A research on sponsorship models will be performed at Incubate the coming half year. Once in a while a blog post about related subjects will be posted. 

Sponsorship is one of the most important income generators of the cultural sector, but also of the sports sector. Private parties have been donating money or in-kind for cultural and sport events for ages, both without any return and as a marketing tool. However, in the past decennia companies start to implement sponsorship more and more as an important marketing tool in their business model. In times of increasing competition for both the sponsors and the sponsees the marketing tool of sponsorship is getting to a higher level to stay in advance of their competitors. Sponsorship evolves into a professional entity that can be seen as a long-term co-marketing alliance where the sponsor and the sponsee both invest in a structural relation to gain maximum result.

The Australian marketing scientists Francis Farrelly and Pascale Quester published the idea of seeing a sponsorship relationship as a “co-marketing alliance” in 2005. In this post their view is presented, all referring to their journal article (Farrelly and Quester, 2005). Farrelly and Quester analyzed sponsorship relationships between sponsor and sports entity as a form of co-marketing alliance. We assume that sponsorship in sports environment and arts and culture environment is similar in essence.

Traditional sponsorship relations are often one-sided where the sponsor provides financial assistance to the sponsee and uses its philanthropic behaviour as marketing tool. However, Farrelly and Quester believe that a sponsorship relationship have higher potential if operated as a co-marketing alliance.  Five factors which are fundamental for a sponsorship relationship to act as a successful co-marketing alliance are defined:

1. Strategic compatibility – The extent to which both alliance partners have similar goals and views of alliance co-ordination and strategy.
2. Goal convergence – Both parties present a detailed picture where the alliance could contribute to their brand equity.
3. Commitment – The willingness of both parties to make short-term investments to realize long-term benefits from the relationship.
4. Trust – Trust has major influence on relationship outcomes including planning, investment, satisfaction and performance.
5. Economic and non-economic satisfaction – Economic satisfaction is clear: money. Non-economic satisfaction is the positive affective response to the non-economic psychosocial aspect of the relationship.

Often sponsees are the passive party in a sponsorship relation, which prevents the co-marketing alliance model to work in its full potential. If sponsees adopt a more strategic view and become more proactive in investing both financially as with human resources, the potential which sponsorship offers them may evolve to the full potential as a co-marketing alliance.

Farrelly, F.J. & Quester, P.G. (2005). Investigating large-scale sponsorship relationships as co-marketing alliances. Business Horizons, 48, 55-62.