With the Arts Council publishing their criteria for regular funding and Arts & Business chief executive Colin Tweedy calling for government created incentive schemes for private donors who sponsor cultural organisations, it seemed fitting that I also sit down to review London Calling’s own recent sponsorship and support.
What first got me thinking along this track was the forthcoming Culture Business conference, a one day event in Paris organised by Agenda, the people behind the Communicating the Museum conference.
Aimed at fundraising and development teams, the programme covers everything from new themes of social solidarity and positioning culture to practical skills on pitching and negotiation.
Following this line of thought, it occurred to me that a view from the other side of the company fence could be useful in any potential negotiation. So, what useful information might we be able to share with Agenda’s delegates that would help them come up with more tailored pitches and packages?
Looking at our own recent approach to sponsorship there’s no one distinct strategy for choosing when to get involved with a particular project or organisation, although there are lots of distinct reasons why we’d choose not to. For instance I’ve increasingly found myself explaining that getting our logo slapped onto things is rarely the motivating factor for us in any of our sponsorship conversations these days.
Instead what I’ve found is that our choices most often echo our company’s collective values and shared interests in some way. These aren’t just the values you’ll find listed out in our brand manual (although we do have one just in case) and are more commonly drawn from an initial shared idea or personal connection that’s sparked at the right moment.
Here, then, are some more specific examples that have lead to our own most recent partnerships:
Participation
Right now our most obvious level of sponsorship is the AMA’s upcoming Digital Marketing Day. It makes perfect sense to us given that we first launched our specialist London Calling Digital service at their main conference back in 2006. This latest event is selling very well apparently, and our logo is pretty much everywhere on their promotional material, but that’s not the reason we’re doing it.
The reason we’re keen to offer our support is because we already get a lot of value from the AMA. Their conferences, training days and networking events are our first port of call for learning and participation. Sharing experience and practice is key to the future of our sector, and if we can help pay the knowledge forward then all the better. It also brings me neatly to my next point.
Knowledge
We know why organisations most often seek sponsorship from us – monetary or in kind service support basically – but what should we ask for in return? One of the obvious answers is knowledge. A new marketing connection or insight into a different audience group can be highly valuable to us. For instance our recent support of the Raindance Film Festival wasn’t just an altruistic gesture based on their last minute loss of major banking funds (thank the credit crunch for that one), but also a great opportunity for us to get behind the scenes and learn more about how to market a festival with international reach on a bus fare budget.
Partnerships
Sometimes an initial contact can lead to an going relationship. This is exactly how we came to be partnered with Arcola Theatre and developed a reciprocal relationship on sustainable marketing initiatives that’s benefited both organisations over the long term and even set us out on the road conducting networking events to share what we’ve learned.
The point here is that it’s worth looking to the future of a possible relationship right from the point of first contact. A quick technique is to picture not just the immediate benefits as you step up to pitch, but also consider where your two organisations might be in a year from now. Working backwards, can you follow the steps that would have led to this potential future? If so, voila, instant strategy.
And Finally, Fun
Or, to put it another way, it’s good to do something new sometimes just because you can. Brands and companies are people too, and not every sponsorship decision is based purely on a direct strategic gain or return on investment. Some things are simply fun to do. The recent Treehouse Gallery Project would fall under that category. Our support was relatively small and most of the benefits to us were strictly internal – it seemed like an intriguing project and our Green Committee were keen for us to help out, which often is all the motivation required. And yet, every connection, no matter how small can lead on to bigger things, inspire colleagues or bring new and unexpected knowledge into an organisation.
Companies like Google have popularised the working practise of 20% Innovation Time as a key part of their business development. I’d argue that the new creative opportunities a modern company can gain from sponsorship fall within this concept of an innovation space.
Markets are conversations, as the Cluetrain Manifesto made clear back in 1999, and I’d argue that first and foremost a great sponsoring partnership is a fantastic way for a company to spark new and interesting exchanges at every level.
Culture Business 2009 takes place on Thursday 10th December in Paris, and full details of the event can be found here.
