Exclusivity key to USD 1 billion sponsorship deals

With more events than ever before, competition to draw and retain sponsors is fierce and event professionals throughout the Middle East are increasingly looking towards sponsorship to offset escalating costs and to keep their events growing year-on-year.

To address this and other critical industry issues, IIR's Strategic Event Management - Festivale 2007, which runs in parallel with the PALME and Event 360 exhibition, at the Dubai International Exhibition Centre (DIEC) will explore the essential elements of how to attract sponsorship for major events and more importantly how to deliver the promise and keep them coming back.

Thomas Fricke, who was Head of Logistics for the FIFA Football World Cup 2006, will address delegates about winning and organising sponsorship. Using the FIFA World Cup 2006 as a case study, Frickle will impart his experience of one of the biggest events on the global sporting calendar.

The 2006 World Cup which was held last summer in Germany was the largest ever, with a TV audience of 33 billion, watching 64 matches. The final itself drew an audience of 1.5 billion armchair fans. All 64 games were sold out and the 12 public viewing areas in Germany were also visited by 18 million fans.

In total, the football extravaganza attracted 15 global and 6 national partners. The 15 global sponsors paid EUROS 40 million each with the national partners paying EUROS 13 million each. Combined revenues totaled EUROS 678 million. These included household names such as Adidas, Coca Cola, Emirates, Fuji, Gillette, MasterCard, McDonalds, Philips, Toshiba and Yahoo.

'Having paid such huge amounts naturally the sponsors wanted a good return. Of course they were aware of the global broadcasting reach, but most importantly they expected exclusivity. We made the strategic decision to only allow one company in each industry sector and to vigorously protect their exclusivity rights,' said Fricke.

Delivering the promise, sponsors were given exclusive rights to use the world cup logo along with the title 'official sponsor'. Some key terms were also reserved for the sponsors and protected by copyright, such as 'World Cup 2006'. The stadiums were exclusively reserved for sponsors' advertising banners and hoardings, which gave them uninterrupted global brand exposure.

In each stadium commercial displays were set up, affording sponsors the opportunity to advertise their brands exclusively to the fans at the ground. This was made all the sweeter by the organiser's decision to declare each stadium a 'clean area', allowing only sponsored brands.

In a sympathetic move, some stadiums were temporarily renamed, the Hamburg stadium was called the AOL-Arena, but in deference to Yahoo, it was renamed the FIFA World Cup Stadium Hamburg during the tournament. Other exclusive opportunities included sponsored products and services as value-in-kind (VIK). Adidas provided the clothing to the volunteers and Philips installed the TV sets in all media centres.

A rights protection program (RPP) was established to ensure exclusivity to the sponsors and to try and avoid ambush marketing activities. Illegal ambush marketing was addressed by a team of specialist lawyers. Legal ambush marketing, a tactic whereby companies leverage the event's marketing efforts to suit their own purposes, was used effectively by German carrier Lufthansa. Although Emirates were the official airline sponsor, Lufthansa issued a flight number LH 2006 and painted a football on the nose of some of their planes.

'Organising committees need to facilitate exclusivity, protect the rights of the sponsors and most important of all deliver the promise. By appointing a legal team we stamped out much of the illegal marketing which if not addressed, undermines the status of the sponsorship,' added Fricke.

Taking place in the Sheikh Rashid Hall, DIEC on 20-24 May, Festivale is aimed at event organisers and destination management professionals and is the only dedicated conference of its kind in the region. It has been specifically designed to engage industry professionals involved in planning, organising or promoting events. With 30 presentations over three days, including three dedicated post conference workshops, Festivale features an impressive speaker line-up of local, regional and international experts.