Corporate Partnership vs Proud Supporter Status
I’ve been having many conversations this week about sponsorship vs other types of exposure and how they each have a different yet powerful role in creating abundance for the sector.
In sponsorship, For-Purpose organisations can unwittingly over-extend themselves to offer a corporate partner the world, without truly understanding the value of their role in the relationship.
Let me be clear, to the right sponsor, your organisation is a valuable marketing partner that can provide a direct route to their target market. That’s why it is essential that you are correctly evaluating your most important asset – your organisation.
There are some situations, however, when securing sponsorship might be proving harder than you hoped and so looking into how you can align with brands differently might be more beneficial in the long term.
New, small or little-known organisations or events may benefit from taking their time to build relationships with brands especially if they are seeking to partner with a well-known national or global company. This type of partnership may not generate great monetary returns to begin with, but it can be used to leverage brand equity, which is invaluable.
What is ‘brand equity’?
It’s a phrase used in the marketing industry which describes the value of having a well-known brand name (based on the idea that the owner of a well-known brand name can generate more money from their products than from products with a less well-known name.) The idea is that consumers believe that a product with a well-known name is better than products with less well-known names. Therefore brand equity refers to the value of a brand. Make sense?
The Australian College of Midwives (ACM) – a not-so-well-known, but truly worthwhile peak professional body for Australian midwives – has partnered with global wellness brand ‘Swisse’. Running for several years now, both Swisse and the ACM have found this partnership to be mutually beneficial – the ACM has allowed Swisse to use the ACM logo on Swisse’s pregnancy supplement.
In turn, by allowing Swisse to use their logo, the ACM has been given exposure to a much larger audience through supermarkets and chemists than they would have ever been able to reach alone. Swisse’s powerful brand, marketing and distribution channels have significantly boosted the ACM’s brand equity – conversely, the ACM has added invaluable credibility to Swisse’s pregnancy supplement.
Could your organisation use this kind of exposure?
