Last week was a particularly busy one at Tower, supporting a number of community projects through sponsorship – Cayman Airways Invitational Youth Cup, Cayman Invitational, Rotary Science Fair and Junior Achievement Banquet.
We worked our hearts out and had great fun teaming up with fabulous people and supporting causes that fell into one of two categories – sports and youth development. Now it’s no coincidence that our sponsorships fell into these categories, because although we believe in using our experience and expertise to make a positive impact on our community, we are a commercial business with finite time and resources, and therefore sometimes we unfortunately have to say ‘no’ to some sponsorship requests.
So how do we know when to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’? Let’s first take a step back – why do businesses undertake sponsorships? Firstly, because most businesses and people believe in giving back to the community. We do it for altruistic reasons. At Tower this is so central to our philosophy that it is one of our seven core values. Secondly, sponsorship is used for marketing purposes. It’s about actively connecting with a target market, engendering belief and alignment that make your brand their natural choice.
At Tower we use tools to manage our sponsorships. We have a Sponsorship Strategy document that helps us decide what types of sponsorship we will consider and we have a set of Sponsorship Guidelines that set out our objectives, target markets, provide insight into our brand and clearly articulate what we are expecting from a partner. For example, our sponsorships must provide a natural link with our brand positioning, provide us with exclusive and/or meaningful content for our digital assets, or offer opportunity for client hospitality.
We also evaluate the feasibility of the sponsorship –the lead time and human resources to fully leverage the sponsorship, and of course, any financial commitment required. One of the basic tenets of best practice sponsorship is that it is leverageable across some of your other marketing media and has the ability to be a catalyst for marketing activities, making existing marketing activities more effective. For example, you could ask, does this sponsorship provide opportunities for media relations, market research, social media content, networking, employee reward, product launch/testing/trial, or new customer acquisition?
As individuals we avidly pursue what makes us happy and healthy, and we believe in leaving the world a better place than we found it. This has become part of our corporate culture. So a final thought is – are we, as a company and as individuals, passionate about this sponsorship? Does it provide us with a sense of purpose and give us a sense of fulfillment? Because when we work together for a cause with energy, passion and drive, we can make a real difference in the lives of others and in our community, making a sponsorship a win-win for all.
