FRAN ASHCROFT ON MAKING THE MOST OUT OF SPONSORSHIPS IN 2025
Fran Ashcroft, Senior Director of EMEA Communications, Intel spoke to Communicate as to how to optimize sponsorships in the year ahead.
Communications professionals know that today’s audiences value transparency more than ever before. Consumers crave authenticity from the brands they purchase from and engage with, yes, but they are also now taking a critical lens on how corporate activities influence their buying decisions. This means that communications efforts require a more personalized and thoughtful approach to audience engagement—particularly with event sponsorships.
We see sponsorships used to raise awareness of a brand or product every day—whether it's a company logo on a Premier League jersey or the backdrop of a music festival stage. But a common pitfall of these initiatives in today’s world of authenticity is not making the most of sponsorships to actually extend your brand message, failing to create a meaningful connection with your newly tapped audience.
The sports sponsorship market alone reached $100 billion in 2023 and is expected to nearly double by 2030. This presents an even more saturated landscape for brands looking to extend their audience reach and leverage the full potential of a corporate sponsorship. With large-scale events like the Olympics or Cannes Film Festival, numerous sponsor brands are often vying for attention, which adds a complex layer of ensuring your messages don’t get lost in the crowd.
Strategic and thoughtful use of event sponsorships can ensure that your brand not only gains visibility but also creates a lasting impact on the audience—and ultimately, drives sales. As communicators look to build strategies for 2025 event sponsorships, there are several key considerations and insights for driving desired outcomes:
Find Common Ground
Event sponsorships are no doubt a great way to reach audiences outside of a brand’s usual niche. However, finding the intersection where your key messages align with the event's mission is crucial. At Intel, our recent sponsorship of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games enabled us to rethink our communications strategy to take advantage of our direct access to the world’s sports fans. Leaning into our technology solutions that empower athletes, event organizers and spectators, we identified a sweet spot for building a communications campaign that aligns our products and services to the future of sport. This synergy not only highlighted our customer offerings but also enabled us to drive storytelling that resonated with Olympic audiences and added value to the Olympic narrative.
Partner Integration
One of the unsung heroes of corporate sponsorships is tapping into the expertise of your partner. They know what messages work for their audience and which ones fall flat. Cultivating a mutually beneficial relationship with these partners enables you to make the most of the activity by better understanding their messaging and the outcomes they want to drive, as that is likely where the audience's attention will be. When leveraging a sponsorship for comms, your brand is no longer a solo act. Just like any good duet, while your brand may have the melody, your partner brings the harmony, creating a balance that resonates with the audience in a clear way.
Prepare for the Unexpected
Event sponsorships require an outside-the-box exercise in crisis preparedness. Anticipating crisis scenarios for an audience that you may not usually target means starting from the ground up in developing a plan. A tech company may be experienced in handling breaches or tech failures but may not have the expertise in issues that arise relating to severe weather or crowd control. Sponsors must consider their position in public perception of any event-related issues and plan accordingly for the most-likely scenarios. Lean on your partner and third-party experts to uncover any potential risks, then refer to your corporate crisis playbook to inform responses.
Personalize Your Approach
When crafting your event sponsorship strategy, audience personalization is critical. Consumers today expect brands to understand their individual needs and preferences. By tailoring your messages to different segments of your audience, you can create a more engaging and meaningful connection. For example, during the Olympics, Intel personalized our communications to different audience groups ranging from tech enthusiasts to sports fans and Olympic broadcast viewers to ensure that each message resonated on a personal level and reinforced the overall brand narrative. While this audience segmentation requires more planning at the onset, failing to do so may prevent you from driving impact with your newly engaged audience.
Utilize Data and Analytics
Data and analytics play a pivotal role in tracking the success of your sponsorship efforts. Leveraging AI measurement tools can greatly enhance this process by providing real-time insights into engagement, sentiment and reach. AI can help you quickly identify trends and patterns, allowing you to adjust your strategy as needed to ensure your messages are hitting the mark. By analyzing this data, you can refine your approach in real-time and maximize the value of your sponsorship efforts.
The sponsorship landscape will no doubt continue to evolve in 2025 alongside consumer desire for authentic communications. While they will continue to serve as an effective tool for brand communications, the key to success lies in an organization’s ability to adapt, innovate, and collaborate effectively. Viewing sponsorships simply as brand exposure likely means your messages will miss the mark or get lost in the crowd. With businesses across industries facing tighter budgets, comms professionals need to re-think traditional strategies to make the most of every dollar spent and maximize impact. Using the right tools, resources and expertise will not only allow brands to reach new audiences but land their messages in a way that converts those audiences into advocates and customers.
