Today, this might be the biggest showdown in all of advertising. This week on The Inches Podcast Rich Franklin and I look at the relationship between the two, digital and traditional sponsorship assets, and why you may need both to help reach your sponsor’s goals.
Listen to the full episode HERE and check out the key points below.
It all comes back to your Sponsor’s goals
Last week’s episode comes back around to this week. Overall it doesn’t matter which may be better overall. What matters is what fits your sponsor’s goals.
In sponsorship, or any sales really, understanding your partner’s goal and customer segment is the path to decide which asset will lead to that success.
A Yankees baseball card is a treasure to some, others it’s just a cardboard rectangle. The same goes for the attention of different segments your sponsor is trying to reach.
Rich brings up some breakdown of time spent on screens. Nothing crazy here but it is important to understand where attention is.
Age 50+ the time on screen for TV is almost double that of on a smartphone.
It is reversed for age 20–49. While digital may be HUGE for some… for others it may not be a fit.
What age range & demographic is your sponsor looking to hit?
What is the intended goal? Sales? Branding?
This will help you bring the most value for each partner by understanding the customer segment & goals to match the asset that helps them reach that goal.
Ultimately, it doesn’t come down to which is more effective overall, it comes down to which will be more effective for your partner
With that said, we’re seeing that digital is mostly seen as the most effective for your partners.
Rich brings up a great analogy here. Why does someone rob a bank? Because that is where the money is.
Budgets are increasing for digital campaigns with sponsors. Sometimes as much as 40%+ are earmarked for digital initiatives
Today digital budgets are getting larger. Brands are actually reserving part of their budgets for digital initiatives. This is the result of them figuring out how digital can maximize their reach, effectiveness, etc. with digital.
54% of the total advertising spend is predicted to be spent on digital initiatives in 2019. The shift is here. This is where digital wins, mainly because it commands our attention.
If you have the correct digital assets, you can tap into a budget & revenue that you couldn’t have with just traditional assets.
The teams that have digital assets will ultimately earn the gold from sponsors.
But Traditional has its place through understanding the Active & Passive traits of your assets.
Rich brings up a great distinction of active vs. passive. The active asset, obviously, is active in grabbing attention. It is engaging, it will command that attention. These are your digital assets that will pull the
Passive is great for visibility, but it is not there to GRAB attention. This is for branding. Don’t put a website address or a phone number. This is for a tag line and brand recognition and burning your brand into the brains of the fans.
I think the key here is understanding how each can help pull in the attention needed to reach the sponsor’s goal.
The active assets maximize the passive. You may have walked by the rink board sign with the brand logo or seen it multiple times in the arena, but maybe it didn’t compute.
But after the active asset commands your attention, you are now much more aware of the passive branding assets. The active supercharges the passive. This is HUGE in thinking through why digital is important, but also why traditional assets are needed.
A prime example comes with our work with the Winterhawks & Toyota. The active Toyota Trivia Live activation grabs fan’s attention on the phone and engages them with Toyota.
As fans engage with a Toyota branded game, they become hypersensitive to the passive branding like the Toyota corner, rink board, even car that sometimes graces the ice.
Without Trivia Live, some fans may overlook passive branding. Without the passive branding the Toyota branding, the active “juice” may be forgotten
Overall, again it matters…but understanding the value of both traditional & digital and their roles makes your packages more valuable.
The key is understanding the roles of both and seeing how they both can fit your sponsor’s goal.
You don’t ask Shaq to shoot 3 pointers. You don’t expect Curry to get you 35 rebounds a game. You utilize their skills together to help you reach the goal of winning the game.
The same is true with your assets. Don’t expect your traditional assets to grab attention, don’t expect your digital assets to build a brand long term.
You need them both to reach your goal of bringing the most amount of value to your partners.
