ESA To Take Leadership Position In Promoting Benefits of Sponsorship

Organised by the European Sponsorship Association (ESA), the ESA Sponsorship Summit, held last week, aimed to challenge conventional industry thinking and identify the future role of sponsorship as part of the marketing mix, within the context of the fast-moving technology.

A number of themes and learnings arose from the day including:

• Sponsorship should be answering an unmet need.

• Sponsors should avoid over-manufacturing their brand experience and that there was a real value in allowing customers to add the final few pieces.

• Whilst insight is increasingly important, the big idea is still key.

• Restrictive or disruptive sponsorships are counter-productive.

• Importance of understanding a customer base and using the knowledge from data to better target campaigns (technology enables real-time response).

• The emphasis on the transactional nature of the sponsorship model needs to be rethought.

• Industry to be clearer on and more confident about how campaigns are measured 

• The sponsorship industry needs to be more collaborative and more confident in sharing 

Observations were made by several of the panellists that there is increasing potential for sponsorship professionals, who have had the benefit of working with teams across the business, to be promoted to the CMO role. Further comments showed that the industry is also benefitting from the input and creativity of managers with little knowledge of sponsorship but who are able to bring a broader perspective.

In summing up the day’s discussions, Karen Earl reflected on the points above and highlighted the importance of training young people to have the correct skill set to meet the challenges of the industry. She emphasised that the ESA Diploma, now in its second year, had been created to fulfil this objective and that ESA is pursuing a strategy to attract more quality people into the industry. 

“The industry is still having to grapple with a perception that sponsors are a necessary evil and we urgently need to rectify this”, said Karen.  “We need to demonstrate that sponsors bring more to the party than just cash. ESA needs to be better at explaining and promoting the industry so that it is accepted as a valuable marketing discipline.  We are committed to addressing these issues and the others that arose during the day”.

This is the first in a series of thought-leadership events being organised by ESA as the industry continues to develop and grow. The content from the ESA Summit will be addressed on an ongoing basis through the ESA Diploma and in future ESA events as the industry association takes the leadership position in ensuring sponsorship maintains its relevance and value within the ever-changing marketing mix.