3 Points of Contact
Here’s one… have you ever wondered what happens if you go rock climbing and take both hands off the wall at the same time (or both feet for that matter)? I’ll save you the hassle; you’re highly likely to fall off.
The ‘3 Points of Contact’ rule is one of the oldest and most important rules to understand in order to stay safe and enjoy climbing. It means that at all times, you have both hands and a foot, or both feet and a hand in contact with the surface. Obvs, but what does this have to do with partnership marketing? Good question. I've recently been working on a portfolio review for a client and the thought occurred to me that the more points of contact we form between a brand and the rights holder, the less chance the sponsorships have of ‘falling’ (or failing).
Think about IP utilisation or assets like MCBE’s and tickets. The more deeply these are used within the brand organisation, the stronger the performance of the sponsorship. How many times have you heard that a sponsorship was pulled because it wasn’t performing rather than it having ran its course? Lots I’d imagine. I’d also imagine in a large number of these cases that the assets weren’t really being used which is why it was pulled as opposed to being used but not performing…
So what might ‘Three Points of Contact’ look like? Well:
IP - There are very few brands in the world who are more meaningful, desirable and immediately identifiable to your audience as the brands of their passions. Contact number one should be taking your rights holders brand through every relevant touch point in your brand architecture. Websites, end-frames, holding messages on call centres, artwork etc. If you’re not using their brand as far and wide as relevant, you’re leaving huge sums of value on the table.
Integration - How many departments within your business know about your sponsorships? Do they know what the portfolio strategy is, how they are being used or measured? Empowering the broader business on what sponsorships your brand has and how they can play a role in their day-to-day is contact number two.
Experience design - Most contracts will have some form of money can’t buy experience (MCBE), player appearance or similar. Quite often there’s little logic on why these assets are in the contract in the first place, but they can provide valuable return nonetheless. Sitting down to plan out how you can use these assets takes less than a day and can be a quick win on getting your sponsorships to work harder for you. That’s contact number three.
So there you have it. There are many other ways to draw contact points between your organisation and the partner, and we don’t need to be confined by the conventional reality of two hands and two feet. My point though is this; don’t hang from the wall by one hand and complain when you fall off and land in a puddle.
If sponsorship isn’t performing, I’d bet it’s likely due to its lack of integration...
