We spent two days at SportsPro listening to how do big brands choose sponsors and have distilled it all down for you in quick time

The following senior marketing decision-makers from some of the world’s biggest sponsors talked candidly about how they choose the rights holders they sponsor.

1. Just Eat: Oliver Hicks, Senior Manager Global Sponsorships
2. Guinness: Jamie Brooks, Sports Partnerships Lead
3. Bank of America: Brad Ross, Managing Director, Global Marketing Partnerships
4. Expedia Group: Liseli Sitali, Director Football & Music Partnerships
5. Mercedes-Benz: Tanja Roth, Head of Branded Entertainment & Brand Partnerships
6. Snapdragon: Garrett Ponder, Head of Brand Partnerships and Activations
7. Unilever: Mario Dughi, Digital, Design & Media Director, Homecare

So, we’ve summarised into easy-to-digest points to help you decide who you should be approaching (i.e. are they going to be relevant in the first place) and the key information to be including in your pitch to generate their interest.

Just Eat
Oliver Hicks, Senior Manager Global Sponsorships

When deciding which sponsorships to do, we consider a couple of questions:

1/ How do we bring an element of our brand story to life? 

For example, we partnered with Notpla to send our food in seaweed-coated takeaway boxes which are fully recyclable and can decompose in four weeks in a home compost. So, how could a sponsorship and its associated rights/activations be used to publicise this?

One way was to introduce this this sustainable packaging at finals of UEFA’s soccer tournaments – where UEFA has control of what happens at the stadia. More than 327,000 packages were distributed to fans attending the finals.

2/ How can we address a business problem (beyond marketing)?

We employ 150,000 bike couriers but the problem is staff retention: the average tenure is just four months.

So, we used a Gamification app that enabled couriers to win tickets to select UEFA matches and potentially do the large flag waving on the sideline at the matches. This helped add two months to the average tenure and saved us about €2 million in recruitment costs.

Guinness
Jamie Brooks, Sports Partnerships Lead

Our main considerations when selecting a sponsor are:

1. Is it right from a gut feel point of view?
2. Does this answer a question the rest of our sponsorship portfolio doesn’t fit?
3. Does it give us deeper and meaningful connections with fans?
4. What’s the business challenge we are trying to solve?

Note, “Values” is what opens the door to sponsorship conversations but “Data” in terms of solving a business problem is what keeps the conversation going.

For example, data showed a growing market of around one million new women drinkers, which is part of the reason we ended up doing the front of shirt deal with English soccer’s Bristol City Women’s team.

Reason Guinness did the deal in full summary.

Bank of America
Brad Ross, Managing Director, Global Marketing Partnerships

In terms of how do big brands choose sponsors, we make decisions based on three strategic pillars which are centred around the question of “how do we show up in terms of being credible?”:

1. The central idea of our business is that we “convene”
2. What role can we play in our communities?
3. To what degree can it galvanise or engage our employee base?

Explanations of pillars in full summary.

Expedia Group
Liseli Sitali, Director Football & Music Partnerships

Our main considerations when selecting a sponsor are:

1. What passion points are shared between our audience and are endemic to the rights holder?
2. The efficacy of the spend
3. The opportunity to differentiate ourselves from our competitors
4. The ability to grow
5. The alignment with the markets that we’re in

Explanations of considerations in full summary.

Mercedes-Benz
Tanja Roth, Head of Branded Entertainment & Brand Partnerships

Our deal with the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) is a great illustration of how we choose the sponsorships we do:

1. Primarily it’s about fit
2. Secondly, the possibility to grow together to achieve something over a longer period of time
3. The third element is more practical…

Explanations of considerations in full summary.

Snapdragon
Garrett Ponder, Head of Brand Partnerships and Activations

Our main considerations when selecting a sponsor are:

1. Flexibility around the relationship to try different things. For example…
2. The ability to tell our brand story as it’s…
3. Return on investment metrics
4. The realisation that even though Snapdragon is B2B, we need to…

Explanations of considerations in full summary.

Unilever
Mario Dughi, Digital, Design & Media Director, Homecare

When choosing a potential partner:

1. It’s the fit: we’re about….
2. Can it unlock growth? E.g. how…
3. Does the rights holder exhibit bravery and creativity, particularly in regard to…?

Explanations of considerations in full summary.