Week 9

Ch. 13 - Sponsorship and Event Management in Public Relations: theory and practice / edited by Jane Johnston and Clara Zawawi.

The key points to remember from this week's readings are:

- Sponsorship is the purchase of specific rights and benefits associated with an event, organisation or individual. It should not be confused with donations, philanthropy or bequests.

- Sponsorship can generate goodwill and provides opportunities to enhance the image and reputation of the organisation by association

- Events are a chance for PR practitioners to exercise their creative abilities

- Sponsorship provides a focal point for sales and marketing, offers high visibility to potential customers and can generate media coverage

- There are different types of sponsorship:
- philantropic sponsorship is as close to a donation as sponsorship can get. It is usually community-based
- corporate sponsorship of an event or activity not normally linked to the sponsoring company's gerneral business
- marketing sponsorship is the most popular form of sponsorship, and is a common inclusion as a cost-effectvie sales and marketig strategy. Cash and goods are offered in return for tangible revenue-orientated results. It is primarily used to promote products and services to targeted market segments and/ or used primarily to reinforce a product, brand or promote sales activities

- Understanding the motives and goals of the target audience is crucial when writing a sponsorship proposal

- Ambush marketing can destroy the concept of sposorship and the viability of some evets

- To create a successful event four steps have to be followed:
1) Feasibility
2) Planing
3) Execution (critical path)
4) Evaluation (debriefing meeting, event assessment, business activity assessment)


The readings made me think more about PR theory/practice in that:

that it is really important to plan your sponsorship as good as possible. The effects can be huge. I think also that the right idea for a special sponsorship can be ore important than the money you spent on. Sometimes a weird, but interesting and creative idea can reach a bigger audience than a expensive, but simple one.