Sponsorship across the Accor funnel

In Unofficial Partner podcast #314, Stuart talked extensively about Accor’s application of sponsorship across the marketing funnel and Paris 2024. This abridged version of the interview focuses on the core business use of sponsorship by Accor.  As usual, this edit has been edited for ease of reading. Stuart Wareman, SVP of Sponsorship, Events and Experiences […]

The Crypto sponsorship landgrab

Crypto. has been one of the biggest spenders in the sports sponsorship market over the last three years, putting its brand to properties including FIFA World Cup, F1 and the Aston Martin team, UFC, Australia Football League and the naming rights to the Staples Centre in Los Angeles – amongst others. Crypto.com‘s awesome head of […]

Attentive reach and emotional impact

In our post of Jan 3, we explored the relevance of sponsorship to the concept of attentive reach.  But we also asked an unresolved question around the relationship between attention and emotional impact which we’re returning to here. In our post, we looked at the growing focus on attentive reach, which has been brought on […]

A brief history of sponsorship

The whole sponsorship thing feels very modern – but its roots go way back. We explored the roots and the close connections to philanthropy in an earlier post. So for now, we thought we’d simply tell a story, a brief history of sponsorship. Over 2000 years, execution has changed substantially, but its core purpose has […]

James Williams on sponsorship

Coca Cola and the Olympics is sport’s most enduring commercial relationship. But how does it work on the inside? How relevant is the Games to today’s Coke drinker? Is the Olympic TOP programme still fit for purpose? And how can the IOC balance its promises around sustainability with the reality of hosting massive, multi-sport events, […]

Sport’s leadership crisis?

One of the points made by ex Coke man James Williams, in his excellent interview for Unofficial Partner Episode #301 was to argue that the IOC should be more pro-active in setting a progressive  framework to enforce improvements in Olympic sustainability in Games delivery. We’ve always recognised huge value in host cities using their bids […]

The sponsorship case for Green Football Weekend

The inaugural Green Football Weekend took place over the first weekend of February 2023 and cemented its fixture on the UK football calendar. Over 80 clubs took part in the inaugural GFW, including all the EPL, an amazing feat in itself – added to which the support of Sky and BT Sport made GFW1 unmissable. If it […]

The Secret Lives of Sports Fans

If you’re interested in the psychology of fandom, it’s worth taking a look at Eric Simons’ ‘The Secret Lives of Sports Fans‘. Simons is a journalist, author and diehard Cal Golden Bears fan who approaches the subject by trying to understand a number of his own experiences as a fan. What he calls The Secret […]

Sponsorship 101 : Sponsorship rights

#2  in our Sponsorship 101 series aims to give a broad base understanding of sponsorship rights. When you think about the enormous range of rights-holders out there, from airports to zoos, it’s easy enough to imagine the enormous range of sponsorship rights which rights-holders can offer in their sponsorship package. We’ve worked with hundreds of […]

Sponsorship, branding and Byron’s big mistake

Please read this if you’re interested in how sponsorship changes brand perception.. This post wraps up a number of loose ends – so goes on a bit, sorry. Following a recent podcast, Ian Thompson, a sponsorship measurement expert, scoffed in a blog at the idea of brand value transfer – namely, that the values of […]

The power of broadcast sponsorship

Sponsorship Rocks Not that we spend all Christmas watching TV – far from it. But a post on broadcast sponsorship does still seem somehow more fitting at this time of the year. We used to see broadcast sponsorship mainly as a media buy – but that changed with the innovation of creative bumpers branding from […]