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What we learned from 12 years of running a sponsorship firm
We’ve survived economic downturns, a global pandemic, and all sorts of minutiae problems, and learned that running a business is very much about problem-solving—for our clients and ourselves.
Although we may be slow learners, we’ve gathered a few lessons over the years.
(Slow) Adoption of tech tools
When we launched the company, late summer in 2013, with the first self-serve online valuation tool aimed at making sponsorship valuation for properties (the precursor to Cakemix), I (Francis typing) imaged myself as a digital nomad, spending most of my days on a beach. The opposite pretty much describes the next few years as Jay and I would work well into nights out of a 24-hour coffee joint, and weekends.
Elevent was certainly ahead of the parade: It took about 10 years for the software side of the company to be an established business.
Slow adoption made our products and us better.
The feedback from early adopters and having to constantly put ourselves in our clients’ shoes made us focus the development of our tools on solving real pain points, saving time, money, and increasing efficiency for clients.
The widely recognized SOC 2 Type 2 certification we received is a testament to the team’s dedication and patience.
The whole measurement thing
In the 15+ years (WAY more for Jay) in the sponsorship industry, there is not a sponsorship conference I attended that did not put the challenge of sponsorship valuation and performance measurement front and centre.
There was a bit of insincerity in that, as many sponsors did not have a budget to measure. Some folks did not understand it, others, frankly, did not care.
Then it all changed.
Sponsors started to ask for more pre-event valuation, standardized evaluation of sponsorship requests, and sponsorship performance measurement: measuring both the return on investment (ROI) and outcomes (KPIs).
Why?
Perhaps it was a new generation of marketers used to everything being measured in real time with digital marketing, maybe it was added pressures on sponsorship budgets, or maybe sponsorship folks we tired of being treated as the carnival clown?
What’s next?
In the next few years, we will see standardized measurement methods and systems to manage post-event reporting, as teams will ditch Excel worksheets, emails, and PowerPoint documents to manage multi-million-dollar sponsorship programs.
We will also see a systematic measurement of sponsorship outcomes (sorry folks on the property side, you will have to allow sponsors to add questions in your post-event/season survey!).
Expertise is on the rise
Ten years ago, half of Elevent’s revenue came from sponsorship valuation.
These days, consulting projects are far more complex, requiring intricate strategies, specialized tools, and precise outcome measurements. We are often tasked with presenting strategy work or data to company leadership teams, even board members! In this environment, properties are striving to catch up.
In the past year alone, we have supported numerous properties that were attempting to elevate their offerings to meet the market’s higher expectations. As a result, the overall expertise level within the industry has increased, and the sponsorship industry will undoubtedly benefit from this growth.
Don’t confuse popularity with effectiveness
One of my (Francis) mentors put it plainly 15 years ago: you could be on the cover of the newspaper for the wrong reasons. You would generate tons of impressions, but it would be negative value.
If you were to hand out $20 bills on the side of the street, a queue will form. It will be popular. Will people remember your name, your birthday, or the name of your firstborn?
People confuse popularity with effectiveness all the time.
In experiential marketing and on-site activations, new tech and gadgets can be hugely popular (so are photobooths, Francis’s pet peeve).
When managing a sponsorship team on the brand side, I would always ask the same two questions when looking at activation concepts: 1) can you replace our brand with a competitor’s logo? And even worse: 2) can you replace our brand with any brand?
Strategy does not only extend to a sponsorship portfolio and the process of choosing the right property for the market, your objectives, and target audience, it extends to the activation.
Brands need a platform or program, something you can make your own and convey to audiences and fans why you are there in the first place. A lot of sponsors are now doing a great job at this.
Trends come and go
“Hot” sponsorship categories change all the time. Ten years ago, it was beer and aviation; recently, crypto; now it’s AI and pharma.
Same on the property side.
Remember e-sports? No kidding: I read in a credible marketing publication at the time that the new generation would grow up watching esports, and the blue-chip pro sports were going to go extinct.
Remember the first year of the pandemic? In the future, we would consume live entertainment with a VR headset on our heads, with friends, remotely, in the comfort of our own homes.
Now it’s pickleball.
Call us cynics, but a sound sponsorship program, strategy, activation platform, and measurement practice beats all trends.
Long live Elevent! Long live sponsorships!
