BizDev IDEAS

Marathon Sponsorships

Selling has evolved from an emphasis on what [a product] has, to what it does, to what you will feel, to who you are ... while benefits are still important to people, personal identity has become even more important. (Marty Neumeier)

I would use Marathons events more for product promotions. Marathons are associated with endurance and power. They are pretty much about “who you are” than anything else.

It is not like companies do not do sponsorships, but their efforts often go unnoticed. Here is something that might be done differently about it:

• Link your product to marathon through bright images and stories
• Create high-tech (high-quality) T-shirts with product messaging and marathon logo
• Distribute them for free to the event participants as the second T-shirt in addition to the main/standard marathon t-shirts
• Have a variety of colors and sizes
• Distribute t-shirts in advance so that they were worn during the event

In terms of the costs, it will be around $10 per participant.

It might be used for a car add. For example, an ad of the most efficient sports sedan with a V6 engine :-)

There are a lot of companies that use various sports events. Actually this is the reason why professional sport exists. What I am trying to say is that the image of certain brands might be more tightly linked to the strong emotional impulse of certain sports like marathon. Another point is that there might be relatively inexpensive ways to do it.

posted by Dmitri @ 10:32 PM