Day #94: How to Seal the Deal with a Fast-Food Giant
Knocking on doors of successful companies and asking for a sponsorship deal is challenging. More likely than others the answer will be simple: We don't need that. That's the point where only good stories can sell.
Sport sponsoring is a ever growing business and as in many parts of our life the pandemic has forced us to change or ways of thinking faster. Fasten your seat belts! However, the new normality of sponsoring presence in sports can not only be traced back to the pandemic as the whole process of this change started long before. The crisis of not having (all) fans in the arenas solely works as an accelerator right now.
Space for branding
Putting a company’s logo on the billboard is still going to work in the future. These classics are the core of sponsoring and are going to have their place – Yesterday, today, and tomorrow!
There is no doubt about that. And once more: I'm far away from the complex world of sports sponsoring. However, I found a different way of approaching a sponsorship deal that I would like to share with you today.
So, if I would be in charge of closing the deal between an ice hockey organization and a fast food giant, I would try the following approach.
Bring the "Hockey Dads" in
Selling sponsorships is never easy – especially nowadays. All my respect to the General Managers on this list.
Back to my idea: you can change the terms "Hockey Dads" in "Sports Dads" and "Fast Food Giant" in "National Postal Service" or whatever you want.
People already know the brand of the potential sponsor, so offering them more brand awareness is probably not working. Offering a campaign with your top athletes as testimonials for the brand is likely to not impress them either.
You have to bring the brand into the personal lives of your athletes and share that story with the consumers of the brand. That's how we can make the difference.
Let's say we do have a team of 25 players – most of them are from different cities around the world. Bingo! Our fast-food giant has franchises, affiliates or own restaurants in all these cities. And our players? They have their parents, family and friends there. And a simple conversation of an ice hockey player with his hockey dad about getting into the game, always works. Also technologically easy, just let them register a video call and take a couple of selfie pics.
25 Stories can be told. 25 Cities can be involved. The brand reaches the fans (existing and potential consumers) on a totally different level.
Do you like this idea? If not tell me why. If yes, go out and try it.
Thanks for your time reading this,
Christian Dreier
cd mediateam Est.