interest to sponsorship professionals not because there is a corporate partner attached to the effort (there isn’t) but because one of the nominees is a sports marketing pioneer, reynolds tobacco’s t. Wayne robertson.

Whether you are a nASCAr fan or not, and no matter what your thoughts are on cigarette marketing, if you are in the sponsorship game you should consider taking a few seconds to visit nASCAr’s Web site (http://www.nascar.com/promos/hof/?sc_cid=hof4) to vote for robertson in recognition of the foundation he helped to lay nearly 40 years ago, upon which many current careers, programs and partnerships have been built.

As a leading force behind the creation of the Winston Cup sponsorship, robertson’s work over two-plus decades (he died in a boating accident in 1998) established the viability of so many aspects of sponsorship that we now take for granted, including naming rights, retail promotions and activation elements that benefit consumers through relevant rewards that speak to their passion.

Given the critical role that sponsorship has played in nASCAr’s growth and development, the contributions of its founding sponsor should be recognized in its hall of fame, and those of us in the industry that in many ways sprang from that partnership can help to see that it happens.

Documents

In DEpth IEG Survey: Sponsor Diversity Trend …...Cold Calling Still Rules Despite changes, the fundamental approach of properties targeting the most appropriate prospects and reaching