REPORTING FROM PITTSBURGH — Brand sponsorship is more than just putting up a logo. Sponsorships bring big bucks to venues, as well as challenges. Asher Johnson, creative director at Dimension Innovations and his colleague, Justin Wood, vice president, led a panel at the Association of Luxury Suite Directors conference here discussing the practical components, need for precise planning and the do’s and don’ts of selling space to sponsorship partners in your venue.
“Sponsors who have never done this are like deer caught in the headlights,” said Johnson. “Fortune 500 companies often don’t have a team that does this, so we have to walk them through the project and educate them. Others that do this on a monthly basis often think all environments are the same.”
It’s got to be more than something that is shoved into a corner, and it’s not obvious why it’s there other than somebody sold somebody a chunk of real estate,” said Wood. “There is brand explosion all over the place but how does it relate to other parts of the stadium?”
Wood said that creating amazing brand alignment is vital to the process. He used Consol Energy Center, Pittsburgh, home of the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team, as an example of how to do it right.
“The giant hockey helmet that everyone passes on the way into the arena is sponsored by Bayer Plastics. The entire piece is made of Bayer plastics. It’s simple, concise, gets the brand message across and perfect.”
Johnson broke the challenges of bringing sponsorship partners into your venue into three distinct categories: experiential, physical and partnership challenges.
“The experiential challenge is to provide experiences that add value to the fans. It’s not about being disruptive, screaming your brand and throwing it up on a wall,” said Johnson.
The physical challenges take many forms. “We have to tell the brand story,” said Johnson. “Most of the time the environments are huge. You want to stand out without sticking out. You need to ask, what does lighting look like? How do fans approach the space? What is the holistic feel?”
Wood said that finding the right space is essential. “The whole point is to get the fan to connect on a deeper level with the brand and team.” Wood stressed that most of the time the goal is also to give fans a quick glimpse, make a connection with the brand and keep moving. “You don’t want to back up the concourse,” he said.
Partnership challenges are often the toughest part of the process. “We have to have tough conversations and know what success looks like,” said Johnson.
Misalignment between the teams working on the project, from various ends of the process, is deadly.
“Often we have the stadium team and the fan experience team and the sponsor team, and we have to make sure everyone is aligned,” said Johnson. “We’ve got entitlement issues. Sponsors are bringing a lot of money to the table and they feel like they can do whatever they want.”
Johnson emphasized setting brand standards and guidelines. “We have to make sure they don’t bastardize the beautiful architecture,” he said. “They want to hammer home the latest campaign, but we have to tell them this is going to be here for a long time. Most of these are 10- to 15-year contracts and it’s not about what’s playing on TV right now.”
Dimensional Innovations found that one way to get everybody on the same page was to come up with an experiential style guide.
“The guide lets the client know they can breathe,” said Wood. “We explain how we start discovery, kick-off, design process, construction, timeline and installation. It lets the sponsors understand their options. Twelve months sounds like a lot of time. But it’s not. It really helps the client understand the way this should go.”
Dimensional Innovations also built an online asset they call the “partner portal,” which houses all the information about the project. “It gives the client comfort”, said Wood.
Both Johnson and Wood agreed on the do’s and don’ts of brand sponsorship.
The do’s include collaboration, participation, and everyone knowing the process and procedures.
“Show sketches and ideas and bottleneck that approach,” said Johnson. “Ask what is right for their brand story?”
“Build good systems for tracking changes and approvals,” said Wood. “Make sure everyone knows what their roles are and responsibilities are.”
The don’ts are less complex. Don’t be unrealistic in terms of scheduling activations. Don’t make time promises that you can’t keep. Don’t conceive activations that the sponsor can’t afford. Don’t ignore approvals.
“We are trying to build a destination that draws people,” said Wood. “Some arenas want everything to sync, while others want no duplication of experiences anywhere in the building and pockets of destination. A lot of the time there’s so much visual noise that nothing is important. Other times it’s so monochromatic that it’s all the same. We have to live in between.”
Interviewed for this story: Asher Johnson and Justin Wood, (913) 744-2137
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Beyond the Logo
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