Welcome to the first of our special Brand Strategy: The Blog articles, exclusive to our online readers. This month, we are looking at sponsorship and how to take partnerships beyond simply the logo with a question and answer session with Julian Laister, European marketing communications director for technology company Easynet, which has a market capitalisation of £9bn and is part of the BSkyB business.
Rallying the corporate sector
Brand Strategy: Julian, Easynet has just been named as the official networking and hosting company of the World Rally Championship (WRC) in a three-year sponsorship deal. Why get involved with sports sponsorship?
Julian Laister: Last year, we spent a lot of time looking at all sorts of different properties. We wanted to partner with something international, that had a global reach similar to ourselves. We also needed something that would excite our potential customers, get staff behind it and had the scope to deliver some unique experiences. We also have very clear brand values – pioneering, responsive and passionate – so we needed something that could fit that attitude. The rallies seemed to sum that up; it was a good fit.
Brand Strategy: What kind of sponsorship is this? Is it about your logo being associated with the WRC or does it go further than that?
Julian Laister: I think it gives us the ability to offer relationship-building activities for our clients at a very senior level. Obviously there is a brand-building element to it as well and it can help us build awareness, but the key part is being able to associate ourselves with these really interesting experiences. It gets everyone excited. I think there is a move away from that traditional idea of advertising with partnerships these days – we can use the work we do for the WRC as case studies to show future clients, for example, which is more than just showing off our logo.
Brand Strategy: How long does it take to build up a sponsorship package like this?
Julian Laister: We started looking around last summer for sponsorship properties. But it has really been the last three months that has been spent on the details of the deal.
Brand Strategy: Have you learnt anything new yet from participating in the partnership?
Julian Laister: I’ve discovered that motorsport is a very tightly-knit community. Everyone is very committed and so that makes it very interesting to be part of that circle. It’s also let us see new business development opportunities and how those could come about. Also, I was surprised by the sheer scale of technology used in the sport for tracking cars or monitoring races and that gives us something to think about too.
Brand Strategy: Have you leveraged the sponsorship internally at Easynet? Is it important to do this?
Julian Laister: Of course this sponsorship must excite people internally. We have just opened an office in China and this is a way of tying all our international operations together, even if people are based in different places around the world. We have held internal launches everywhere so people feel that they’re involved in the partnership and we’ll hold competitions for people to win tickets for rallies and so on. We’ve done a lot internally – webcasts, viral teasers, rally simulators. We want to get everyone interested in it.
Brand Strategy: So what are Easynet’s main aims over the next few years? How does the sponsorship fit these goals?
Julian Laister: We want to reach more global customers. China is going to be a massive growth market for us. India will also be very important. If our customers are taking more business to these areas, it is right that we should be there too. We want to expand and the WRC gives us the chance to do that in a way that catches attention.
December 4, 2007 at 8:50 pm |
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