Sponsorship Comparison

Sponsorship Comparison

‘Sponsorship is a mutually beneficial arrangement that consists of the provision of resources of funds, goods and/or services ... in return for a set of rights that can be used in communications activity, for the achievements of objectives for commercial gain.’
Masterman, Guy (2007) Sponsorship For a Return on Investment, London: Elsevier

The majority of sponsors identified for both events are corporate sponsors.

It is evident that both events have a substantial amount of sponsors, as previously mentioned it is common for large events to sustain several sponsors. However, with both events there are some sponsors that are hard to relate relevantly to event itself. For example; Renault Retail Group being a sponsor of Crufts 2013 proves little relevance as to what connection the company has with the event, as with Lavazza Italian Coffee and London Fashion Week 2013, again it proves little relevance to the purpose of the fashion
event.

However, it is evident how sponsorship is beneficial to both parties involved in the agreement as it is "an investment, in cash or kind, in an activity in return for access to the exploitable commercial potential associated with this activity."

For the sponsors, it provides opportunity for competitive advantage, awareness, image building and developing and maintaining relationships. The IOC developed reasons as to why companies sponsor; driving revenue, demonstrating altruism, enhancing international relations, and so on. Meenaghan (1991) introduced The Stages Sponsorship Goals and Participation, relating to money donation, return on investment and having control over activities.

London Fashion Week Sponsporship

 

Pictured above is the sponsors for London Fashion Week 2013 - http://www.londonfashionweek.co.uk/sponsors.aspx
 
As seen above, the following are sponsors of the event:

• Vodafone
• American Express
• Canon
• DHL
• Ebay Fashion
• International Palladium Board
• LavAzza - Italy's favourite coffee
• London Evening Standard
• MAC
• Mayor of London
• Mercedes Benz
• Scavi & Ray - Prosecco
• The May Fair Hotel
• Toni&Guy
• TOPSHOP
• UK Trade and Investment

 
Upon first glance, some of the sponsors are evidently relevant and exactly suited to the event, such as; eBay fashion, MAC, Toni&Guy - all of which relate to fashion, hair and beauty - incidentally the 3 things most people would associate mostly with London Fashion Week
 
Furthermore, Canon can be related to the media coverage of the event; the photographers taking pictures at the event, of models on the runway, etc.
 
London Evening Standard, Mayor of London, and the UK Trade and Investment are all related to location, and being involved in the event because they need to be. It is good publicity for the Mayor of London to be associated with supporting such huge events that take place annually within the City. It presents him as being in touch with the public, and caring about the event.
 
The London Evening Standard will incidentally be acting as media coverage of the events, it can advertise the event through stories within the newspaper. "Founded in 1827, the Evening Standard is “the voice of London”. With a circulation of over 700,000 and a readership in excess of 1.5M the Standard not only boasts a greater number of readers than any other quality national newspaper but also one of the highest ‘AB’ socio-demographic profiles." - http://www.londonfashionweek.co.uk/news/466/LFW-Sponsors 

Pictured is a screen shot of Scavi & Rays' Homepage of their Website - http://www.scavi-ray.com/en/
With this screen shot, we see the benefits of Sponsors of the event. Scavi & Ray openly advertise London Fashion Week on their homepage, it is the first thing you see when you click onto their website. Scavi&Ray is a German wine company, and London Fashion Week is known as an international event attracting visitors from all over the world. Therefore, this kind of advertising reaches out to demographics and target markets from various different countries that the event may not intentionally spend as much money on advertising to in this way. Also, the target audience of Scavi&Ray seems some what prestige, therefore will be the kind of attendees London Fashion Week would attract to travel and attend the world known fashion show. Typically, the Scavi&Ray customers may be known to afford to travel to such events.


This screen shot is from the May Fair Hotels online Blog, it is yet another example of how sponsors advertise the event freely to its own customers, a specific audience that the event may not necessarily reach without the sponsorship of MayFair Hotel and the advertisements within its blog like this one. It benefits MayFair Hotel as it is reportedly know as "The May Fair Hotel is THE fashion hotel; proud to announce its status as the official hotel of Vodafone London Fashion Week, for the fifth year running." - http://www.londonfashionweek.co.uk/news/466/LFW-Sponsors 

Attendees of the event are likely to choose the MayFair Hotel if in need of accommodation as it is a sponsor, and therefore in association with London Fashion Week. Attendees will perceive it has a good reputation, being a sponsor makes it look reliable as a choice of hotel.

This is a further example of a sponsor mentioning and advertising London Fashion Week 2013. In Topshops' online blog they advertise "a dream weekend at London Fashion Week", which gives the event further advertisement, reaching to Topshops target audience, individuals interested in fashion, which is equally part of the target market for London Fashion Week.
(Pictured:http://insideout.topshop.com/fashion-week-1)

Crufts Sponsorship

Sponsors

(Pictured - A Screen Shot of  Crufts Web Page on Sponsors of the event http://www.crufts.org.uk/sponsors)

*Some content of this page has been directly copied from the Crufts web page on Sponsorship, the link it shown as above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Upon looking at the sponsors for each event, it has come to my attention, that like many other events, both are similar in the fact that they each have more than one sponsor. On the Crufts website, it categories its sponsors as; Principal Sponsor, Major Sponsors and Official Sponsors.

 

Principle Sponsor– Eukanuba; a company selling a range of premium dog food. Victoria (Eukanuba employee) will be attending Eukanuba’s stand on Friday 8th March to meet breeders and dog enthusiasts alike, to talk about her dogs and the importance of high quality nutrition.

Key highlights of the day will be:

§ Interview on stage where visitors will get the opportunity to ask her questions.

§ Meet and greet opportunity with visitors

§ Presentation of the Young Kennel Club Art Competition

Major Sponsors

Agria
Agria Pet Insurance, one of Sweden's largest financial institutions and the leading name in pet insurance in Scandinavia, bringing knowledge and experience to the UK Canine Community.

James Wellbeloved

James Wellbeloved makes naturally healthy complete dog and cat food.

PRO PLAN

PRO PLAN is one of Purina's leading pet food brands and pets are our passion.

Royal Canin

A pet food company tailored to Dogs and Cats.

Each of the above sponsors each share the same target market as Crufts. They all target pet owners, and more specifically dog owners. Therefore, both the event and its sponsors can approach and target their market audience in partnership, possibly doing so stronger than individually. Some sponsors, such as Eukanuba, will be operating stalls at the event, promoting and selling their own business and products so the event of Crufts is a great opportunity for them to promote the knowledge and reputation of their own brand, yet also for Crufts it is financially beneficial, also, it adds to their event making it even bigger and more appealing to attendees as there is a lot more to the event.

Samsung Electronics (UK Ltd)

Since 1993 a proud Partner of Crufts, supports animal welfare. As a corporate philosophy, Samsung values harmony between humanity and animal welfare.

Samsung is also involved in funding Samsung Guide Dogs for the Blind, the only one of its kind in Korea, where growing numbers of dogs are trained every year. The company also works with the Royal New Zealand Foundation for the Blind Guide Dog School to ensure that its trainers are certified to the highest international standards.

Samsung has also received the Lesley Scott-Ordish Award from leading UK charity, PRO Dogs, for its outstanding services for the benefit of dogs.

Above, within the description of the sponsor found on Crufts web page, we see the evident relation of Samung electronics to the animal theme that Crufts reputation promotes. Samsungs involvement in animal welfare, Guide Dogs for the Blind, and Pro Dogs Charity, makes the company a relevant and reputable sponsor for Crufts dog show.

Official Car Partner

Renault Retail Group is proud to be one of the sponsors of Crufts 2013! We are wholly-owned by Renault UK and operate in 20 of the biggest towns and cities in the UK, from London to Wales, the Midlands and the North West of England.

When I came across this sponsor, and the description given, I found it some what difficult to understand the relevance in the companies involvement of sponsorship. Unlike the explanation given from Samsung, in this description, there is no mentioning of the relevance to dogs, or animals themselves, what so ever. I believe the public would also identity the absence of a relevant connection between this sponsor and the dog show.

Official Sponsors

Arden Grange

Arden Grange Pet Foods manufacture complete and nutritionally balanced diets for cats and dogs. Arden Grange only use the best quality, natural and wholesome ingredients in all their foods to provide your pet with a highly appetising, nutritionally complete and balanced meal. Arden Grange offers products for dogs and cats with different life-stages, breed size, and activity level.

 

R&L Pet Products Ltd

R & L Pet Products looks forward to welcoming you to our stand at Crufts 2013. Come and see our exciting range of products, personally selected to provide high quality solutions to care for your pet and home, including the best selling Urine Off Odour & Stain Remover and Yard Clean.  Many show offers and new exciting products available when you visit us at Crufts.

Vet-Medic Pharmacy

Vet-Medic Pharmacy is the alternative way to buy veterinary medicines and receive expert animal medical advice. Many of the medicines you buy from your vet are often available direct from Vet-Medic at much lower prices, even prescription medicines.

 

Below are the logos of the sponsors of Crufts 2013.

 

 

Crufts Marketing Strategies

Marketing Strategies
Crufts marketing strategies stretch to promotional offers and advertisements in a dog magazine; a printed media suited specifically to an ideal target market - dog owners. Arguably, segmentation was the approach here - the marketing strategy identified a group of consumers with similar needs and then chose a relevant printed media, Dogs Monthly magazine, to target the segment.

The advertisement was carried out as a promotional offer - a chance to win Crufts tickets and a VIP visit. Pictured on the top right corner of the front cover of Dogs Monthly magazine, it makes a bright, bold statement and evidently would catch most readers attention. The colours chosen, pictured on the left, yellow, blue, white, and yellow create a combination that presents a contrast to the rest of the front cover, furthermore proving the eye catching design.

In order for content to be printed in a magazine, it has a deadline to meet - 3 months in advance of the published date of the magazine. Therefore, this marketing strategy was evidently importantly planned in advance in order to comply by the deadline for publishing. The magazine "DogsMonthly" is obviously a magazine produced for readers each month, so timing to appeal to the readers of the magazine at the right time was crucial - an advert cannot be too early, as people will forget the event, or too late as it may not offer the public enough time to plan to attend the event.

The advertisement is kept simple, and basic. Precise to the point it is making, therefore effective as to not confuse the reader causing an error with getting the correct message across.

Crufts Advertisement

 

Source of picture: http://www.thenec.co.uk/      

Accessed: 07/02/2013

Venue for Crufts Dog Show Event

The NEC Birmingham is the venue in which Crufts Dog Show takes place from the 7^th-10^th March 2013. The Venues homepage offers an eye catching banner across the top of the page, the image changes every 5-8 seconds; it is used in advertising the events due to take place at the location.

Crufts takes up the opportunity to push their advertising to be appealing to all visitors of the NEC website. The colours of the advert are seen throughout all elements of marketing strategies by Crufts, therefore creating a relation to the recognition of the event and the colours – arguably one of the first things to notice about the advertisement. Furthermore, images of the dogs are almost compulsory for the events ad, again, to instantly report to the website visitor what the event is about. For those more familiar with the Crufts event from previous years, they will notice the main dog pictured is a ‘Lhasa Apso’, the winner of Best in Show from Crufts 2012. It creates a sense of recognition and familiarises people with the highlighting aspects of a previous successful event.

Overall, the advert is kept simple and factual; the events name, the date of the event, and the location of the event are all presented in a list-like fashion; though each differing in font and colour. They are recognised as the most important information needed to be supplied for the receiver of the advert.

“Under 8’s go free” is a promotional effort included in the banner advertisement. To entice new and previous customers to bring along children, emphasising the event to be one suitable for all ages and therefore families. Also, for receivers of the advertisement, the thought of being given something ‘Free’ is somewhat rewarding, it can be helpful in reinforcing any possibility of the individual choosing to attend the event.

Finally, “Biggest and Best Celebration of Dogs” is a strong statement for an events brand and reputation to print and live up to. It will most certainly increase any expectations attendees will have of the show, though the sense of confidence in itself is also intriguing. The bold statement may entice more attendees, people who do want to see the ‘biggest and best celebration of dogs’ and genuinely believe what the advert is telling them.

Irrelevent emails through direct mail sign up

 


















This is a print screen of just one of the irrelevant/unwanted emails I have received since signing up to the newsletter for "London Fashion Week". They have used the 'sign up' approach to obtain email addresses and use them to market other events they are involved in. Although a tactical marketing approach from their point of view, as a receiver of these it becomes an inconvenience to keep getting these emails that I did not specifically sign up for. It is the kind of annoyance that would usually lead me to 'unsubscribe' from their emailing service. So, from a customer’s point of view, the marketing approach, in my opinion, is not a successful one. They should keep to sending emails specifically about London Fashion Week itself as this is the only event I signed up for when using their website. It creates less of a trusting relationship concerning what they will do with the contact information I provided them when signing up.

YouTube advertisements

Neither London Fashion Week or Crufts are advertised much in the way of television so far away from the date of the event. I decided to approach YouTube as a way of finding film media advertising each event. YouTube reaches out to a mass audience, therefore would be a useful element to upload a video to in order to raise awareness and increase knowledge on the event. I searched London Fashion Week, all that was available were videos of previous runway shows from 2012, 2011, and so on. Nothing in the way of advertising their 2013 event was visible. Crufts, however, did offer a form of advertisement, which I will link to this post. Although very basic, and a critic may describe it as amateur, it at least offers its audience visuals and details of the 2013 dog show Crufts. It repeats it's details at the beginning and end, with a montage of images throughout. Video clips may have been more exciting for the viewer, video footage from previous crufts shows would have been an option, however it still stands that they at least have some marketing strategies that are easily accessible if looking on YouTube.