Partnership Marketing

Westfield Malls seeks to recruit Sales professionals with a proven record generating and driving advertising revenue through media sales and partnerships/sponsorships in the following markets – San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Chicago. The candidate will have experience developing, negotiating, and implementing strategic marketing/advertising platforms with national, regional and local brands that reach the clients’ objectives and generates maximum revenue for Westfield.

Interested candidates should go to the link below, search by “Partnership Marketing” and then apply by appropriate city/region (when applying, the candidate must submit information on 3 large deals that were prospected, solicited, and secured solely by the candidate):

http://www.resourcehire.com/clients/westfield/publicjobs/ or email resume to ldoyle@westfield.com and specify city of interest.

Click here for Director Job Description
Click here for Regional Director Job Description

Maximizing LinkedIn

Here are two great resources for learning to use various features in LinkedIn more effectively:
http://blog.linkedin.com/
Recent posts spotlight the Company Profile feature.
http://learn.linkedin.com/apps/
Learn about all the applications available for use.

Exceptional Sponsorship Programming: Integrated, Relevant, Synergistic

The CentrO is the largest shopping complex in continental Europe according to the German National Tourist Board. There are 200 shops and the complex attracts more than 20 million visitors every year (http://www.germany-tourism.de/ENG/destination_germany/master_tlshopping-id1159-fstadt_topshopping.htm). Their impressive lineup of sponsorship programs revolve around beverages, ice-cream sales, telecommunications, energy, banking and children's products and generated $3.12 million of annual income in 2006.

They have identified different niches that can be served more effectively. Partnership agreements have been created that specifically target these markets to enhance their shopping experience. The Coca-Cola-sponsored food court targets teens that tend to spend a lot of time hanging out at the mall, improving the teen mall experience while stimulating sales. Another key demographic is the parents with young children that are prone to become fussy and cause parents to leave the mall too quickly, thus limiting sales opportunities. To address this phenomenon the mall has implemented a sponsored child-care center, allowing parents the opportunity to shop in a more relaxed manner that improves the shopping experience and increases the time spent at the mall which translates into more sales. Furthermore, there are sponsored closed-circuit cell phones parents may use to keep in touch with their kids in the child-care center while they shop which further encourages parents to use the service. The tenants of the mall is another niche that is served through sponsorship programs. The mall purchases energy directly at a discounted price and resells it to tenants, which generates additional revenue for the mall while still offering lower energy prices to individual tenants. The different sponsors allow the segmentation and targeting of different markets while capitalizing on the core competencies of all of these companies. Now is the time for shopping centers to seriously consider integrated, relevant, and synergistic sponsorship programs that enhance the shopping experience while generating additional revenue and benefits.

A summary of their long-term sponsorship programs:

(to read the full ICSC articles please visit http://www.icsc.org/srch/sct/sct0504/page189.php and http://www.icsc.org/srch/education/awards/maxi2006/RI1mil_1399CentrOCorpPartnerProg.pdf)

Food court/beverages: Coca-Cola Oasis

• Logo appears on everything from signage to cups and food trays
• Video wall broadcasts sponsors’ (purchased) messages
• Branded in-house venue for concerts, fashion shows and other promotional events
• Exclusive rights to sell its products in most of Centro’s venues
• Comprises 97 percent of all beverage sales in CentrO, making this mall its biggest point of sale in Germany

Coffee, ice cream: Nestlé Schöller

• Exclusive supplier rights for coffee and ice cream sales in common areas
• Naming rights to the family-oriented Nestlé Schöller Adventure Island in the CentrO leisure park

Telecommunications: Vodafone

• Sales and promotion rights, POS ads, sponsorship of events
• Test market for new technologies
• CentrO is often the first to get new Vodafone technologies

Energy: CentrO buys at reduced price and resells to tenants

EVO, an Oberhausen-based regional power supplier

• Exclusive power supplier
• furnishes the center with Christmas lighting.

e-on Ruhrgas, Europe's biggest gas company

• Portable propane heaters on terraces of eateries replaced with permanent heaters connected to new gas pipeline

Child-care

The Pritt Co.

• Sponsors Pritt Kinderland, a child-care center

Düsseldorf-based ISIS

• Provides closed-circuit cell phones to parents whose children are in the child-care center, so they can keep in touch while they shop

Banking: Citibank

• 9 ATM machines and a kiosk

Exclusivity: Finding the Balance

Visa recently unveiled their new tagline, "Life Takes Visa," during the 2008 Summer Olympics. The timing demonstrated a well-coordinated marketing effort in which the advertising campaign and Visa's sponsorship of the Olympics augmented each other and enhanced the overall effectiveness. The sponsorship agreement involves an exclusivity arrangement which establishes Visa as "the only card accepted at all Olympic Games venues for any official Olympic Games-related transactions." (http://www.corporate.visa.com/md/fs/olympics/olympic_facts.jsp) There were 6.52 million tourist arrivals in Beijing during the Olympics and they soon found that, for the next 16 days and 17 nights, life only took Visa.

Let's consider how this played out for Visa. The benefits that Visa sought from the sponsorship agreement most likely include heightened brand visibility, increased sales, and enhanced brand image.

• Brand visibility: Pre-Olympic promotional programs were implemented in conjunction with partnering financial institutions in 46 different countries. Visa definitely gained exposure during the actual two and a half week period, and the new Visa card accounts that were opened during this timeframe further extended the visibility factor post-Olympics.
• Increased sales: Visa not only increased its sales volume during the Games, it also had an opportunity to more effectively showcase products other than its credit cards. During the Torino Winter Olympics Visa issued 650,000 prepaid cards in direct relation to Olympic transactions, and similar results can be expected of the recent Summer Games.
• Enhanced brand image: This is where the value of exclusivity becomes ambiguous. Consumers tend to use credit cards for the convenience factor. Ironically, Visa created an inconvenient situation for anyone who did not already use a Visa credit card or would have preferred to use another card for whatever reason (corporate card, reward points, etc.). Furthermore, consumers have generally come to expect the freedom of paying for their purchases with their major credit card of choice so the Visa-only policy has resulted in many an unpleasant purchasing experience and has generated a certain degree of backlash. On the other hand, their exclusivity on such a prestigious event may have caused some purchasers to wish they had a Visa!

Brand visibility is fundamentally valuable when it translates into increased business, so the value of heightened brand visibility for Visa is diminished if negative consumer perceptions develop. Also, it is unclear whether higher sales figures resulted from an actual increase in consumer preference for Visa or if the increase in sales was primarily a one-time deal rather than a sustainable improvement.

Clearly, brand visibility, sales, and brand image are inextricably interdependent. While there are measurable short-term improvements, it remains uncertain whether the derived benefits are sustainable and worth the costs of implementing Visa's Olympic marketing strategies. So the question Visa needs to ask itself is: Is the Halo effect from the Olympics worth the risk of turning off customers with the lack of alternative payment options?

Check out Asia Sponsorship News

Anyone with an interest in the sponsorship industry in Asia should be familiar with the industry news and information service for the region Asia Sponsorship News.

The news website has just undergone a major facelift and now boasts and new sponsorship database profiling most of the major deals in the region. If you operate in the region or plan to work there, this is a must read resource.

Asia Sponsorship News is offering Sponsorship Insight members a significant discount on an annual subscription to the service and they invite members to take a complimentary 21 day no obligation trial. Simply visit www.asiasponsorshipnews.com and click on Free Trial to sign up. Be sure to include (SponsorshipInsights) in brackets after you name so you get the discount.
The annual subscription is US$750 which will be discounted to US $625 for SponsorshipInsight members.

The Leverage Agency is making waves in Beijing

Our Sponsorship Insights Group member, Ben Sturner has been active in Beijing during the Olympics and he is profiled in this article in the Wall Street Journal.  Watch out for some great stuff from his group in the upcoming months.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121877016737643655.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Partnership with TeamworkOnline

I am excited to announce a new partnership that will be highly beneficial for members of my LinkedIn Sponsorship Insights Group and sponsorship sales professionals in general. If you are looking to expand your career or looking to get into sports marketing or sales, click here or check out the jobs posted above.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/TeamWork/OpenJobsInCorporateSponsorshipSales