by Jeroen Mourik

Kim Skildum-Reid presented an Advanced Professional Seminar "Power Sponsorship: Distancing Yourself from Your Competitors," to a packed full room at the IFEA's 52nd Annual Convention & Expo presented by Festival Media Corporation in Atlanta, Georgia and I was one of the lucky people to be there.

Early on in Kim´s presentation we learn to make a distinction between “Old School Sponsorship” and the New Generation of Sponsorship. To fully appreciate the difference though, Kim presented the Customer Continuum:

0)        Become Aware of Product or Service

1)        Build Relevance of Product or Service

2)        Try the Brand

3)        Add to Repertoire (start buying)

4)        Become Loyal to Brand, Product or Service

5)        Advocate to others

6)        Back to 1 and keep going into circles

(Interpretation of Customer Continuum as presented by Skildum-Reid)

In addition Kim showed a bell curve of the lifecycle of a brand:

1) infancy – create awareness

2) adolescence - build relevance

3) maturity – build and nurture relationship

Based on the above, the focal point for most sponsorships should not be on exposure (where the logo goes) because most sponsors are mature and do no longer need building up their brand awareness.

It is old school sponsorship to focus on exposure and all it does is tell your audience that your sponsors exist and nothing more. Kim also told us that research shows that image transfer by sponsorship is a myth.

Good sponsorship’s focus on changing target market perceptions and changing target behaviors. These two things, not dollar value return, should be the goals of sponsorship, because these leads to dollar value return in the long and short term.

It is in the sponsor’s interest to make more money out of their existing customers, because it cheaper than trying to get new clients. By moving existing customers along the Customer Continuum, they become advocates and as “sales people” they generate new customers.

Sponsorship marketing has more tools then any other marketing medium to move people around the customer continuum.

During the rest of the full day’s workshop, Kim presented her nine steps to success, gave us tips how to sell your sponsorship and stay ahead of the competition and shared a list of bad habits and success stories.

There was so much more that I learned that day and I would love to share here. Those that attended the session in Atlanta received great value for money and an excellent energetic boosting start to an intense conference.

Realizing that all that we were told during her session is actually in Kim’ book, which happens to be the best selling book on the topic globally, the best I can do for you is to highly recommend buying it as soon as possible.

For IFEA members it is a bargain and costs less than 17 Euros and non-members still only pay 22 Euros. The book comes with a time saving CD-Rom and guides you through all the steps. Buy it now, whilst the Euro is strong against the Dollar.